Debt bill dashes through House

SENATE VOTES TODAY

Staff/wire report

WASHINGTON

Emergency legislation to scrape past an economy-rattling national financial default sped through the House on Monday night a scant day before the deadline for action.

The vote was 269-161, and a final Senate sign-off for the measure is virtually assured today.

“If the bill were presented to the president, he would sign it,” the White House said, an understatement of enormous proportions.

The Mahoning Valley’s two U.S. House representatives voted differently Monday night.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, opposed the bill, while U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, voted in favor of it.

The “vote was a test of our political conviction,” Ryan said. “Republicans demanded we either make deep, painful cuts to working families, or they would force a default on the full faith and credit of the U.S. debt. Either option would deal a devastating blow to millions of Americans struggling to regain their financial security following one of the worst recessions our country has faced in a generation.”

Johnson said the bill was “the first step in a long journey to return America to sound fiscal health.” The bill doesn’t solve the country’s fiscal problems, he said.

“We are still massively in debt, and it’s going to take years of determined and steadfast fiscal discipline to dig out of the hole that’s been created by the irresponsible and reckless spending of previous Congresses and White House administrations,” Johnson said. “We must strive for a balanced budget — not a balanced approach — that will put our nation on the path to fiscal integrity, create jobs, and ensure economic growth.”

After months of fiercely partisan struggle, the House’s top Republican and Democratic leaders swung behind the bill, ratifying a deal sealed Sunday night with a phone call from House Speaker John Boehner to President Barack Obama.

“The legislation will solve this debt crisis and help get the American people back to work,” Boehner said at a news conference a few hours before the vote.

The Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was far less effusive. “I’m not happy with it, but I’m proud of some of the accomplishments in it. That’s why I’m voting for it.”

So, too, many of the first-term Republicans whose election in 2010 handed the GOP control of the House and set the federal government on a new, more conservative course.

“It’s about time that Congress come together and figure out a way to live within our means,” said one of them, Sean Duffy of Wisconsin. “This bill is going to start that process although it doesn’t go far enough.”

Monday’s vote was made all the more electric by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ first appearance in Congress since being shot in the head six months earlier.

She drew thunderous applause as she walked into the House chamber unannounced and cast her vote in favor of the bill.

The measure would cut federal spending by at least $2.1 trillion over a decade — and possibly considerably more — and would not require tax increases. The U.S. debt limit would rise by at least $2.1 trillion, tiding the Treasury over through the 2012 elections.

Without legislation in place by the end of today, the Treasury would run out of cash needed to pay all its bills. Administration officials say a default would ensue that would severely damage the economy.

Beyond merely avoiding disaster, Obama and congressional leaders hoped their extraordinary accord would reassure investors at home and around the world, preserve the United States’ Aaa credit rating and begin to slow the growth in America’s soaring debt. In a roller-coaster day on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average surged, then sank and finally finished down for a seventh straight session but only slightly.

In all, 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats voted for the bill, while 66 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed it. After months of suspense, the vote was anti-climactic,

Not so the moment when Giffords’ presence became known.

She greeted some fellow lawmakers who crowded around her and blew kisses to others, beaming the whole while. Her hair was dark and close cropped and she wore glasses — nothing like the image America had of her six months ago when she was shot while greeting constituents outside a supermarket in Tucson.

She did not speak with reporters.