Tuesday, November 3, 2015
TransCanada asks US to suspend pipeline application
TORONTO – TransCanada, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S Gulf Coast, has asked the U.S. State Department to pause its review of the project.
TransCanada said Monday it had sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting that the State Department suspend its review of the pipeline application. The pipeline company said such a suspension would be appropriate while it works with Nebraska authorities for approval of its preferred route through the state that is facing legal challenges in state courts.
The move comes as the Obama administration was widely expected to reject the pipeline permit application.
"We have just received TransCanada's letter to Secretary Kerry and are reviewing it. In the meantime, consideration under the Executive Order continues," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
The White House declined to comment, referring all questions to the State Department.
The State Department review is mandated as part of the application process because the pipeline crosses an international border. The State Department does not have to grant TransCanada's request for a pause in the review process and instead can continue the review process.
Ahead of TransCanada's announcement Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama intended to make a decision on the pipeline before his presidency ends in January 2017, although he declined to elaborate on the timeline. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her main challengers for the Democratic nomination are already on record as opposing it. All of the leading Republican presidential candidates support the pipeline.
Some pipeline opponents contend that TransCanada hopes to delay the review process in hopes that a more sympathetic Republican administration will move into the White House in 2017.
"In defeat, TransCanada is asking for extra time from the referees, and clearly hoping they'll get a new head official after the election. It's time for the current umpire, President Obama, to reject this project once and for all," said environmental activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of the group 350.org.
For seven years, the fate of the 1,179-mile (1,900-kilometer) long pipeline has languished amid debates over climate change and the intensive process of extracting Alberta's oil and U.S. energy security
The Canada-to-Texas pipeline has long been a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over climate change. Critics oppose the concept of tapping the Alberta oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water and increases greenhouse gas emissions. They also express concern that pipeline leaks could potentially pollute underground aquifers that are a critical source of water to farmers on the Great Plains.
Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska, which opposes the pipeline project, said, "The route in Nebraska has been uncertain for years, the only difference now is TransCanada knows they are about to have their permit rejected so they are scrambling. President Obama can end all of this uncertainty with a stroke of a pen. It is time to reject and give farmers, ranchers and Tribal Nations peace of mind that their land and water is protected from this risky pipeline."
Cell phone and email messages were left with the spokesman for Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, but there was no immediate response.
Pipeline supporters maintain it will create jobs and boost energy independence. They also say pipelines are a safer method of transporting oil than trains, pointing to recent cases of oil train derailments.
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, said it was "unfortunate" that TransCanada "has been forced to delay the project further."
He said it's "clear" that Obama intends to deny the pipeline permit, which he claimed would have "a chilling effect on the willingness of other companies to invest in important energy infrastructure projects in the United States."
Delays in approving the pipeline have caused friction between the U.S. and the outgoing Canadian Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper was frustrated by Obama's reluctance to approve the pipeline and the issues damaged U.S-Canada relations Although incoming Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is sworn in Wednesday, supports Keystone, he argues relations with the U.S. should not hinge on the project.
Canada needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil sands production. Canada relies on the U.S. for 97 percent of its energy exports. Alberta has the world's third largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Dashcam video undermines Texas prof’s claim of racial profiling, says chief
Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism
school at the University of North Texas
A Texas journalism professor's explosive charge that police hassled her for "walking while black," a claim lodged in a guest column in the state's biggest newspaper, doesn't square with the videotape, according to the police chief.
The incident occurred when Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism school at the University of North Texas, was taking a power walk on the morning of Oct. 24 in her neighborhood in the northeast Texas town of Corinth. In a column in the Dallas Morning News four days later, the former newspaper editor described her encounter with two local cops in terms that put the police in a bad light.
“Flashing lights and sirens from a police vehicle interrupted a routine Saturday morning walk in my golf-course community in Corinth,” Bland writes in her column. “Like most African-Americans, I am familiar with the phrase ‘driving while black,’ but was I really being stopped for walking on the street in my own neighborhood?
