FreedomWorks Responds to Senate's Vote to Extend the Debt Ceiling

Dean Clancy: "It's a funny coincidence that the Senate passed H.R. 325 so close to Groundhog Day, because like the movie, we see the same budget shenanigans happen over and over again on Capitol Hill."

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- FreedomWorks released the following statement in response to news that the Senate passed H.R. 325, the House-passed debt ceiling legislation that would raise the debt ceiling clean with no long-term budget solutions. 

Prior to the vote, FreedomWorks issued a Key Vote "NO" against H.R. 325, which will be included when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2013. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.

FreedomWorks Legislative Counsel Dean Clancy commented, "It's a funny coincidence that the Senate passed H.R. 325 so close to Groundhog Day, because like the movie, we see the same budget shenanigans happen over and over again on Capitol Hill."

"First, Congress fails to pass a budget. Next they spend with reckless abandon, create a manufactured crisis to scare Republicans into negotiating with themselves, and ultimately enable their own spending addiction by raising the debt limit without any immediate reform. Each one of these bills has some kind of "promised" budget solution that will take place somewhere down the road, and it never materializes. Who is to say that the promise to withhold pay won't end up in the same dustbin that the sequester cuts ended up in?"

Clancy continued, "It's time to break the cycle. Washington needs an intervention, and it's time for grassroots America to sit them down for it, and that starts with demanding immediate budget and spending solutions."

FreedomWorks launched the website, www.DCDoYourJob.com, to give grassroots America a platform to take back its voice in the secretive, closed-door budgeting process. The message from taxpayers is clear: There should be no more debt ceiling increases until Washington returns to regular order and passes a budget. 

It's been almost four years since the Senate fulfilled its Constitutional responsibility to pass a budget. The federal government is almost $16.5 trillion in debt, a number that exceeds the entire annual output of the U.S. economy without even including the more than $100 trillion in unfunded entitlement promises. If this pattern continues, the major credit agencies have threatened once again to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

FreedomWorks is a grassroots service center to a community of over 2 million activists dedicated to advancing the ideas of individual liberty and constitutionally-limited government. For more information on FreedomWorks' opposition to the GOP debt ceiling proposal, visit www.FreedomWorks.org or contact Jackie Bodnar at [email protected].

Contact:
Jackie Bodnar
(202) 942-7652
[email protected]

SOURCE FreedomWorks