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Cole Statement on House Passage of H.R. 1868

March 19, 2021

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Tom Cole (OK-04) released the following statement after he voted against H.R. 1868, related to future automatic cuts to certain mandatory government programs resulting from the $1.9 trillion legislation passed with only Democratic votes in Congress and signed into law by President Biden last week.

Under the statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010, when legislation is enacted that increases projected deficits, automatic spending cuts are triggered in mandatory spending, which includes programs like Medicare and farm programs. H.R. 1868 primarily seeks to waive the budgetary effects of the budget reconciliation bill.

"It should come as no surprise that Republicans are not supportive of H.R. 1868, which essentially rubber stamps the irresponsible reconciliation bill advanced solely by Democrats last week," said Cole. "In fact, Republicans warned then that critical mandatory spending programs would be at risk if serious efforts were not made to offset the automatic cuts triggered by the legislation. Sadly, rather than working with Republicans to identify wasteful spending to prevent cuts from occurring to vital programs like Medicare, Democrats would prefer to put it on the national credit card."