This was a vote on an amendment by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to a transportation, housing, and urban affairs bill that would have cut $18.6 billion from programs operated by the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. (The amendment was intended to reduce funding for those two departments to 2008 levels.)

Jordan urged support for his amendment: “My amendment is real simple. It says this bill should go back and we should spend it at 2008 baseline levels. After all, a lot of families are living on something less. A lot of families have had to live on what they were functioning on in 2008. A lot of small businesses are functioning on what they had to in 2008. Why in the heck can't the Federal Government do the same thing?”

Rep. John Olver (D-MA) urged opposition to the amendment: “We are now coming out of this recession. If an amendment were implemented, such as the one the gentleman from Ohio has proposed, it would send us right back into the recession. We cannot do this….Is this a deliberate effort to put us back into a double-dip recession [in which the economy enters a recession, recovers, and then enters a recession again – thus “double dipping”) that would be so similar to the Great Depression?”

The House rejected Jordan’s amendment by a vote of 159-265. 152 Republicans and 7 Democrats voted “yea.” 250 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted “nay.” As a result, the House rejected an amendment to transportation, housing, and urban affairs legislation that would have cut $18.6 billion from programs operated by the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.