GOP
Senators Join McConnell, Democrats to Raise National Debt by Nearly $200
Billion
Several
Republican senators—including many who just won re-election and won’t face
voters for six more years—voted for more big government and nearly $150 billion
to be added to the national debt on Tuesday night. The vote came on the
so-called “Doc Fix” which provides taxpayer cash to Medicare provider doctors.
The
votes—which came over two separate measures, one offered by Sen. Mike Lee
(R-UT) and the other by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)—found several Republican
senators joining Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and all the Senate Democrats
to bust through budget spending caps set by the Budget Control Act that
McConnell once touted as an achievement worthy of sticking to.
Lee’s
amendment would have required spending cuts to offset the increase of $141
billion to the national debt over the next decade. It only required a simple
Senate majority—which Republicans clearly have with 54 members—to succeed, but
failed with 58 members voting against it. Several Republicans, including
McConnell and many others who just won re-election and won’t face voters again
for six years, voted against Lee’s amendment.
The
Republicans who joined McConnell and all the Democrats to vote for increasing
the national debt with the “doc fix” include: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN),
Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Cornyn
(R-TX), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Dean Heller (R-NV), Orrin Hatch (R-UT),
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), David Perdue (R-GA), and Thom Tillis (R-NC).
Of
the senators on that list, Alexander, Cassidy, Cochran, Collins, Cornyn,
Capito, Perdue, Graham, Tillis, and McConnell each won re-election in 2014 and
won’t face voters again until 2020 should they decide to run for re-election
again. Cochran, interestingly enough, won his primary thanks to Democrats who
crossed over to vote for him against Republican Chris McDaniel in a runoff
where McDaniel got—by even team Cochran’s admissions—60 percent of the GOP
vote. Hatch won’t face voters ever again, as he has announced his current
term in the U.S. Senate will be his last.
The
second measure, a budget point of order from Sessions, would have blocked the
bill from being passed out of the U.S. Senate without reforms requiring it
follow budget law that requires its spending increases be offset with cuts. The
measure from Sessions required 60 votes from the political establishment to
kill it, and McConnell, along with all the Democrats, delivered 71 votes to
kill the Sessions measure.
GOP
Senators who voted this way to increase the national debt without paying for it
with offsetting spending cuts, alongside the all the Democrats, include: Sens.
McConnell, Alexander, Cassidy, Cochran, Cornyn, Collins, Capito, Graham,
Tillis, Hatch, Heller, Roger Wicker (R-MS), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Lisa Murkowski
(R-AK), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jerry Moran (R-KS), John McCain (R-AZ), Johnny
Isakson (R-GA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Bob Corker (R-TN), Richard
Burr (R-NC), John Boozman (R-AR), and Roy Blunt (R-MO).
Of
that list, Roberts just won re-election after a hard-fought primary from
conservative Milton Wolf and general election battle against a liberal
independent—after which he promised he’d fight for conservatism when he was
sent back to Washington, since he was clearly rocked by the voters. Rounds just
won his first election to the U.S. Senate, and McCain will likely face a
primary challenge from either Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ), state Sen. Kelli Ward
(R-AZ), or both in 2016. Murkowski may face a primary challenge in Alaska this
cycle, too, after she lost her primary last time to Republican Joe Miller—but
then won the election in the general by launching an improbable but successful
write-in effort.
“Sen.
Sessions made a motion that would have simply upheld the budget spending limits
agreed-to in law,” a Sessions aide told Breitbart News. “It takes 60 votes in
the Senate to violate those spending limits and bust the budget. 71 Senators
voted to waive those budget rules and bypass the spending limitations from the
2011 debt deal. By striking those limits, the Senate has voted to add $200
billion in new debt over ten years and $500 billion new debt over twenty.”
After
these efforts failed, when the bill came up for final passage, only eight
Republicans stood against the rest of their conference and all the Democrats by
voting against the national debt increase on the floor. Those were: Sens.
Sessions, Lee, Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Tim
Scott (R-SC), Ben Sasse (R-NE), and Perdue (R-GA).
On
the Senate floor on Monday night, Sessions berated his colleagues for even
considering doing what they did just one night later.
“This
is why the American people don’t trust Congress,” Session said in a lengthy
floor speech against the debt-increasing bill. “Some of our members they get
their feelings hurt when they go home and some Tea Party person or somebody
else accuses them of wasting money and not managing the government well, and
they get offended by it. But I’ve got to tell you, the Tea Party is more right
than wrong. This is another example of reckless, irresponsible spending.”
Sasse
hammered the final deal, too, in a statement released after he voted against
it.
“Everyone
should be relieved that Washington’s SGR is no longer holding Nebraska doctors
hostage—an important goal that all my colleagues share—but I’m disappointed
that Congress replaced one budget gimmick with another,” Sasse said. “The math
is clear: Medicare is racing toward bankruptcy. Washington cannot avoid tough
decisions forever and Nebraskans deserve a serious conversation about reforming
our broken entitlement programs and protecting the next generation from a
European-style decline.”
Cruz
and Rubio opposed the national debt increase, but their fellow 2016
presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—who campaigns frequently against
increasing the national debt—voted for the “doc fix” on final passage.
“There
is rapidly growing concern among the Republican base that Republican
politicians have already abandoned fiscal conservatism with their new
congressional majority and bizarre definition of how to ‘lead,’” a GOP
congressional aide told Breitbart News on Tuesday night. “Leaders may want to
sweep our national-security-threatening debt under the rug through 2016, but
patriotic voters have not forgotten it, I guarantee you.”
Comment
In the final Bill, Georgia Senator David Perdue and 7
other Senators voted against this Bill because it did not include budget cuts
to pay for the “doctor fix”. We
encourage Senator Perdue to continue to lead the battle against federal
government overspending.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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