WASHINGTON, DC — In this week's address, the President emphasized that we need to do everything we can to strengthen economic growth and job creation. This week, despite the fact that more than half of Republicans in Congress voted to shut down the government for the second time in two years, Congress managed to pass a last-minute bill to keep the government open for another ten weeks. That means that in December, we could face yet another Republican threat to shut down the government. The President emphasized that Congress needs to stop kicking the can down the road and do its job. He stressed that Republicans and Democrats need to work together to pass a budget that fully funds the government and reverses the harmful sequestration cuts, and vowed that he would not sign another shortsighted spending bill like the one Congress sent him this past week.
Showing posts with label sequestration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sequestration. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Saturday, December 14, 2013
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
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
Saturday, October 19, 2013
An Unnecessary Crisis
The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:
Earlier this week, I voted for a compromise measure that reopened the federal government through January 15, 2014 and ensures that America will pay its bills through at least February 7, 2014.
This bill ended an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. But it failed to end sequestration’s painful cuts in government services. It failed to invest in creating new jobs. It followed costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It set up the prospect of additional confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year.
Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government.
On Wednesday that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can continue paying her debts, as we have for centuries. My hope is that, in the months ahead, Speaker Boehner will follow this week’s precedent and allow votes on other pressing issues, such as job creation and immigration reform, that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. The alternative would be to continue to follow the extreme minority who shut down the government for no apparent reason, with no clear idea of what they hoped to win.
The Evidence Is Clear on School Vouchers
School “vouchers” are a longstanding conservative education reform proposal to allow parents to use taxpayer money to subsidize their children’s attendance at private schools. Proponents hope that vouchers will create a “free market” in education that will improve outcomes – but the evidence shows that, to the contrary, vouchers just drain money from public schools.
In a recent study, researchers at Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found, overall, no statistical difference in achievement between students receiving vouchers and their peers who remained in public school. In a separate study, Milwaukee voucher students did no better than their public school peers in reading, math, and science from 4th through 10th grade. Similar results were found by independent studies in D.C. and Cleveland.
Guided by such evidence, I have always opposed and voted in Congress against school vouchers. We should work to improve our public schools, not pilfer from them.
Working for You
Recently, I was contacted by a Spotswood woman who had discovered an error in her Social Security benefits: due to a mix-up, the Social Security Administration had wrongly cut her monthly benefit, and she was unable to reach anyone who could fix the problem. After I intervened, she was reimbursed more than $800 for the benefits she had missed, and she will receive the correct benefit amount moving forward.
Have you encountered a similar problem with Social Security or any other federal agency? If so, please drop me a line at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT or by sending an e-mail. I’ll be glad to help.
Sincerely,
Rush Holt
Member of Congress
Earlier this week, I voted for a compromise measure that reopened the federal government through January 15, 2014 and ensures that America will pay its bills through at least February 7, 2014.
This bill ended an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. But it failed to end sequestration’s painful cuts in government services. It failed to invest in creating new jobs. It followed costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It set up the prospect of additional confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year.
Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government.
On Wednesday that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can continue paying her debts, as we have for centuries. My hope is that, in the months ahead, Speaker Boehner will follow this week’s precedent and allow votes on other pressing issues, such as job creation and immigration reform, that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. The alternative would be to continue to follow the extreme minority who shut down the government for no apparent reason, with no clear idea of what they hoped to win.
The Evidence Is Clear on School Vouchers
School “vouchers” are a longstanding conservative education reform proposal to allow parents to use taxpayer money to subsidize their children’s attendance at private schools. Proponents hope that vouchers will create a “free market” in education that will improve outcomes – but the evidence shows that, to the contrary, vouchers just drain money from public schools.
In a recent study, researchers at Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found, overall, no statistical difference in achievement between students receiving vouchers and their peers who remained in public school. In a separate study, Milwaukee voucher students did no better than their public school peers in reading, math, and science from 4th through 10th grade. Similar results were found by independent studies in D.C. and Cleveland.
Guided by such evidence, I have always opposed and voted in Congress against school vouchers. We should work to improve our public schools, not pilfer from them.
Working for You
Recently, I was contacted by a Spotswood woman who had discovered an error in her Social Security benefits: due to a mix-up, the Social Security Administration had wrongly cut her monthly benefit, and she was unable to reach anyone who could fix the problem. After I intervened, she was reimbursed more than $800 for the benefits she had missed, and she will receive the correct benefit amount moving forward.
Have you encountered a similar problem with Social Security or any other federal agency? If so, please drop me a line at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT or by sending an e-mail. I’ll be glad to help.
Sincerely,
Rush Holt
Member of Congress
Saturday, April 27, 2013
President Obama's Weekly Address 4/27/13: Time to Replace the Sequester with a Balanced Approach to Deficit Reduction
WASHINGTON, DC— In this week’s address, President Obama said that because Republicans in Congress allowed a series of harmful, automatic budget cuts—called the sequester—to take effect, important programs like Head Start are now forced to reduce their services. After travelers were stuck for hours in airports and on planes this past week, members of Congress passed a temporary band-aid measure to stop the cuts that impact airlines — but they must do more to stop cuts to vital services for the American people. That’s why it’s time for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that makes smarter cuts and reforms in the tax code while creating jobs and strengthening the middle class.
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