A defiant Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) doubled down on his opposition to the GOP's revised spending bill, which was shot down during a Thursday evening House vote.
The 11th-hour spending bill would have averted a holiday shutdown of the federal government just a day before the current funding bill is set to expire.
The GOP needed 290 "yes" votes to pass the bill but secured just 174. Thirty-eight Republicans voted against the deal, including Roy, who was threatened with a primary challenge earlier in the day by President-elect Donald Trump. Responding to Trump's attack that Roy is "ambitious," Roy retorted, "I'm ambitious to make sure that we actually cut spending."
"I'm ambitious to do what we said we would do, and I'm in support of the president's aim to get rid of the debt ceiling issue that he faces with Chuck Schumer wanting to play games with it, play games with the markets."
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Roy insisted lawmakers can't keep "kicking the can down the road."
"This a [continuing resolution] with an unpaid $110 billion. It turned off a $1.7 trillion pay-go. And it increased the debt ceiling some $5 trillion with no structural reform. That's a no-go."
He called for appropriators and leadership — "always the ones who are obstacles to actually cutting spending" — to "pony up and explain why they won't agree to spending cuts that we said we should put in place."
Roy laid a line in the sand — and vowed not to vote for another debt ceiling increase without specifics on cuts.
"That's a non-starter for me," he proclaimed.
If he fails, Roy said he can live with that.
"I can go home and be happy and content, and I'm going to look my children in the eye and I'm going to know that I didn't mortgage their future, devalue the dollar and drive up inflation with all this reckless spending," he said.
Just before the vote, Roy went after his GOP colleagues in the House while delivering heated remarks on the floor, calling their bill "embarrassing" and "shameful.”
Speaking to reporters after the House vote, Roy said his colleagues will regroup and talk about how to proceed.
