Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah's congressional delegation may not like raising the national debt limit, but its Republican members repeatedly have voted to do so.
"I don't like raising the debt ceiling," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "It's like buying bigger clothes when you are trying to lose weight. It doesn't encourage you to be responsible and it isn't fiscally conservative.
"We need to have the guts to get our fiscal house in order, and that includes making tough votes," he told The Salt Lake Tribune.
The national debt has risen to nearly $8.4 trillion. The House has approved and sent to the Senate legislation that would raise the cap to $9.62 trillion.
It would be the fifth time since 2002 that Congress raised the limit, upping the credit limit by 50 percent in that span.
Cannon and Rep. Rob Bishop say they vote each year for a leaner budget, but it gets voted down.
Bishop said there is no question that Congress needs to get a handle on spending, and that includes tackling entitlements -- things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
He said the wrong thing to do would be to raise taxes.
"Increasing taxes does not spur on deficit reduction of balanced budgeting. All it does is produce more spending," Bishop said.
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has voted against each Republican budget and each debt-limit increase, which typically have been ear-party-line votes.
"I refuse to write these blank checks for hundreds of billions of dollars" without any discussion on how to wean the government off the pattern of deficit spending, he said.
Matheson and other so-called Blue Dog Democrats in Congress support passing a balanced budget amendment, requiring any new government spending to be offset by cuts elsewhere or increased revenue and demanding better accountability from departments.
"We have to put external controls in," he said. "Getting (members of Congress) to all agree to tighten their belt in a way that controls the budget is difficult to do, regardless of which party is in power. Institutionally, it is very difficult for Congress to live within its means."
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said the debt needs to be put into perspective.
In real dollar terms, the debt is enormous, but it is a manageable portion of the nation's overall economic production, or gross domestic product, he said.
While for a family with $1,000 in credit card debt, it is a big deal if they make $10,000 a year, it is not as important if they make $100,000.
Something still needs to be done to hold down government spending, but cutting out the so-called pork projects won't do it, Bennett said. To really get spending under control, Congress has to deal with entitlements, which now make up two-thirds of all federal spending.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Democrats opposed holding down growth in entitlement programs like student loans, crop subsidies and Medicaid.
"Right now, Republicans and Democrats just don't see eye to eye on this," Hatch said.
Hatch has supported a balanced budget amendment since entering Congress in 1977.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
