Knoxville News Sentinel - Excessive spending' has Duncan voting no on budget bill

News Article

By Michael Collins

For U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., the overriding issue was excessive government spending, not Planned Parenthood funding.

Duncan and the other three East Tennesseans in the U.S. House voted Wednesday against a temporary funding bill to keep the government open through mid-December. The state's two U.S. senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, supported the measure.

The bill passed over the objections of some conservative Republicans who wanted to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding amid allegations the organization improperly sold tissue harvested from aborted fetuses.

"While I am very opposed to the $528 million for Planned Parenthood, for me this vote was much more about overall excessive spending than it was about any one particular appropriation," said Duncan, R-Knoxville, explaining his vote against the funding measure.

"I certainly do not want to shut the government down, but my much greater concern is that we are not reducing spending when we have an $18 trillion national debt," Duncan said. "We should act in a much more fiscally responsible way."

U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-South Pittsburg, also cited fiscal concerns, not the Planned Parenthood funding, as his reasons for voting against the short-term spending bill.

The funding measure fails to address the nation's $18 trillion debt, contains an additional $20 billion in "budgetary gimmicks" and continues funding for President Barack Obama's "often unconstitutional and radical policies," DesJarlais said.

U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-Johnson City, blasted House and Senate Democrats who refused to temporarily defund Planned Parenthood so Congress can conduct "a fair and thoughtful investigation into these horrific claims."

"I believe this debate is too important to delay until December," Roe said. "Now that the House and Senate have acted, I hope we will move swiftly to fully investigate Planned Parenthood."

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah, also voted against the temporary funding bill.

In the Senate, Alexander said shutting down the government as a way of expressing opposition to Planned Parenthood or any other contentious issue "is not the right thing to do."

"We were not elected to shut down the government," he said. "We were elected to make the government work for the benefit of taxpayers who sent us here."