Memphis Standard

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) today spoke from the House floor in favor of the debt ceiling compromise, despite some provisions he doesn’t like, and then voted for it. While there was much in the measure that he didn’t like, such as a rollback of environmental regulations and added work requirements for SNAP recipients, he said, “As Members of Congress, we have tough decisions to make.”

The vote on passage was 314 to 117.

In his floor remarks, Congressman Cohen said keeping the U.S. and world economy from collapsing was a higher priority than his reservations about the bill. He said in part:

“Before us today, we have a difficult vote. Like many of my Democratic colleagues, I’d prefer to vote on a clean debt ceiling bill…That’s why we’re here today…I don’t like the language in the bill to bypass reviews and approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline…I don’t like that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are protected. The Trump tax scam, which was not funded, raised the debt by $2 trillion…Despite all these things that we don’t like about this bill, including the addition of work requirements for SNAP recipients in their 50s, as Members of Congress, we have tough decisions to make and ultimately do the best for our constituents and our country. In my district in particular, we have to protect the progress we’ve made in the last two years, providing a boost to Memphis, like health care and energy savings for seniors and throughout the district under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. These investments are funding improvements in my district now. Republicans have tried to de-fund them…We’ve protected Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in these bills…The fact is, Republicans brought us to this brink because they wanted to extract political damage on President Biden and, if the American people were there as collateral damage, so be it…This is extortion but we have to deal with it for the benefit of our country and the world’s economy, and I will vote yes.”

See his entire remarks here.

The measure now moves to the Senate.

Original source can be found here.