Thursday, March 22, 2012

Senator Hatch: His Voting Record on the Federal Debt Ceiling

Recently, FreedomWorks ran a campaign here in Utah that encouraged voters to consider other candidates besides Orrin Hatch for the Senate. One of their claims was that, “He voted 16 different times to raise the debt ceiling by a grand total of $7.5 trillion.”[i] Because I took a few classes in graduate level statistics, that claim intrigued me so I did a little homework myself. What I uncovered surprised me. It turns out that the FreedomWorks figures may be low.

The most fruitful report I discovered was a publication of the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service. This report was published in May 2011. The title is Votes on Measures to Adjust the Statutory Debt Limit, 1978 to Present.[ii] While this report contained several tables full of interesting information, the table that is most relevant to this discussion is “Table 1. Roll Call Votes on Enacted Measures to Adjust the Federal Debt Limit.” These Roll Call Votes go clear back to 1978—one year after Hatch took office (January 1977). Therefore, these votes give a clear picture of Hatch’s voting record on raising federal debt for almost his entire career.

What I did was take Table 1 and research how Hatch voted on each bill. My primary source was the Congressional Record. Some of the information was obtained using THOMAS, the online version of the record. The remainder was obtained using HeinOnline, which contains a scanned version of the record going back several decades.

Before looking at the results of my research, a few terms need to be defined. First, a “roll call” vote means the senate asked each separate senator for his/her vote. The results of the roll call are reported as Yes, No, or Did Not Vote. As for voice votes, here is how the senate describes those:


voice vote - A vote in which the presiding officer states the question, then asks those in favor and against to say "Yea" or "Nay," respectively, and announces the result according to his or her judgment. The names or numbers of senators voting on each side are not recorded.

For the sake of this article, a voice vote is considered a “for” by all senators primarily because the Congressional Record almost always included the phrase “There being no objection…” at the time a measure was passed by voice vote. (This implies no senators voiced their dissent.) Another term that was often used was unanimous consent. This was also counted a “for.”

So what about Hatch’s voting record? In short, here is what I learned. Since 1978 there have been 51 resolutions passed in Congress that addressed raising or maintaining the debt ceiling. Hatch voted “for” raising (or maintaining a previous rise) 36 times, against it 14 times, and did not vote once. A table that documents each of these votes can be found at the end of this article. Here is how the yes, no, etc. votes broke down specifically:

Summary of Hatch Votes on Raising the Debt Ceiling

Yes

16

No

14

Voice Vote

16

Did Not Vote

1

Unanimous Consent

4

TOTAL For

36

TOTAL Against

14

Next question, how much did Hatch’s “for” votes cost the taxpayers of this country? That can be looked at one of two ways. First would be to look at his first “for” vote and his last “for” vote and do a simple subtraction. If you accept the voice vote in 1978 as his first “for,” in that year HR 11518 raised the debt limit to $752 billion (from $706 billion in 1977). His last “yes” was a “roll call” vote, HR 1424 in 2008. This resulted in a debt ceiling being raised to $11.3 trillion. That makes a difference of $10.6 trillion dollars ($11.3 trillion minus $706 billion).

If you want to be more literal and only count a “roll call” yes, Hatch’s first “yes” was HR 7428 in 1980. This resulted in the debt ceiling staying at $879 billion (from a previous high of $830 billion). His last “roll call” yes remains HR 1424 in 2008, $11.3 trillion. That makes a difference of a slightly lower $10.5 trillion dollars ($11.3 trillion minus $830 billion).

The second way to look at how much Hatch’s “for” votes cost taxpayers would be to add up the difference between what the debt limit was before and then after a “for” vote. This is a tad more complicated, but it does take into account the fact that he voted “no” on several occasions. This figure equals $6.3 trillion for the 16 strictly “yes” votes and $7.9 trillion for the more liberal 36 “for” votes.

