Resignation, Opposition to Budget, Debt Compromise
WASHINGTON -- Legislators and advocates issued statements ranging from at best resignation to outright opposition following yesterday’s votes in Congress to end the 16-day shutdown of the federal government and extending the federal government’s borrowing authority.
President Obama signed the legislation overnight, which passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 81 to 18, and which the House of Representatives approved on a 285-144 vote. The president thanked congressional leaders for “coming together and getting this done” following the Senate vote as the House prepared to take up the bill, but expressed the hope that “it won't be in the 11th hour” next time.
Local representatives voting in favor of the bill, which funds the government though Jan. 15 and raises the debt limit though Feb. 7, were U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan, D-13 Ohio, along with all his fellow Democrats in the House, and Mike Kelly, R-3 Pa. U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, voted against the legislation.
The shutdown was prompted by conservative Republicans’ insistence that any funding bill or extension of the nation’s borrowing authority contain provisions defunding the Affordable Care Act or delaying its implementation.
“I cannot support this latest resolution because it does not treat the American people fairly. It fails to offer those in eastern and southeastern Ohio any protection from the abuses, expenses, and overreach of Obamacare. And, what’s worse, this bill gives a special pass out of Obamacare for Washington politicians and big business, sticking hard-working Americans with the bill.” Johnson said.
Johnson also said he is “deeply troubled” that the legislation increases the debt limit, but “does nothing to address the main driver of the debt,” out-of-control spending in Washington. The legislation “represents Washington’s complete failure to work in good faith to solve the many serious fiscal problems America faces” and “solves nothing,” he continued. “In fact, it ensures that early next year, when the provisions of this resolution expire, we’ll be right back to where we are now.”
Tea Party Express, in a fundraising email, lamented that the Washington political establishment “continues to do the only thing they know how to do -- kick the can down the road.” Rather than repealing, defunding or delaying “the atrocious Obamacare, the political elites are content to let the ‘train wreck’ happen at the expense of the American people.” Further, the debt ceiling was increased “with no realistic plan on how to curtain the excessive spending in the future.”
Despite the differences between the political parties and branches of government, Kelly, said it was time to get back to work and focus on meeting the challenge ahead of the country.
“The American people deserve and demand a fully functioning government that lives up to its responsibilities. They also rightly demand that their government treat every taxpayer fairly under the law. That is what the past several weeks have been all about,” Kelly said. “That’s why the House acted multiple times to keep the government open in the first place and seized every opportunity to protect Americans from the unfair effects of the president’s health care law along the way. While the fight for fairness under Obamacare” -- the Affordable Care Act -- “will endure beyond tonight, Americans can now rest assured that the federal shutdown is over and that a devastating default will not happen.”
Ryan said that he preferred the issues to "be settled in a more comprehensive way [but] this is better than keeping the government closed, with 800,000 of federal workers off the job, and our country’s citizens not being able to access their government. This senseless shutdown has cost tax payers $24 billion dollars and I am pleased that with this deal the bleeding can finally stop. I hope that the damage this crisis caused has taught the Republican Tea Party that radical behavior like shutting down the government and bring our nation to the brink of default is no way to govern – and the American people will not stand for it.”
Tim Burga, Ohio AFL-CIO president, said Americans should be relieved at the reopening of the federal government and the continued solvency of the nation, but lamented that the shutdown should never have happened. He blamed the crisis on a “small minority of ideologically extreme members of Congress” who “irresponsibly ignored the well-being of our nation and their constituents to make a political statement” and who in the process hurt the national economy and many Americans.
“As these Tea Party zealots ignored the results of a presidential election, a congressional election, and a Supreme Court ruling, they went against the grain of our democracy,” Burga said. “The tactics they used and the risks they ran have no place in our politics. In their tirade, they made the case for competitive redistricting better than anyone has to date. Elected leaders that conduct the people’s business in this manner should not be able to hide behind congressional districts designed to keep them in power.”
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party took aim at U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who voted against cloture and against the final bill, blaming him for singlehandedly extending the shutdown Oct. 2 by blocking a move to conference.
"Tea Party Pat Toomey turned his back on Pennsylvania and voted to destroy America's economy," said Marc Eisenstein, Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman. The senator "has once again shown his true colors by leading the most extreme wing against a policy to reopen the government and help hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans” and “wants to continue to hold the nation's economy hostage while he fights for Tea Party policies that his constituents simply do not support”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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