The Hill News

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said he's unsure about voting for the newly agreed-upon $2.4 trillion debt-limit increase deal due to the amount of "permanent structural spending" reforms.

"You know, I haven't seen the legislation yet," Lee said Sunday on CNN. "I haven't had an opportunity to read it yet. Based on the summary that I've received so far I'm not inclined to support it. What I've said since before I was even sworn into office … is that I cannot support any effort to raise the debt ceiling that is not accompanied by immediate and permanent structural spending reform."

Lee's comments came a few hours after President Obama and congressional leaders announced that they had reached a bipartisan debt-limit deal to raise the ceiling by $2.4 trillion while cutting $1 trillion in spending over 10 years and establishing a 12-person bicameral committee to find an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. The plan includes enforcement mechanisms to encourage both Republicans and Democrats to seek out spending cuts or else face cuts to sacred cows such as defense and entitlement spending.

Both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the deal would save the U.S. economy from defaulting, suggesting that it would not face much opposition from Democrats or Republicans in the Senate.

"At this point I think I can say with a high degree of confidence that there is now a framework to review that will ensure significant cuts in Washington spending," McConnell said Sunday.

Still, Lee said he was glad that the deal included mostly spending cuts.

"I'm very happy with the fact that we're now talking about cuts," Lee said. "Six or seven months ago, people in this town were talking about another stimulus package, more spending. Now we're not talking about those things; we're now talking about cutting trillions of dollars."

The amount of spending cuts in the deal seems to have been the major attraction for Republicans to the deal. When he unveiled the deal to his conference on Sunday,  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) stressed that the agreement included three major features attractive to Republicans: spending caps, spending cuts that are larger than the amount by which the debt ceiling is increased, and a push for a balanced-budget amendment.

"Now, listen, this isn’t the greatest deal in the world," Boehner said to Republican members, according to excerpts from an aide. "But it shows how much we’ve changed the terms of the debate in this town."