Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted on legislation [H.R. 1954] that would increase the Debt Ceiling by $2.4 trillion without making any cuts to current spending. Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT) along with 317 other members of Congress voted against the measure, which failed by an overwhelming majority.
The previous Debt Ceiling, set at approximately $14.3 trillion, was reached on May 16th. In short, this means the government is spending more than it is bringing, has borrowed as much as legally possible and can no longer issue more debt to fund expenditures.
“It is imperative that any consideration to increase the debt limit be accompanied by drastic spending cuts and changes to the broken policies that have lead to the current deficit. I will support nothing less and am staunchly opposed to any effort that would simply increase the debt limit without making changes to current spending habits. We must make the changes necessary to get our fiscal house back in order. Raising the debt limit alone does not do that,” said Congressman Bishop.