Nearly all House members of both parties voted to pass a $7.85 billion package to help victims of Hurricane Harvey on Wednesday — save for three conservative GOP lawmakers.
Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.) were the only lawmakers to oppose the aid in the 419-3 vote.
Minutes before the vote, Amash tweeted that funding for the disaster aid should be offset instead of being added to the deficit.
“Congress should provide disaster relief funding, and we should pay for it now instead of billing our children and grandchildren for it,” Amash wrote on Twitter.
Massie similarly explained he believes the aid should have been paid for.
“With $20 trillion dollars of debt, and in the absence of a budget to guide spending, I believe that unscheduled spending should be offset by equal cuts elsewhere. This bill recklessly increases the national debt because it contains no spending offsets,” Massie said in a statement.
Both Amash and Massie also opposed approving aid for Hurricane Sandy in 2013, along with all but 49 of their fellow House Republicans.
Biggs, a freshman representative, was not yet serving in the House during the Sandy vote. He and Amash are both members of the House Freedom Caucus, though most of the far-right group’s members did vote for the Harvey aid on Wednesday.
The House may have to vote again in the coming days to combine the disaster relief money with a debt limit increase.
That could result in more defections from GOP lawmakers, many of whom support helping Harvey victims but don’t want to raise the debt limit without any spending reforms.
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Three House Republicans voted against Harvey aid bill https://t.co/AJCZfaDuH2 pic.twitter.com/43pGQtiUlP
— The Hill (@thehill) September 6, 2017
Congress should provide disaster relief funding, and we should pay for it now instead of billing our children and grandchildren for it.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) September 6, 2017
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