Thom Tillis’ Justification for Voting in Favor of the Debt Ceiling Deal

I sent Thom Tillis an e-mail message asking him to oppose the debt ceiling bill. He came back with a form response justifying his vote in favor of the bill. (Ted Budd, to his credit, voted against it.)

Here are excerpts from Tillis’ letter:

Without Congressional action to raise or suspend the debt limit, the latest projections indicated the U.S. government faced an imminent default…

(T)he Fiscal Responsibility Act… contains numerous conservative wins, including the biggest spending cut ever at $1.5 trillion, clawing back unspent COVID money, moving Americans from welfare to the workforce, and blocking the Biden Administration’s proposed $5 trillion in tax hikes.

While the Fiscal Responsibility Act is far from perfect and does not cut spending as much as I would like, it is still a good deal that finally puts an end to the Biden Administration’s reckless tax and spending spree. This is a far better outcome than other alternatives: a clean debt limit increase without any spending cuts or defaulting for the first time in our nation’s history, a catastrophe that would have decimated our economy, caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, and made our debt crisis far worse.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act sets the stage for the House majority to take the lead in securing more cuts through the FY2024 appropriations process, with 1% across-the-board cuts triggering if Congress fails to pass appropriations bills. I will also continue to use my position in the U.S. Senate as a bulwark against the out-of-control spending pushed by the Biden Administration, which has contributed to our ongoing fiscal predicament. 

The letter above is well-written. The problem is that it obfuscates and contains hardly any truth.