That being said, however, on the few occasions Hatch voted “no,” almost always he eventually rubber-stamped a previous raise in the debt ceiling with another “for” vote. (In other words, he never held steady on a “no” vote.) In my mind, this effectively nullified almost all of his “no” votes before 2008.

The bottom line is this—Hatch’s “for” votes on raising the debt ceiling have cost taxpayers closer to $10.5 trillion dollars since he took office in the late 70’s. This is approximately $3 trillion higher than the $7.5 trillion as reported by the FreedomWorks campaign.

What I obviously learned is that FreedomWorks was partially right. I do not know exactly how they did their math. It appears they may have only counted the “yes” votes because there are 16 of those, but when those are totaled (debt ceiling just before and after the vote), it only comes to $6.3 trillion. Also, they may have only gone back as far back as circa 1990 to get their figures. Whatever the case, I believe Hatch has a much longer record that he needs to be held accountable for that includes unanimous and voice votes.

How should an electorate hold it’s Senator accountable for contributing to $10.5 trillion dollars in federal debt? I think the answer is obvious.

To his credit, Senator Hatch did vote against the last three significant raises in the debt ceiling in 2009 and 2010. In these cases he voted against almost $3 trillion in additional federal debt (because the current debt ceiling is $14.3 trillion). If he is re-elected in November, let’s hope he continues to always vote “no.”

------------------

Senator Orrin Hatch Voting Record on Raising Federal Debt

Year

Bill Number

Debt Limit Amount

($ in billions)

Hatch Vote

1978

H.R. 11518

$752

Voice Vote

H.R. 13385

$798

No

1979

H.R. 2534

$830

No

H.R. 5369

$879

No

1980

H.R. 7471

same

No

H.R. 7428

same

Yes

H.J.Res. 569

$925

No

H.J.Res. 570

$935.10

Voice Vote

1981

H.R. 1553

$985

Yes

H.J.Res. 266

$999.80

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 265

$1,079.80

Yes

1982

H.J.Res. 519

$1,143.10

Did Not Vote

H.J.Res 520

$1,290.20

Yes

1983

H.R. 2990

$1,389.00

Yes

H.J.Res. 308

$1,490

Voice Vote

1984

H.R. 5692

$1,520

Voice Vote

H.R. 5953

$1,573

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 654

$1,823.80

Yes

1985

H.R. 3721

$1,903.80

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 372

$2,078.70

Yes

1986

H.R. 5395

$2,111

Yes

H.R. 5300

$2,300

No

1987

H.R. 2360

$2,320

No

H.R. 3022

same

Voice Vote

H.R. 3190

$2,352

No

H.J.Res. 324

$2,800

Yes

1989

H.R. 3024

$2,870 $

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 280

3,122.70

Voice Vote

1990

H.R. 5350

$3,195

Voice Vote

H.R. 5755

same

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 666

same

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 677

same

Voice Vote

H.J.Res. 681

same

Unanimous Consent

H,J. Res. 687

$3,230

Voice Vote

H.R. 5835

$4,145

No

1993

H.R. 1430

$4,370

Unanimous Consent

H.R. 2264

$4,900

No

1996

H.R. 2924

[special case]

Unanimous Consent

H.R. 3021

[special case]

Voice Vote

H.R. 3136

$5,500

Unanimous Consent

1997

H.R. 2015 ≈

$5,950

Yes

2002

S. 2578

$6,400

Yes

2003

H.J.Res. 51

$7,384

Yes

2004

S. 2986

$8,184

Yes

2005

H.J.Res. 47

$8,965

Yes

2007

H.J.Res. 43

$9,815

Yes

2008

H.R. 3221

$10,615

No

H.R. 1424

$11,315

Yes

2009

H.R. 1

$12,104

No

H.R. 4314

$12,394

No

2010

H.J.Res. 45

$14,294

No

Yes

16

No

14

Voice Vote

16

Unanimous Consent

4

Did Not Vote

1

TOTAL

51


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