House approves budget plan; Young votes with majority
July 29th 7:37 pm | Alaska Newspapers Staff
Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, voted with the majority today as the House of Representatives approved a plan for a short-term increase in the nation's debt ceiling, along with spending cuts, by a vote of 218-210.
The Democrat-controlled senate was preparing to kill the legislation within hours.
Young called the legislation "the best compromise legislation we have seen pass a chamber and therefore our best bet to prevent default."
The Alaska Republican said in a statement issued from his Washington D.C. office that failure to act would have unpredictable and frankly, quite scary consequences.
"I voted yes on this bill because action needs to be taken immediately," he said.
"However, I want to continuously remind my colleagues what Mr. and Mrs. America already knows: we need to jump start production if we are ever going to grow our economy. I have said over and over that we cannot cut our way into prosperity.
"We need to stop big government from standing in the American people's way as they try to manufacture products, develop our resources and make America a producing country once again. As long as we continue to buy everything from foreign countries, we will only grow their economies and not our own. And to me, nothing is scarier than that."
Alaska Newspapers Staff can be reached at editor@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at 907-348-2449