The Ellison Report: Coming Down Hard on Debt Deal

"The Ellison Report" is a new feature that offers a look every weekday at coverage of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who represents Golden Valley. Have you seen an interesting news story or blog post about Ellison that you think should be mentioned? E-mail a link to kevira.voegele@patch.com.

The country appears to have narrowly averted a crisis following a deal that raised the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts. But Ellison wasn’t happy with the deal and joined three other Minnesota legislators in voting against it, as predicted in a Minnesota Public Radio story prior to the vote:

• "I'm disinclined to vote for this. I don't like and I don't want to vote for it and the reason why is that it conflicts with every democratic value that I hold."

Ellison sat down Monday with National Public Radio to discuss why he voted against the debt deal.

• “When you start cutting programs, cutting a trillion dollars out of the economy, what you're literally doing is you're laying off people; you're discontinuing spending that could well go towards putting people to work. And let me tell you, I don't care if you work for the government or not, a government check spends like any other check and the people who sell those folks groceries don't care whether their workers are from the government or from the private sector.”

Ellison was one of 95 Democrats who didn't vote for the deal. While others in his party decided to go along with the agreement, Ellison said he wasn’t happy about the partisan wrangling that led to the final bill, telling the Star Tribune:

• "’We're being told to make a decision with a gun to our heads,’ said Ellison, who led a liberal bloc in opposition to the debt deal, which could trim more than $2 trillion in government spending over the next decade.”

Meanwhile, Ellison blogged with Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) on The Hill’s Congress Blog that the deal is the wrong one for the country.

• “Tea Party Republicans have held our economy hostage to those demands, but deficit reduction should not be enacted in a hostage situation. We have long said default on the full faith and credit of the United States is unacceptable.”