Thursday
Nov192009
Freshman House GOP'ers Urge Pelosi For Separate Vote On Debt Ceiling
Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 5:14PM
Travis Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service
On Thursday Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to remove raising of the national debt ceiling language from the Defense spending bill. Lance said he'd like the Speaker to allow for a separate vote on the issue.
Currently, the national debt ceiling stands at $12.104 trillion. On Tuesday U.S. Treasury officials confirmed that the U.S. debt has hit it’s highest level since World War II at $12 trillion.
“The recent news that our nation’s debt has for the first time topped the $12 trillion mark should be of grave concern to every American...I stand here today with my colleagues to call on Speaker Pelosi to allow on the floor of the House of Representatives such a debate and a clean up-or-down vote on raising the debt ceiling,” said Lance.
Lance addressed a letter he sent on November 6 2009 to the Speaker asking for a stand-alone vote on raising the nation’s debt ceiling. 27 other House Republicans have joined with Lance in his efforts, including Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas).
“I will vote against a needed increase in the limit the federal government can borrow unless Congress creates a commission to come up with proposals to bring the deficit and debt under control,” said Lance.
The New Jersey Republican said that he is waiting to hear back from Pelosi.
On Thursday Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to remove raising of the national debt ceiling language from the Defense spending bill. Lance said he'd like the Speaker to allow for a separate vote on the issue.
Currently, the national debt ceiling stands at $12.104 trillion. On Tuesday U.S. Treasury officials confirmed that the U.S. debt has hit it’s highest level since World War II at $12 trillion.
“The recent news that our nation’s debt has for the first time topped the $12 trillion mark should be of grave concern to every American...I stand here today with my colleagues to call on Speaker Pelosi to allow on the floor of the House of Representatives such a debate and a clean up-or-down vote on raising the debt ceiling,” said Lance.
Lance addressed a letter he sent on November 6 2009 to the Speaker asking for a stand-alone vote on raising the nation’s debt ceiling. 27 other House Republicans have joined with Lance in his efforts, including Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas).
“I will vote against a needed increase in the limit the federal government can borrow unless Congress creates a commission to come up with proposals to bring the deficit and debt under control,” said Lance.
The New Jersey Republican said that he is waiting to hear back from Pelosi.
House GOP Outraged Over Debt Ceiling Attachment To Defense Bill
Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.), along with other House GOP leaders, reacted Friday to plans by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to tack a Pentagon appropriations bill with legislation that would increase the nation's debt ceiling amount by $1.8 trillion by unveiling the" CAP the DEBT Act."
The bill would repeal the Gephart Rule, which allows debt ceiling increases to be included in joint budget resolutions without a direct vote. Under the Scalise legislation, changes to the national debt ceiling amount would have to pass both Congressional houses with two-thirds majority vote.
Congressman Scalise said that the CAP the DEBT Act is being filed because "the liberals that are running this Congress have been on a wild spending spree for the last three years, since Speaker Pelosi has had the gavel."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that the ceiling increase would be tacked to a spending bill headed to the House floor next week and that legislation is largely expected to be the pending $636.4 billion Pentagon appropriations bill that would partially fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to Pelosi's announcement, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that increasing the ceiling is necessary in order to pay the country's mounting bills.
However, Scalise was not happy with the proposed method for increasing the national ceiling, saying “the ultimate sign of hypocrisy is [that] this Democrat liberal group running Congress is going to now again hide behind our troops and throw this increase of the national debt ceiling on a defense bill."