“Yes. In the words of Sal Ruibal, ‘Walking while black is a crime in many jurisdictions. May God have mercy on our nation.’”
“If we didn’t have the video, these officers would have serious allegations against them."Bland uses the column to lay out her case for allegations of being racially profiled claiming that she was not offered a reason.
- Police Chief Debra Walthall
“I guess I was simply a brown face in an affluent neighborhood,” Bland said in her column.
But dashcam video provided by Corinth Police shows Bland walking in the middle of the street, and captures the two police officers politely advising her to stay on the side of oncoming traffic, so she can see approaching cars. After viewing the footage, Corinth Police Chief Debra Walthall told FoxNews.com she was proud of the way her officers behaved.
“When I saw the video, those officers were nothing but professional,” she said. “[The incident] just didn’t lend itself to racial profiling.
“If we didn’t have the video, these officers would have serious allegations against them," Walthall added. "It would be their word against hers. Every white officer that stops an African-American does not constitute racial profiling.”
The video shows the two police officers as they get out of their squad car, without turning on the siren as the professor claimed in her column. After telling Bland it would be safer to stay to the side of the street, one cop explains how a truck had earlier tried to pass her but she did not notice that she was in the way.
The officers ask Bland for her ID, which she did not have but she gave her name and date of birth after insisting that she take the officers’ picture “for safety’s sake.” The policemen obliged her request.
Walthall said the officers were correct to ask for identification because Bland had committed a Class C misdemeanor by impeding traffic.
“It is part of the standard procedure,” Walthall said. “There’s a legitimate purpose for doing so. She [Bland] did commit a misdemeanor. I want our officers checking ID’s on every person they encounter in situations such as this.
Bland did not immediately return requests for comment.
State Department emails conflict with Clinton’s Benghazi testimony
Newly released emails conflict with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 11-hour testimony before the Benghazi Select Committee, according to a review of the transcripts and public records.
One of the conflicts involves the role played by Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal.
Regarding the dozens of emails from him, which in many cases were forwarded to her State Department team, Clinton testified: "He's a friend of mine. He sent me information he thought might be of interest. Some of it was, some of it wasn't, some of it I forwarded to be followed up on. He had no official position in the government. And he was not at all my adviser on Libya."
But a newly released email from February 2011 shows Blumenthal advocated for a no-fly zone over Libya, writing, "U.S. might consider advancing tomorrow. Libyan helicopters and planes are raining terror on cities." The email was forwarded by Clinton to her deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan with the question, "What do you think of this idea?"
A second email from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in March 2011 also advocated for a no-fly zone, with Blair stating, "Please work on the non-fly zone, or the other options I mentioned. Oil prices are rising, markets are down. We have to be decisive."
In the end, Clinton advocated for the no-fly zone and was able to gather support within the Obama administration to implement it.
In another email from March 5, 2012, Clinton appears to use Blumenthal as what is known in intelligence circles as a "cut out," a type of intermediary to gather information, allowing the policymaker plausible deniability. In this case, the emails focused on the increasingly chaotic and fragmenting political landscape in Libya after dictator Muammar Qaddafi was removed from power.
In the one-page document, Blumenthal writes that Jonathan Powell, a former senior British government adviser to Blair, is "trying to replicate what we did in Northern Ireland by setting up secret channels between insurgents and government, and then, where appropriate, developing these negotiations." This type of backchannel discussion helped bring about the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland.
Clinton responded two hours later. "I'd like to see Powell when he's in the building," with her staff responding, "Will follow up." In both instances, Clinton's actions further undercut sworn testimony to the Select Committee that Blumenthal was “not at all my adviser on Libya.”
Another area of conflict involves security and aid requests. In an exchange with Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., Clinton told the House committee none of the requests for diplomatic security reached her. "That's over 600 requests," Pompeo said. "You've testified here this morning that you had none of those reach your desk; is that correct also?"
Clinton responded, "That's correct."
However, the State Department website, under a section on embassy security, states that the secretary has overall responsibility for the well-being of personnel on assignment. The buck does not stop with “security professionals” as Clinton has testified.
