Bacon to vote for debt deal
The tentative debt ceiling deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is just fine with Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon.
Bacon says he'll vote yes as both Democrat and Republican leaders push their House members to OK the deal which is drawing criticism from the fringes.
Just hours before the tentative deal was announced NCN's Joe Jordan spoke with Bacon, a Republican, who represents one of the country's most hotly contested swing districts .
[View our full video report above]
NCN’s Joe Jordan: Are the spending cuts that necessary that they would have to jeopardize the economy going into a potential free fall?
Rep. Don Bacon: I think the spending cuts are necessary for our country.
We're running a $32 trillion debt. We're going to average over the next 10 years $1.9 trillion a year and we got elected to curtail some of this reckless spending.
I do think if we want to demand, what we passed a month ago I think it's unrealistic to believe that the President would sign off on that or the Senate will pass it and so I would say our way of securing the economy is be willing to compromise. But for the President to say that he refused to negotiate, and he did that for 97 days, that's not right either.
He’s as much at risk and jeopardizing the economy as anybody else by that behavior.
NCN: But if you had to choose between spending cuts and default, you’d choose spending cuts?
Rep. Bacon: I'm not going to cower to extortion from the President. The President can meet us halfway.
NCN: Would you cut the military budget?
Rep. Bacon: I’d keep it even with inflation. I think we're in a good spot. I wouldn't cut it right now with China and Russia though. I'd keep it even with inflation, that's what I recommend.
NCN: Of all the spending cuts that are on the table is there any specific spending cut you're more interested in than any other cut?
Rep. Bacon: Interested in the caps more or less. It’s overall spending. So, I proposed early, actually what's on the table right now is what I've been proposing since January pretty much. I'm in the Problem Solvers, I'm in the Main Street and I've been saying we need to have a cap on discretionary spending, and we need a commission to figure out how we’re going to help tackle the mandatory spending.
Because if we do nothing Social Security is going to go insolvent and so will Medicare and that's unacceptable. People rely on both.
And I think we're going to get a commission. I heard that's in the agreement already, both sides agree with that. And what a commission is, it's going to be bipartisan commission, 50-50.
Of course, I don't think they’ve made the final rules, in this development this is the concept I believe is in it. And they have to have a super majority on recommendations on Medicare and Social Security and all these other programs.
And then you put those recommendations on the floor for an up or down vote, no limits. So that's the intent of this commission.
We need to do something to shore up Social Security and Medicare because Medicare is going to go under in four years.
That’s going to be in the bill.
I supported discretionary caps. The question is, is it going to be a 1 percent increase or a 2 percent increase.