Congressman Rush Supports Debt Ceiling Deal ‘To Avert a Fiscal Crisis of Major Proportions’

As the U.S. Senate prepared to vote on a debt ceiling deal that passed through the House of Representatives on Monday by a count of 269 to 161, Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) said he’s confident that the compromise both sides made Sunday will be in the best interest of the American people.

The proposed deal allows for robust U.S. borrowing by the Treasury in exchange for more than $2 trillion in long-term spending cuts.

By voting "yes," Rush said, "I stand in support of the President and bipartisan leaders who were determined to avert a fiscal crisis of major proportions.”

“… I realize that not raising the debt ceiling would have destabilized American households and increased worries and concerns among many hard-hit seniors, the unemployed and physically ill Americans,” Rush said in a press statement Monday. “As an elected official and a pastor, my first obligation is always to do no harm.”

Rush, who also serves as Pastor of Beloved Community Christian Church on the South Side of Chicago, stands in support of raising the debt ceiling, a measure he says “creates a clear path forward for the U.S. economy over the course of the next 18 months while also providing policy parameters that will determine how Congress will proceed in raising the debt limit in a way that is the least destructive to the American people.”

The Illinois Congressman leads the 1st congressional district, which includes Crestwood, Evergreen Park, Midlothian, Posen, Robbins, most of Alsip, Blue Island and Oak Forest, sections of Calumet Park, Dixmoor, Markham, Orland Hills, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Tinley Park and Worth, and parts of Oak Lawn, Country Club Hills and Riverdale.

Rush said he voted to support Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s debt ceiling proposal on Saturday, which failed by a vote of 246 to 173 in the House of Representatives, because “it’s the right thing to do.”

According to Rush, Reid’s proposal “would enable us to pay our debts on time, cut more than $2.4 trillion from our deficit over the next decade, and avoid another serious economic dip, which surely awaits us if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2.”

The proposed debt ceiling plan now sits in the hands of the U.S. Senate for final adoption.