It states: “The Secretary of State, and by extension, the Chief of Mission (COM), are responsible for developing and implementing security policies and programs that provide for the protection of all U.S. Government personnel (including accompanying dependents) on official duty abroad.”
Yet, the new emails show a request for humanitarian aid sent by the late Ambassador Chris Stevens did reach her desk. The Aug. 22, 2011 email from Stevens was circulated among Clinton staff and delegated for action in under an hour.
With the overthrow of Qadaffi, Stevens wrote that the Libyan opposition, known as the TNC, would soon release a statement saying it would "insure the delivery of essential services and commodities (esp. addressing the acute shortages of fuel, children's milk, and medication for blood pressure and diabetes)."
Seventeen minutes later, Clinton responded, "Can we arrange shipments of what's requested?”
While the request for humanitarian aid from Stevens did reach her office, during her testimony, Clinton emphasized, "Chris Stevens communicated regularly with the members of my staff. He did not raise security with the members of my staff. I communicated with him about certain issues. He did not raise security with me. He raised security with the security professionals."
The emails also further depict Clinton’s treatment of sensitive material. A February 2012 email shows Clinton sent an urgent message to an office manager that a white briefing book, used for sensitive and classified information, was left on her desk. The office manager confirmed when it was correctly stored in the State Department safe.
The 7,000 pages released Friday leave no doubt that Clinton's personal account mingled information now considered classified with the mundane such as social media requests and the taping of a television period drama. On Feb. 1, 2011, Clinton sent a "Linkedin" request from a "Susan Kennedy" to a State Department IT specialist asking, "How does this work?"
An email from Feb. 23, 2012, from the State Department's senior official on Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, called "Bingo!" is fully redacted, citing the B1 exception which is classified information.
And in January that same year, Clinton wrote to an aide, "I'm addicted to Downton Abbey which runs on Sunday night and reruns on Thursday at 8pmb. Since I missed it Sunday and will again tomorrow so wondering if we could tape a DVD for me."
President Obama, meanwhile, is now under scrutiny after having told CBS’ “60 Minutes” he was not aware of Clinton's personal account – even though the White House said Friday there are emails between the two, only they will not be available under FOIA requests until after Obama leaves office.
In the “60 Minutes” interview, when asked if he knew about Clinton’s use of a private email server, Obama twice said, “No.”
At this point, between 600 and 700 emails have been identified containing classified information. An intelligence official familiar with the review says there is no such thing as "retroactive classification," the information is born classified, and the State Department only has the right to declassify information it produced.
While Clinton testified that 90-95 percent of her emails were captured by the State Department system, and nothing she sent or received was "marked classified," the State Department said that estimate represents the campaign’s data and not their own.
Ben Carson surges past Donald Trump into GOP lead in latest national poll
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has overtaken businessman Donald Trump as the top pick of Republican primary voters to be the party’s presidential nominee, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
The result marks the first time since June that the Journal/NBC News poll has found a Republican other than Mr. Trump to be leading the GOP field. Some 29 percent of GOP primary voters rank Carson as their top choice, while 23 percent favor Trump.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz rank third and fourth as the top pick of 11 percent and 10 percent of Republican primary voters, respectively.
Some 8 percent prefer former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. No other Republican garners more than 3 percent support.
Support for Mr. Carson has tripled since July, and he is the first Republican to top 50 percent when voters’s first and second choices are combined. Unlike some Republicans who surged in the GOP contest four years ago, Mr. Carson’s support has grown steadily during the primary campaign, suggesting that it may prove more durable than for those earlier candidates.
Monday, November 2, 2015
ObamaCare has cancer. And if it’s not treated quickly and aggressively, it will die
Cancer is the proliferation and growth of abnormal
cells that, over time, can invade tissue and cause severe damage to the
body’s organs. It’s often hard to spot in its early stages, but once
it’s detected, it can reach a point of no return if it isn’t treated.
That’s where ObamaCare is today. It has cancer. And if it is not treated quickly and aggressively, it will die.
