Our hearts have ached for far too long

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:



One year ago, a murderer walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and killed 20 elementary school children and six adults – a massacre made possible only by the rapid-fire arms he carried with him.

In the days afterward, many expressed resolve to change our laws to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again. And then nothing happened. A very modest gun safety bill was blocked by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The Republican leadership in the House refused to allow even a single vote on gun safety legislation.

The horrific news of a school shooting today in Colorado reminds us of just how little progress we have made.

In the days after the Sandy Hook tragedy, I wrote, “We can’t just keep saying, ‘Our hearts ache for the victims and their families.’ We have to bring gun violence under control.”

In the year since then, about 30,000 more people have died by gunfire in homicides, suicides, and accidents. And so I say again: Our hearts have ached for far too long. We have to bring gun violence under control.

This Budget Was a Bad Deal

Yesterday the House passed, over my objections, a so-called budget compromise that sets funding levels for federal programs for next two years.

It was a compromise in a narrow, Washington kind of sense: It got some votes from Democrats and some votes from Republicans. But in a truer sense, it was no compromise at all. It was based on the framework of “sequestration” – the harsh, unthinking spending cuts demanded by the Tea Party in 2011, when they held hostage America’s credit rating by threatening to default on our debts.

No real compromise was possible in those 2011 negotiations because they were conducted in the midst of a hostage crisis. And no compromise is possible today because we are still operating within the framework created by that hostage crisis. To unwind a small portion of draconian cuts that were illegitimately imposed is hardly a compromise at all.

Sequestration has cut research, education, infrastructure, Medicare, and a number of other critical investments that are vital to a growing economy. It is robbing America of the opportunity to rise from the Great Recession as a stronger, more vibrant nation.

The question we should ask ourselves is, "Where are we trying to go as a country?" We should be striving toward an optimistic future – one where we invest in research, education, infrastructure, and more. By that measure, this budget was a bad deal....



Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress