News from Representative Richard Nugent Dear Friends, Obviously, I usually only send this out once a week, but my office is getting flooded with calls from people wanting to know what’s going on and when all of this is going to end, so I wanted to give you a quick rundown of the latest developments: On Saturday night, the House sent the Senate a third proposal (the first two defunded or delayed implementation of the Affordable Care Act). The third proposal included funding for the government and attached the repeal of the Medical Device Tax. This relatively small provision is part of the original healthcare law and has widely been acknowledged to be hurting patients and providers. In March, the Senate voted 79-20 to repeal it. This third proposal that the House sent them said: repeal this tax provision and that’s it… shutdown avoided. On a party line vote late yesterday afternoon, the Senate killed the proposal 54-46. So, why would they do that? Some people would tell you that Harry Reid sees this as an opportunity for Republicans to damage their image further with the American people. Some might suggest he sees this as Democrats’ best hope of retaking the House. Some people might be right. Never mind that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided not to call the Senate back on Sunday. Football was on – I get it. But to wait until late Monday afternoon and then to vote down a proposal you’d previously passed overwhelmingly is pretty cynical. The press isn’t going to explain that to you, but as Americans, I think you have a right to know. The fourth proposal that the House sent the Senate – late last night – was another even simpler proposal. It was a bill to begin the formal process of resolving differences between the House and Senate. It was a bill to “go to conference” on the Continuing Resolution. It had no riders, no cuts, no delays, no shenanigans – simply an official call to begin the formal process of resolving our differences legislatively. This morning, the Senate voted that down on another party-line vote: 54-46. The Senate literally voted against moving forward with the process to resolve this issue. I’m not a cynical person by nature. And I’m not such a partisan individual that I can’t acknowledge that both sides are at fault here. Everybody is grandstanding on this – and Congress shouldn’t have put the country in this position in the first place - but the bottom line here is that there are people on both sides who think their side wins by prolonging this fight and letting this shutdown get dragged out for as long as possible. I am not one of those people. I think everybody loses. We’re not here to fight for a political party. We’re here to fight for the American people. It’s time to start acting like it. Sincerely, Rich Nugent Member of Congress
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 03:45:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015