Seventh District Congressman Mark Schauer of Battle Creek was one of just 37 democrats who voted with every Republican in the House yesterday against increasing the nation’s debt ceiling by 1.9 trillion dollars to a total of 14.3 trillion dollars.

The measure still passed by a margin of 217-to-212 and goes to President Obama for his signature. Schauer did vote in favor of sending statutory “pay as you go” legislation to the President which requires Congress to offset the costs of tax cuts or increases in entitlement spending with savings elsewhere in the budget.

Schauer says the only way to bring down the deficit is to get the economy turned in the right direction with more jobs. Moving up the debt ceiling by 1.9 trillion dollars equals more than six-thousand-one-hundred dollars for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. Southwest Michigan Republican Congressman Fred Upton called it a startling display of fiscal insanity.