Away from the talk shows and political rallies, many Members of Congress are working to end the shutdown. If the Speaker would allow the House to vote on the Senate compromise, the shutdown would end immediately. The Senate compromise requires those like me who oppose the across the board spending cuts to our military, education, health care, transportation, and many other services, to accept those cuts while we work to find smarter ways to reduce the deficit. The compromise requires those who oppose the new health care law to leave it in place and re-open the government. A majority of the House would vote for this compromise. At least twenty Republican House members have said so publicly. Many more have said so privately. It is up to the Speaker to let us vote. Many of us are listening to and talking with people in both parties. Some House Republicans are now saying in public what they have been saying privately for weeks--that their plan to end the health care law has failed. Consider this report from the New York Times: Representative Dennis A. Ross, a Florida Republican who was...elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave, said the party risked losing a fight over the scale of government while waging a quixotic war against the health care law. Though much of the government is shut down, he said, the Affordable Care Act, which is financed by its own appropriations, is moving forward unimpeded. “Republicans have to realize how many significant gains we’ve made over the last three years — and we have, not only in cutting spending but in really turning the tide on other things,” Mr. Ross said. “We can’t lose all that when there’s no connection now between the shutdown and the funding of Obamacare.” “I think now it’s a lot about pride,” he said.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 10:33:04 +0000
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