Washington • Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Mia Love voted Friday for an emergency funding bill for victims of Hurricane Harvey, a bill that later would be tied to raising the nation’s credit limit, while Rep. Chris Stewart opposed the measure.
“This wasn’t a vote for hurricane relief,” said Stewart, who had voted for a bill earlier this week to fund relief efforts for people in Texas and Louisiana who suffered the devastation of the storm. The bill did not include a provision to extend the nation’s credit.
President Donald Trump signed into law the $15.3 billion funding measure that also boosts the country’s credit limit to keep it operating through early December. Trump and Democrats worked together to strike the deal.
The Senate passed the bill Thursday night with Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch backing the measure and Sen. Mike Lee opposing it, calling it a bad policy to link the hurricane relief with the debt ceiling vote.
Stewart echoed that sentiment, saying the two should have been separate votes.
“I voted ‘no’ because we once again have abandoned our military and failed to address our national debt,” Stewart said.
Increasing the debt limit does not authorize new federal spending, but it allows the government to borrow funds to pay for money already approved to be spent.
Love also criticized the dual-purpose measure, though said she voted for it because she wanted to help people who were suffering after the massive storm slammed into the Gulf states.
“With this vote, my thoughts were with the millions of families whose lives were turned upside down by the recent hurricane,” Love said in a statement. “I feel it is our moral obligation to help them.”
She added that she was frustrated that the House was “dragged into the D.C. swamp” by the Senate, which tied the two issues together to force a must-pass deal on the credit limit. She called it a “disgraceful process” and touted her legislation that would limit legislation to a single issue.
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