http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/25/sen_mcconnell_obama_rejected_bipartisan_deal.html Senator Mitch McConnell setting some facts straight on the Senate floor today: "to demand the largest single debt limit increase in history, half a trillion more than the previous biggest increase Democrats approved two years ago when they controlled both Congress and the White House." âLook: Congress has raised the federal debt limit 63 times since 1972. The average length of an increase over that period is just over seven months. But now the President says it has to be nearly two years. Why? So he can continue to spend as he pleases. âThis weekend, we offered the President a bipartisan proposal to avoid default so we could have the time we need to put together a serious plan for getting our house in order, and he rejected it out of hand. Not for economic reasons. But, as he put it, `to extend this debt ceiling through the next election.â