U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew
U.S. Congressman Jeff Van Drew Wednesday voted no on the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which he said did not live up to conservative expectations set with the passage of the Limit, Save, Grow Act.
"I truly appreciate the hard work and effort that Republican leadership put into trying to foster a deal between the White House and Republicans. However, our country's spending is barreling us towards economic disaster, and this final agreement did not include enough spending cuts, something which the majority of Americans wanted in a debt ceiling lift, and did not include conservative priorities that the people elected us to deliver," Van Drew said in a release.
The bill passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 314-117. It now heads to the U.S. Senate for a vote. Van Drew was one of 71 Republicans to vote against the bipartisan legislation. Democrats voted 165-46 to pass it, with Republicans voting 149-71 to pass it.
Van Drew said the bill:
- Does not include a limit attached to the debt ceiling raise, which has opened us up to increasing our debt by $4 trillion over the next two years.
- Only rescinds a small portion of unspent COVID funds.
- Only claws back $1.2 billion of the $80 billion allocated to the IRS to hire 87,000 enforcement agents.
- Does not include the REINS Act, which would have given Congress the authority to vote on any agency ruling that would exceed $100 million in taxpayer dollars.
- Made zero rescissions to the disastrous Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to 'green' energy industries like offshore wind.
- Expands the number of recipients on government welfare programs.
"At the end of the day, the
Limit, Save, Grow Act
included priorities that would have gotten our country back on a good economic path. The so-called
Fiscal Responsibility Act was too much of a concession to Joe Biden's wishes. I could not have, in good conscience, voted for this bill after hearing the concerns from thousands of my constituents who elected me to serve their best interests in Congress."
