Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Wednesday vowed to vote against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden‘s debt-ceiling deal.
What Happened: As the deal to raise the national borrowing limit advanced to the Senate, after receiving overwhelming support at the House, Sanders said he would be voting "no."
"I will be voting no on the debt limit deal because you do not do deficit reduction on the backs of Americans who are already struggling," Sanders wrote on Twitter sharing a video of him voicing his strong opposition against the debt deal.
“The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling is that it could have been much worse,” he said in a separate statement.
“Deficit reduction cannot just be about cutting programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly, and the poor depend upon. It must be about demanding that the billionaire class and profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes, reining in out-of-control military spending, reducing the price of prescription drugs, and ending billions of dollars in corporate welfare that goes to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests.”
Why It Matters: The debt ceiling deal successfully cleared the House on Wednesday evening, garnering support from 314 representatives, while 117 voted against it. The bill has now advanced to the Senate for further consideration.
Sanders and many other Democrats in recent days have openly questioned the White House's approach to a debt deal. They have argued that President Biden was giving away too much in the deal.
They have been pushing Biden to act unilaterally to use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling, a step that the incumbent president has refused because it would likely be litigated in court.
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