Rep. Lofgren Issued Statement on Debt Limit Votes

July 29, 2011

Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Zoe Lofgren issued the following statement in response to her vote on the “Boehner” debt ceiling plan.

Tonight, I voted against the so called Boehner plan to raise the debt ceiling. I voted no because this plan is nothing more than an attempt to hold our economy hostage for partisan again and would guarantee This plan does nothing to solve the true problems our country faces and pushes the entire burden of balancing our budget entirely on working families, senior citizens, and young Americans.

It’s important to remember how we got here, when President Clinton left office, our nation was on the path to a $5.6 trillion surplus. The nation’s debt exploded after President Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress demanded the wealthiest Americans get a $2.8 trillion tax cut and then launched two foreign wars costing nearly $1.3 trillion, both of which were passed into law without any offsets or revenue measures to cover the costs.

The debt ceiling is about paying for what America has already spent. And, until this current crisis, it was always raised in an unencumbered fashion. President’s Reagan and Clinton routinely raised the limit. This is a manufactured crisis designed to further an extreme ideological agenda.

I support a balanced budget and will support both revenue increases and spending reductions. I can’t support targeting working families to bear the most of the burden. I find it reprehensible that the Republican Party is willing to play chicken with our nation’s economy.