LAX Leader

WASHINGTON, DC – On May 31, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37) released the following statement on the House Debt Limit vote:

“From day one, Democrats have been lock-step in urging House Republicans to work with us and pass a clean debt limit bill. Instead, Speaker McCarthy, at the whim of hard-right extremists, chose to hold our economy and the livelihoods of the American people hostage. For decades, and under both Republican and Democratic administrations, Congress has done the right thing and raised the debt limit to avoid a global economic meltdown.

 

“Breaking precedent, Republicans have shown how willing they are to gamble with the lives of everyday American people to fulfill their own political agendas. Unfortunately, they were willing to risk our economic security to do it.

 

“The President was dealt a bad hand. He was able to successfully beat back the worst parts of House Republicans’ Default on America Act through good-faith negotiations. I applaud his ability to keep his eyes on the prize. Republicans came to the table desperate to impose punitive work requirements on our most vulnerable communities; attack Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; and undo the progress our country has made with historic legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. They laid bare their radical agenda from the onset and cannibalized our debt limit process to push through policies that hurt working people.

 

“As Vice Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, I am outraged by provisions that will permanently roll back key environmental safeguards and public health protections, many of which are an extension of House Republicans’ harmful H.R. 1 bill. California’s 37th District represents the largest urban oil field in the country, and I have seen first-hand how environmental negligence has diminished the quality of life for families in Los Angeles. This bill limits environmental review under NEPA and opens our environment to polluters in a way that harms people across our country, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown people. This legislation also does nothing meaningful on transmission reform and opens the door to the disastrous Mountain Valley Pipeline - a proven threat to water quality.

 

“Additionally, this bill makes significant changes to SNAP and TANF. I have spent parts of my public service career defending these programs for Californians because they help keep people alive. The unnecessary changes in this bill will harm older people who depend on these vital benefits. Lastly, Republicans fought successfully to rescind funding from the IRS, preventing the agency from catching corporate tax cheats and making them pay their fair share. This is the antithesis of fiscal responsibility.

 

“The icing on the cake: The Speaker does not even have enough votes from his own party to pass what will come before us.

“Tonight, I will vote ‘no,’ and I join my fellow Progressive Members in calling to get rid of the debt ceiling to prevent extremists from manufacturing another crisis and taking our economy hostage again.”

Original source can be found here.