Senators vote no on debt measure

by Maya Shimizu Harris

Casper Star-Tribune

via Wyoming News Exchange

CASPER — Wyoming’s Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso joined Rep. Harriet Hageman to vote against Congress’ new debt ceiling agreement, criticizing the legislation as a missed opportunity to cut federal spending. 

The deal nevertheless easily cleared the U.S. Senate late Thursday night just days before the nation risked defaulting on its debt. 

The bill, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act, is now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk ahead of a Monday deadline to enact the legislation before the nation defaults on its debt. Biden has said he plans to sign the bill into law. 

The agreement will suspend the debt limit until Jan. 2, 2025, and allow the federal government to make payments that it’s already committed to. It will also cut spending by roughly $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. 

But overall, the deal isn’t expected to significantly cut down the nation’s deficit. 

The bill’s passage comes after tense negotiations between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Biden following the House’s passage of a GOP debt ceiling bill in April that would have put in place more aggressive spending cuts. 

Wyoming’s congressional delegation approved of the earlier GOP debt ceiling bill but uniformly criticized the new agreement as a missed opportunity for reigning in the nation’s spending. 

“The people of Wyoming demand better from those who control our nation’s purse strings and the Fiscal Responsibility Act does not go far enough to make meaningful spending reforms that will set us on a fiscally sustainable path,” Lummis said in a statement Thursday night.

She criticized what she called “massive spending bills” that have been enacted during her time in the Senate and which she said have “greatly added” to the nation’s debt — including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 

Lummis noted that she voted against both. 

“Families in Wyoming make tough spending decisions every single day to ensure they are living within their means, and I will not stop working until the federal government does the same,” Lummis said. 

Barrasso described the debt ceiling deal in a statement Thursday night as “an important first step away from the Democrats’ reckless spending agenda,” commending its cuts for Internal Revenue Service agents, conservation of COVID-19 funds and work requirements for welfare programs. 

But he added that he believes the legislation doesn’t “do enough to match the seriousness of the moment...” 

“This is a missed opportunity to get government growth under control and put our nation on a sustainable fiscal path,” he said. “Much more needs to be done if we’re serious about tackling the debt and beating back inflation.” 

Support was mixed for the new agreement, with both Republicans and Democrats opposing the bill, though it still passed by a wide margin and with bipartisan backing in both the House and the Senate. (Hageman’s vote against the bill came on Wednesday, when the House passed the measure.) 

Republicans criticized the legislation for failing to secure more aggressive spending cuts, while Democrats objected to the cuts and new work requirements for some people who take part in welfare programs. 

Lummis proposed two amendments to the bill — one to establish a bipartisan commission tasked with creating a plan to address national debt and balance the budget over the long term and another to suspend the debt ceiling until Nov. 1 of this year rather than until January 2025. 

But her amendments, as well as all the other amendments brought in the Senate, were ultimately rejected. 

Raising the debt ceiling allows the federal government to make payments that it has already committed to and is separate from the 12 budget bills that Congress has to pass every year, which give the federal government authority to make new expenditures. 

Lawmakers have never failed to raise the debt limit before, given the dire consequences of not doing so before the nation is forced to default on its debt. 

But they sometimes lean on the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool to push for spending cuts, and debates over the debt ceiling and spending cuts have become more heated in recent years.