Congressman Smith shares concerns over fiscal cliff agreement
by
Josh Egbert
Story Created:
Jan 2, 2013 at 5:42 PM CST
Story Updated:
Jan 2, 2013 at 5:42 PM CST
One of those voting against the bill to avoid the fiscal cliff is Nebraska Congressman Adrian Smith. He voted no on that agreement saying he still has concerns about the bill.
He said it came down to spending.
While concerns about spending remains, he also said he will continue to fight to reduce the deficit and passing commonsense tax reform.
"It does not address the very pressing issue of needing to address the spending of the federal government."
Spending and taxes. The main sticking points Representative Adrian Smith voted no on a bill that avoided that so called fiscal cliff.
"The sequestration with last night's vote was delayed only two months and that is another pressing issue that needs to be addressed."
Congress has until March 1st when the bill will expire once again.
But Congressman Smith wasn't alone. 151 of the 236 Republicans in the House also voted against the bill.
"I know a lot of folks who voted for the bill last night they know we need to address spending moving forward and that's what we are going to do."
The bill cuts some taxes permanently and delays others until that March deadline.
With that bill passing though, Smith says it will do little to help with the country's debt.
"Last night's vote would only raise enough revenue, like I said, to pay for 6 days of federal spending, that's not a solution and certainly that's a political statement perhaps that some folks want to make, but the fact is we need to address spending."
Late after the vote Monday night, the President addressed Congress.
"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills they've already racked up," said President Obama.
News 5 asked Representative Smith what would have happened if we had gone over that fiscal cliff. He said no one knows, but we would have reverted back to some tax policies that we had when President Clinton was in office.
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