Corker also says ‘no’ to budget deal

Both U.S. senators from Tennessee have now said “no” to the two-year budget deal expected to be approved by Congress, an agreement that would avoid a second government shutdown in mid-January.

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said he will vote against the budget deal because it “busts budget caps without making meaningful changes to mandatory programs.”

Earlier Wednesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is also a Tennessee Republican, announced that he too would oppose the budget bill.

The legislation passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday in a 332-94 vote. U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican whose district includes Oak Ridge, supported it.

It’s now being considered in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, and could win congressional approval this week.

The legislation cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday that required 60 votes. It now needs only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass.

In a press release, Corker said he voted against cloture, which is a vote to end debate on the budget deal.

“Majority Leader Harry Reid filled the amendment tree on this bill on Sunday, allowing no amendments and no debate,” the senator’s office said. “Since there was no debate and there were no amendments, Corker did not feel it was appropriate to support cloture.”

“Because of the Budget Control Act, for three years in a row, Congress has spent less on discretionary programs than the year before,” Corker said. “While I appreciate the dilemma Rep. Paul Ryan was in, it’s disappointing the misguided strategy of the House this fall weakened our hand on fiscal issues and that House appropriators indicated they were unwilling to live within the budget discipline laid out in the sequester.

“So with the afterglow of the ‘bipartisan’ deal fading, I think everyone can see this budget deal busts the budget caps by $45 billion in the first year alone without making meaningful changes to mandatory programs, violating the only real progress we have made in getting our fiscal house in order and demonstrating that Congress continues to lack the discipline to control spending even in this small way. Spending now and paying later is the cause of our deficit problems, not the solution.”

The budget bill would keep the government open through 2015. Passage of the legislation is likely to offer relief to federal employees and government contractors in Oak Ridge—and to the businesses that support them. Many reported impacts during the last partial government shutdown in October.

Current federal spending expires in mid-January.