On Tuesday, 28 House Republicans joined 193 of their Democratic colleagues in voting to raise the debt ceiling without attaching additional measures to the hike.
Rep. Paul Ryan was not one of them.
The Wisconsin Republican bucked party leadership and voted against the "clean" measure, which would extend the federal government's borrowing authority ahead of a looming default at the end of the month.
“This is a missed opportunity. We need to pay our bills today and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. I’m disappointed that the President and Senate Democrats refuse to get serious about our fiscal challenges," Ryan said in a statement.
Ryan's vote is in line with the majority of his Republican colleagues, and is unsurprising given the likelihood he will run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. However, by opposing the bill, he voted against spending needed for the budget deal he coauthored with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), which President Barack Obama signed into law late last year.
That bill provided for $1.012 trillion in federal spending over the fiscal year. However, without a debt-ceiling extension, the U.S. would be unable to pay for the programs covered in the budget.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) was one of the House Republicans who voted for the clean hike.
"I don't think that the debt limit is something that people who vote for the budget and for appropriations can fail to vote for," Issa said, according to National Journal.
Ryan had previously suggested he would vote against a debt-ceiling bill that contained no concessions from Democrats, insisting that Republicans "don't want nothing" out of an extension.
"We, as a caucus -- along with our Senate counterparts -- are going to meet and discuss what it is we’re going to want out of the debt limit," Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday" in December. “We don’t want nothing out of this debt limit. We’re going to decide what it is we’re going to accomplish out of this debt limit fight.”
However, as The Huffington Post reported Tuesday, Republican leadership ultimately decided to bring up the bill without strings attached:
Obama and congressional Democrats have been adamant that any debt-ceiling hike be "clean." In recent weeks, GOP leaders tried to tie the debt ceiling to various provisions, including a repeal of the Obamacare risk corridors provision and the Keystone XL pipeline, but abandoned those efforts amid wavering support.
There also was not enough support among Republicans to use the debt bill to repeal recent cuts to military retirement benefits, which were adjusted in December's bipartisan budget deal. Republican leaders were set to pursue that repeal as recently as Monday, but [House Speaker] John Boehner acknowledged it had been difficult getting GOP members to coalesce around a plan.
"If you don't have 218 [votes], you don't have anything," he said, referring to the amount needed to guarantee a measure passes in the 435-member body.
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