In the News

LITTLE ROCK — Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, was the only member of Arkansas’ U.S. House delegation to vote for a bipartisan budget deal that cleared the House in a 266-167 vote Wednesday.

Seventy-nine Republicans joined with 187 Democrats to approve the spending bill.

The measure goes next to the Senate, which is expected to act on it quickly.The measure would raise the $18.1 trillion debt limit by $1.5 trillion until March 15, 2017. The Treasury Department has warned that staying within the current limit would mean being unable to pay members of the military and federal employees, pensioners and contractors as soon as Tuesday.

The bill also would raise sequester spending caps by $50 billion in fiscal 2016 and $30 billion in 2017 and would make changes to the Social Security disability program.

“This budget agreement is far from ideal, but providing for our men and women in uniform and for the full faith and credit of the United States is not an option, it is a responsibility,” Womack said in a statement after the vote. “And as an appropriator, I appreciate the fact that it gives our committee a chance to actually do its work.”

Reps. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, French Hill, R-Little Rock, and Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, voted against the measure.

Westerman said in a statement the compromise “is not a good deal for the American people.”

“The budget deal that passed the house today raises our debt limit and increases our spending caps while providing no substantial reforms in entitlements and mandatory spending,” he said. “If my family or business were to reach our debt limit, we would be looking at why we reached the limit and our first response would be to see where we could cut spending to get below our limit, not increase the limit. Simply raising the limit without addressing the cause is not a responsible way to manage.”

Hill said, “Although I am grateful that our national security funding is better assured — and for two full years — and I am delighted with structural reforms to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program—the first significant reforms to Social Security since 1983 — I could not support the Bipartisan Budget Act, which raises the sequester caps and allows for an estimated $1.5 trillion increase in our national debt.”

Hill said the deal would “increase the financial burden on future generations of Americans. These sorts of ‘budget deals’ make a mockery of the thousands of hours devoted to regular appropriations under an agreed-upon budget resolution. Congress is in this position now because Democrats in the Senate have stymied regular appropriations in a timely way and (because of) the president’s insistence on more deficit spending for his domestic agenda.”

Crawford had said in a statement Tuesday he opposed the deal.

“Not only does this agreement raise budget-busting spending levels without any consent from the vast majority of House members, but this deal also raids policies like crop insurance, which was previously debated in committee and passed into law,” he said then. “These secret, last-minute negotiations subvert the legislative process and go against the priorities of the Americans we represent, and I will not support the agreement.”