Rep. Capulano (D-MA) writes:
Today the House took the first step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with S. Con. Res. 3, the Fiscal Year 2017 Republican Budget Resolution. As you know, House Republicans have been voting for years to repeal or weaken the ACA but have never proposed a replacement. They still don’t have a replacement plan but that didn’t stop them from once again acting on repealing the law. S. Con. Res. 3 is nothing more than a framework that directs four House and Senate Committees to draft legislation using a process called reconciliation to reduce the deficit by $2 billion over ten years. By using reconciliation, legislation will need just a simple majority in order to pass the Senate. Without the reconciliation process, 60 votes are required in the Senate.
This is the legislative vehicle that Republicans will use to repeal the ACA. It also will INCREASE the deficit, adding more than $9 trillion in debt over ten years. Repealing the ACA without a replacement would result in 30 million Americans losing health care coverage. It would jeopardize coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions and prohibit young people from remaining on their parents’ insurance until they are 26. Despite this reality, Congressional Republicans are unconcerned about repealing the entire ACA without any plan to replace it. I voted NO.
Rep. Amash (R-MI) posted this:
The House will vote on this atrocious, massive, wasteful budget TODAY. There’s still time to contact representatives in Congress!
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House Liberty Caucus statement on #SConRes3, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2017
January 12, 2017
The House Liberty Caucus urges opposition to S. Con. Res. 3, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2017.
This may be the worst budget ever seriously considered by Congress. It never balances, and it grows the national debt by more than $9 trillion over the next decade—to nearly $30 trillion—dwarfing debt increases proposed by even the most far-left budgets. Recent Republican budgets have reached balance in as little as eight years; this budget continuously increases the annual deficit, adding more than $1 trillion to the debt each year by 2026.
We know how this story ends because it’s the fiscal path we’re currently on, which legislators and economists across the political spectrum recognize as unsustainable. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has written on this trajectory at length, warning that the “burgeoning amount of debt . . . would have significant negative budgetary and economic consequences.” By the end of the decade, productivity and wages will be depressed, federal payments on the debt will more than triple, and a fiscal crisis will be increasingly likely.
Some people allege that this budget is necessary to begin the repeal of Obamacare. That is false. “Reconciliation instructions” to begin that process can be included in any budget.
Budget resolutions reflect congressional priorities and provide a blueprint for subsequent action. Congress should reject this head-in the-sand proposal that pushes us toward the worst fiscal crisis in our country’s history and instead adopt a budget that actually addresses excessive spending and the national debt.
Matt Weibel
Executive Director
House Liberty Caucus
Rep. Amash voted NO.
Deficit spending is inevitable when the economy is weak as it was during the Great Recession of 2009. But now that the economy has recovered, we ought to continue shrinking the deficit. It isn’t necessary to cut spending–Congress could raise taxes especially for those who can afford to pay more.
Read more here:
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/republicans-obamacare-subsidies-233618
New NY 23rd 