More recently, the five-termer said, "I began to think, 'Wait a minute, that's not a responsible thing to do.' I got older and I got wiser and began to be a little bit more responsible," Harkin said. Still, he mostly opposed raising the limit during Bush's presidency. This year he'll back the move, Harkin said, though "to this day, it pains me to vote to increase the debt limit."
'Easy' To Demagogue
"It's an easy issue to demagogue," said Representative Steve LaTourette, an Ohio Republican. "You can hear the 30- second ad now -- 'Steve wants us to borrow a trillion more dollars' -- and so if you don't have to cast that vote, then why do it?"
LaTourette said he'll back a debt-limit increase if Boehner's conditions are met, yet there are many Republicans, particularly freshmen, who won't.
"We have people that ran on, and since they got here have said, it doesn't matter how great a package we put together, they're not voting for it, so this vote count could be a little trickier" than those in the past, LaTourette said.