Congressman Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, voted yes on the Senate bill to block the "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday night.
Upton was one of 85 House Republicans to vote for the bill, which passed 257-167.
"This plan is not the one I would have written, but I would not sit idly by and watch taxes go up on every American, impacting the average Southwest Michigan family to the tune of thousands of dollars," Upton said in a statement.
The bill, which was passed early Tuesday morning in the Senate, includes increasing taxes on household incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. It also delays dealing with the sequestered cuts to defense spending for two months.
"This deal is an important first step to protect middle class families and small businesses from higher taxes," Upton said in the statement. "But our work will not be complete until we tackle the driver of our debt – spending. Folks are looking for bipartisan solutions and concrete action to right the ship on spending."
The automatic spending cuts temporally averted are the result of the failed “super committee” that was charged to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years.
Upton was one of 12 members of the committee and has been involved with discussions since. Last week, Upton said he was “hopeful” that a deal could be reached before 2013.
Upton, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been one of seven House Republicans who have worked over the past two months on a plan to present to Democrats to avert some $500 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts. Other Republicans on the committee were including House Speaker John Boehner (who voted yes), Eric Cantor (voted no), Dave Camp (voted yes) and Paul Ryan (voted yes).
"This plan is not the one I would have written, but I would not sit idly by and watch taxes go up on every American, impacting the average Southwest Michigan family to the tune of thousands of dollars," Upton said in a statement.
The bill, which was passed early Tuesday morning in the Senate, includes increasing taxes on household incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. It also delays dealing with the sequestered cuts to defense spending for two months.
"This deal is an important first step to protect middle class families and small businesses from higher taxes," Upton said in the statement. "But our work will not be complete until we tackle the driver of our debt – spending. Folks are looking for bipartisan solutions and concrete action to right the ship on spending."
The automatic spending cuts temporally averted are the result of the failed “super committee” that was charged to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years.
Upton was one of 12 members of the committee and has been involved with discussions since. Last week, Upton said he was “hopeful” that a deal could be reached before 2013.
Upton, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been one of seven House Republicans who have worked over the past two months on a plan to present to Democrats to avert some $500 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts. Other Republicans on the committee were including House Speaker John Boehner (who voted yes), Eric Cantor (voted no), Dave Camp (voted yes) and Paul Ryan (voted yes).
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