The House of Representatives will have a vote at 6:30 pm tonight on raising the debt ceiling. The bill that Congress is considering is a “clean” bill, meaning that the bill has no other items attached to it and will just simply raise the ceiling.
It is widely expected to fail. House Republicans are opposed to the measure, and even House Dem leader Steny Hoyer is telling his members to vote no.
Keep in mind, the measure that the House is voting on tonight is the measure that Obama said was best… No Democrats seem to be supporting him on this.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) had this to say about tonight’s vote:
As you may know, the House will begin our legislative week tonight with a vote on raising the federal debt limit. The measure before us is the one that President Obama and Secretary Geithner have described as the only “responsible” course. It increases the debt limit without cutting spending or taking any other steps towards fiscal responsibility.
I will vote “no”.
Increasing the debt limit without serious constraints on spending is as irresponsible as allowing a default, if not more so. The big government model of tax, spend, and pass the bill on to our kids is what got us into this mess. We cannot continue down that road.
I will only consider a debt limit increase if it is preceded by tough measures to forever end the model of tax and spend government. That means a spending cap of at most 20% of GDP, cuts in real spending (not projected growth of spending) equal to or greater than the amount of any increase, and a balanced budget amendment discharged by Congress and in the state legislatures before the debt limit is increased.
I am not one of those who can pretend imposing these changes won’t carry some pain. They will. But I believe firmly that the generations who ran up this debt must be the ones to pay it off. To pass it to our children, to cap their futures and trade them away to China in exchange for low interest treasury bonds, is to commit economic child abuse- and I will not be any part of that.
And below is Rep. Blackburn discussing the debt ceiling issue back in March:
