AMERICAN INDEPENDENT: 258 congressional Republicans vote for catastrophic debt default

By Josh Israel | December 15, 2021

On Tuesday, Democrats in Congress voted to raise the debt limit — staving off what would have been a catastrophic and unprecedented default on the U.S. government's outstanding debts — while 49 Republican senators and 209 Republican House members voted against the measure.

The measure, as passed, will raise the statutory cap on how much money the Treasury Department can borrow by $2.5 trillion. All 50 Senate Democrats voted for the increase on Tuesday afternoon, while every Republican present voted against it. In the House, which voted early Wednesday morning, only retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) joined with 220 Democrats to pass the proposal, 221-209.

Democrats in Congress were able to pass the measure without a Republican filibuster, thanks to a one-time-only agreement made last week.

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The vote "should be simple," Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, told his colleagues on Tuesday.

"The United States must be a nation that pays its bills. Period," Beyer added. "But instead of taking timely action, we wasted valuable time — time that should be focused on addressing the real problems facing our nation — and sowed uncertainty in the markets, just as our economy, fragile in the wake of the pandemic, is recovering."

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