I could not, in good conscience, vote for the debt ceiling bill | Bernie Sanders

This bill cuts programs for the most vulnerable, and is totally unnecessary - why doesn't Biden invoke the 14th amendment?

Let's be clear. The original debt ceiling legislation that Republicans passed in the House would have, over a 10-year period, decimated the already inadequate social safety net of our country and made savage cuts to programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor desperately needed.

The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling is that it could have been much worse. Instead of making massive cuts to healthcare, housing, education, childcare, nutrition assistance and other vital programs over the next decade, this bill proposes to make modest cuts to these programs over a 2-year period. This bill will also prevent a global economic catastrophe by extending the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025 - when we will have to go through with this absurd process once again.

Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress