Senators from both parties on Thursday night defended their decision to support the debt ceiling deal, despite their concerns about the legislation.
Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat, noted that while he had some concerns about the deal, he planned to vote for it anyway. He said his “biggest concern” is that there is no default.
“We gotta pay our bills in full and on time,” the Vermont senator said. “I’d like to get rid of the debt ceiling, because this hostage-taking sort of approach is becoming institutionalized, very dangerous to the country. So, bottom line, we got to pay our bills.”
On the concessions made by the White House to get to a deal, Welch said, “I don’t like any of them, but the good news is we preserved and protected all of the big initiatives of the Biden administration in the last year. But no, I don’t like this.”
However, he said that the administration handled the negotiations, “just right.”
Sen. Joni Ernst said she is concerned about the defense spending in the bill, but that she thinks “these are things that we can overcome.”
“We do need to do something to control spending, and I think this is a great first step. I think that Kevin McCarthy negotiated a good deal – for now,” the Iowa Republican said. “It’s not a perfect bill, but I think it’s a darn better situation than what we had, maybe, several months ago.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, a fellow Republican, said passing this bill is better than the alternatives of a clean increase to the debt ceiling or a default.
“There’s some positive things about this bill. Is it net better than just a pure debt limit increase? Yeah. Is it better than a default? A lot better than a default. So it’s a step forward,” the Utah senator said. “Is it a home run? No. It’s maybe a single, maybe a double, but I don’t think anyone expected that Kevin McCarthy could deliver any base runners at all, and he has.”
