WASHINGTON - Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) made the following statement on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding the ongoing GOP shutdown and the bill to establish another supercommittee:
For a week the Republicans said no to a clean funding bill for the entire government unless there was defunding of health care reform. That was the bludgeon. It did not work. So they shut down the government.
It turns out that tactic was in the works for a year.
As described in Sunday’s New York Times : “One morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed ‘blueprint to defunding Obamacare,’ signed by leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups. It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans - including their cautious leaders - into cutting off financing for the entire federal government."
So now we have a shift - keep the government shut down, don’t let the government pay its bills. Why? Because the speaker said it would be ‘unconditional surrender.’ That is not what is needed. Nor do we need another supercommittee. We need to be allowed to vote. Let democracy prevail. Let us vote.
