Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) voted Tuesday night against the so-called “Doc Fix” bill that raises the national debt by nearly $200 billion. That makes him one of only eight Republicans to vote for limited government and fiscal conservatism.
“We have got to stop borrowing at these outrageous levels to meet our federal priorities. Meeting the needs of our seniors, doctors, and rural health centers is a priority, but we need to find the money within the budget process, and put together a responsible way to pay for these priorities, not use more borrowed money that adds to our long-term debt,” Perdue said in a statement his office provided to Breitbart News.
Perdue had voted against an amendment earlier in the process from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) that would have offset the spending increases in the bill with spending cuts, but his office says the reason why he voted against Lee’s amendment was not the same reason several more establishment-leaning Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voted against the Lee amendment.
Perdue’s team told Breitbart News that the reason he opposed the Lee amendment is because he took it to mean that it didn’t specify where the cuts to offset the spending increase would come from and would arbitrary across-the-board cuts, as sequestration was. Perdue did vote later in the evening for a measure put forward by join Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to keep Congress within the restrictions of the Budget Control Act. That measure failed because McConnell and several establishment Republicans joined all the Democrats in killing it.
The final “Doc Fix” bill busted through the Budget Control Act spending caps, effectively resulting in the biggest Republican-led increase to the national debt since George W. Bush was president.
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