The Valley’s two representatives in Congress, both Democrats—John Olver (Amherst) and Richard Neal (Springfield)—refused to vote for the debt ceiling and deficit reduction bill that passed Congress last week. So did all the other Massachusetts representatives except Niki Tsongas of Lowell, Stephen Lynch of Brockton and Bill Keating of Quincy.
Olver said he could not vote for the bill because it “allows hedge fund managers and oil companies to continue using tax breaks to earn massive profits, and does not remove the possibility that cuts will be made to Social Security and Medicare.”
Both the state’s senators, John Kerry and Scott Brown, voted for the bill, as did all the senators from Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut. “It’s not the deal that a lot of us would have made, and it’s not the deal we wanted, but I think avoiding default is critical, paramount to the country,” Kerry told the Boston Globe.
A very different comment came from Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who voted against the bill (see related story).
“The wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations, who are doing phenomenally well today, are not being asked to contribute one penny in shared sacrifice toward deficit reduction,” Sanders wrote his supporters. “On the other hand, middle-class and working families who are suffering terribly in the midst of this horrible recession are being asked to shoulder 100 percent of the human cost of lowering our deficit. This is not only grossly unfair, it is bad economic policy.”
But Vermont’s Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, voted for the bill. In New Hampshire, as in Vermont, the senatorial votes split.
Vermont’s lone representative also voted No. Voting Yes were both Rhode Island’s representatives (Democrats), and both New Hampshire’s representatives (Republicans). In Maine, the two representatives, both Democrats, were split; in Connecticut, where all five representatives are Democrats, three voted No and two voted Yes.
