COVINGTON, Ga. — Tenth District Congressman Mike Collins (R-Jackson) voted “no” on the debt ceiling proposal Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Collins, who represents Newton County, said he studied the issue and after careful thought decided to go against the proposal ironed out by President Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

“I asked the people of the 10th District to give me the opportunity to be their voice in Congress because I believe we need to attack the greatest threat to our nation’s survival—the debt,” Collins said. “I have been one of the most conservative House majorities in decades. We’ve passed several pieces of meaningful legislation that would start to right the ship, including the Limit, Save, Grow Act.”

Despite the vote by Collins, the House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday night to suspend the nation's debt limit through January 1, 2025. The final vote tally was 314-117 with 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting against the bill.

Collins, a truck company executive from Jackson, said he applied business logic to the proposal.

“As a businessman, I fully understood that we wouldn’t get everything we wanted at the negotiating table, especially since we control of one-half of one-third of the federal government,” he said. “However, because of the strong position our united conference put our negotiators in, relative to the weakest and most unpopular president in modern history, I expected us to hold the line more than this current proposal.”

Collins would not go so far to say all of the proposed bill was bad but said it needed additional work.

“While there are good pieces to the deal, it doesn’t go far enough,” the first-term congressman said. “Supporting this legislation would send the wrong message about how seriously we must take our debt problem. For those reasons, I voted against the bill.”

Collins was elected to Congress in 2022. 

The timeframe to avoid debt default is extremely tight. The legislation will now need to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

In addition to Collins, Georgia Republican Congressmen Andrew Clyde and Rich McCormick voted against the deal.

Democrat Nikema Williams also voted no.