Hageman joins Republicans, Democrats to vote against new debt ceiling deal
Wyoming’s Rep. Harriet Hageman joined Republicans and Democrats in voting against the new debt ceiling agreement, which cleared the U.S. House by a wide margin Wednesday night.
The bill, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act, now goes to the Senate ahead of a Monday deadline to move the legislation before the nation defaults on its debt — a situation that would spell economic catastrophe for the U.S. and the world.
As passed by the House, the bill will suspend the debt limit until Jan. 2, 2025, allowing the U.S. 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 the deal isn’t expected to significantly tamp down on the U.S. deficit — a point that led Hageman to vote against the legislation.
Wyoming’s lone House representative praised in a Wednesday statement some components of the new agreement, including that it would conserve unused COVID-19 funds, add rules to avoid omnibus bills and restart student loan payments.
But she said overall that the agreement fell short of her hopes, objecting to its use of the federal government’s current spending levels as a baseline for future spending. She also criticized the bill for giving “more deference to agency bureaucrats to make new rules, with the cost of those rules placed on the backs of private businesses and individuals.”
Hageman noted that during town hall meetings she has hosted and community events she has attended across Wyoming, spending and federal government overreach “are the biggest issues mentioned.” She said she’s received “hundreds of calls and emails” from constituents this week on the new debt ceiling agreement, with 95% of them urging her to vote against the bill.
“The legislation fails to significantly reduce our national debt and does not do enough to rein in the administrative state,” Hageman said in her statement. “We have very few opportunities and little time to gain control of the unsustainable debt facing our nation — it is imperative that raising the debt ceiling be coupled with more aggressive spending cuts and regulatory reform.”
Wednesday’s vote on the debt ceiling bill follows tense negotiations between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and President Joe Biden that came after the House’s passage of a GOP debt ceiling bill in April. That bill would have put in place more aggressive spending cuts than the one the House approved Wednesday.
Hageman touted the earlier GOP debt ceiling bill as a “major step towards restoring fiscal sanity...” Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso were among 43 Republicans who signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowing to oppose a debt ceiling increase without reigning in the nation’s budget, and Barrasso pointed to the GOP bill as a “serious solution” to slowing federal spending.
It’s not clear how Lummis and Barrasso will vote on the bill, which the Senate was poised to consider Wednesday night, after the Star-Tribune’s press deadline. Their spokespeople didn’t clarify in email correspondences with the Star-Tribune.
Barrasso, however, described the new agreement at a Tuesday press conference as “a first step on the road to common sense, conservative governing.”
“So many of us wished it could have gone a lot further, specifically with cutting spending,” he said. “When there’s a bipartisan bill like this, there’s missed opportunities in terms of getting government growth under control and putting us on a sustainable path. This is a first step. We need many more steps if we’re going to be able to tackle the debt and beat back inflation.”
According to a spokesperson, Lummis has submitted two amendments to the Fiscal Responsibility Act. One would establish a bipartisan commission to create a plan to address national debt and balance the budget over the long term. The other would suspend the debt ceiling until Nov. 1 of this year rather than until January 2025. This amendment is meant to give Congress a “short runway” to see if it can fund the government on time and provide more time to negotiate further spending cuts while making sure that the nation can pay its debts, Lummis’ spokesperson said in an email.
Support was more mixed in the House for the new agreement, with both Republicans and Democrats opposing the bill, though it still passed by a wide margin and with bipartisan backing. Republicans criticized the legislation for failing to secure more aggressive spending cuts. Democrats, on the other hand, objected to the cuts and new work requirements for some people who receive federal assistance like food stamps.
Raising the debt ceiling allows the federal government to make payments that it has already committed to. It’s different from the 12 budget bills that Congress has to pass every year, which give the federal government authority to make new expenditures.
Increasing the debt limit is a matter Congress takes up as needed. In the past, lawmakers have always approved an increase so that the federal government can continue borrowing money and make payments.
Lawmakers sometimes lean on the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool to push for spending cuts. But given the dire consequences of failing to pass a debt ceiling increase in time, these negotiations are more political gamesmanship than anything else. That being said, debate over the debt ceiling and spending cuts has become more heated in recent years.
This story has been updated.