The cancer started to grow soon after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, but the spread was too slow to display visible damage. But now it’s detectable, and it has started to invade much of the U.S. economy and our health care systems. Here are some of the symptoms:
Declining enrollment numbers. ObamaCare was designed to provide quality health insurance to people who couldn’t afford it – and for a few years we saw a significant number of early adopters. But a disproportionate number of them were people who previously couldn’t buy health insurance because it was too expensive or because the insurance companies wouldn’t cover their pre-existing conditions. After the ACA was passed, they jumped at the chance to get insurance – and there was a benefit for them.
If the government’s marketing efforts are successful and those who are already enrolled don’t drop out, the government predicts that 3 to 4 million people will join the system next year. But the economics that were the basis of financing ObamaCare have already been sliced in half, and there is no plan to compensate for the shortfall that will result.
Rising premiums. In the past few weeks, many state insurance regulators have approved all or most of the premium increases sought by the largest health plans in their states. When ObamaCare went into effect, many of these plans offered low rates, anticipating that they would bring in new customers.
Instead, they dug themselves a very deep hole. The customers they took on were less healthy than they expected, and they cost them much more than they’d anticipated. They priced themselves at an unsustainable rate, and now they can’t dig out because the projected number of new members has been cut in half.
You don’t need a math degree to know what a company facing this kind of loss will do to stay afloat: It will raise its prices. This change in market dynamics also has fueled a consolidation in the insurance industry, which will result in decreasing competition that will face a lot of resistance and could drive costs even higher.
The demise of the co-ops. Health care cooperatives – non-profit alternatives to for-profit insurers – were designed to drive more competition among insurers and provide more choices for consumers, especially in places where those choices are limited.
The government set aside billions of dollars in loans to prop up these co-ops, but many have failed in the last couple of months because they lacked the infrastructure they needed to market their product and they failed to understand the risk pools of the populations they were insuring.
A major flaw in government budgeting across healthcare.gov, the state exchanges and the co-ops has been the inability to forecast accurately what it will take to make new models work and keep them running. We have seen numerous explosions along the way because of this. The co-ops’ failure could indicate what will happen to underfunded state exchanges, as well.
Another key ObamaCare provision whose outcome is still in limbo is the Accountable Care Organizations, which were set up to improve the efficiencies of care.
The jury is still out on whether ACOs will be able to deliver quality care, but it is very clear that they have not received the money they need to share information across key stakeholders and coordinate care that is truly cost effective.
Employer Backlash. While the number of people without health insurance has gone down in five years from 17.5 percent to 10.7 percent, most of that is due to a vast expansion of Medicaid and to subsidies that help lower-income people buy insurance. Most of the coverage gains did not come from workers getting affordable health care from their employers.
For many employees on or near minimum wage, the plan options their employers offer are still not affordable. And in a bizarre twist, the health care law considers a worker able to afford employer-sponsored insurance if it costs 9.5 percent or less of his annual household income. But how do employers know how much the household income is when they don’t employ the entire household?
In an effort to stay afloat and not pay a penalty, some employers have resorted to coaxing their employees to get coverage from private or public exchanges. But when employees choose to go without coverage, they don’t get the care they need, and that becomes a huge problem for employers when they get sick and don’t show up to work.
At the same time, insurers are becoming increasingly reluctant to offer policies to small employers, since the employees who sign up for the insurance tend to be the ones who are less healthy and cost more. As a result, many insurers have started gaming the system – offering policies for the first year, as required by law, and then using a loophole in the law that allows them not to renew.
The projections of ObamaCare’s success were overestimated. The projections of its cost were underestimated. And we still haven’t found a way to provide health care for everyone at a price that is sustainable and ensures quality care for the long haul. There is a consistent theme in all of this: ObamaCare has cancer, and it’s spreading. Its diseased organs are now surfacing.
It’s time to recalibrate the financing of the Affordable Care Act, subject it to a rigorous analysis of what works and what doesn’t and present a new business plan that American taxpayers can live with.
Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu is an acclaimed ophthalmologist and entrepreneur who has been recognized as an international visionary in the business of medicine and health information technology. He is the founder of VitalSpring Technologies Inc., a privately held enterprise software company focused on providing employers with applications to empower them to become more sophisticated purchasers of health care. Dr. Potarazu is the founder and chairman of WellZone, a social platform for driving consumer engagement in health.
That’s where ObamaCare is today. It has cancer. And if it is not treated quickly and aggressively, it will die.
The cancer started to grow soon after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, but the spread was too slow to display visible damage. But now it’s detectable, and it has started to invade much of the U.S. economy and our health care systems. Here are some of the symptoms:
Declining enrollment numbers. ObamaCare was designed to provide quality health insurance to people who couldn’t afford it – and for a few years we saw a significant number of early adopters. But a disproportionate number of them were people who previously couldn’t buy health insurance because it was too expensive or because the insurance companies wouldn’t cover their pre-existing conditions. After the ACA was passed, they jumped at the chance to get insurance – and there was a benefit for them.
The projections of ObamaCare’s success were overestimated. The projections of its cost were underestimated. And we still haven’t found a way to provide health care for everyone at a price that is sustainable and ensures quality care for the long haul.But look at what’s happening now: The projected number of enrollees for 2016 – 20 million on the federal and state health exchanges – has been cut in half to 10 million, according to Health and Human Resources Secretary Sylvia Burwell. Most of the shortfall is attributed to young, healthier individuals who have decided not to sign up. But their contribution to the system is critical, because it helps cover the losses of the older, less healthy people who participate.
If the government’s marketing efforts are successful and those who are already enrolled don’t drop out, the government predicts that 3 to 4 million people will join the system next year. But the economics that were the basis of financing ObamaCare have already been sliced in half, and there is no plan to compensate for the shortfall that will result.
Rising premiums. In the past few weeks, many state insurance regulators have approved all or most of the premium increases sought by the largest health plans in their states. When ObamaCare went into effect, many of these plans offered low rates, anticipating that they would bring in new customers.
Instead, they dug themselves a very deep hole. The customers they took on were less healthy than they expected, and they cost them much more than they’d anticipated. They priced themselves at an unsustainable rate, and now they can’t dig out because the projected number of new members has been cut in half.
You don’t need a math degree to know what a company facing this kind of loss will do to stay afloat: It will raise its prices. This change in market dynamics also has fueled a consolidation in the insurance industry, which will result in decreasing competition that will face a lot of resistance and could drive costs even higher.
The demise of the co-ops. Health care cooperatives – non-profit alternatives to for-profit insurers – were designed to drive more competition among insurers and provide more choices for consumers, especially in places where those choices are limited.
The government set aside billions of dollars in loans to prop up these co-ops, but many have failed in the last couple of months because they lacked the infrastructure they needed to market their product and they failed to understand the risk pools of the populations they were insuring.
A major flaw in government budgeting across healthcare.gov, the state exchanges and the co-ops has been the inability to forecast accurately what it will take to make new models work and keep them running. We have seen numerous explosions along the way because of this. The co-ops’ failure could indicate what will happen to underfunded state exchanges, as well.
Another key ObamaCare provision whose outcome is still in limbo is the Accountable Care Organizations, which were set up to improve the efficiencies of care.
The jury is still out on whether ACOs will be able to deliver quality care, but it is very clear that they have not received the money they need to share information across key stakeholders and coordinate care that is truly cost effective.
Employer Backlash. While the number of people without health insurance has gone down in five years from 17.5 percent to 10.7 percent, most of that is due to a vast expansion of Medicaid and to subsidies that help lower-income people buy insurance. Most of the coverage gains did not come from workers getting affordable health care from their employers.
For many employees on or near minimum wage, the plan options their employers offer are still not affordable. And in a bizarre twist, the health care law considers a worker able to afford employer-sponsored insurance if it costs 9.5 percent or less of his annual household income. But how do employers know how much the household income is when they don’t employ the entire household?
In an effort to stay afloat and not pay a penalty, some employers have resorted to coaxing their employees to get coverage from private or public exchanges. But when employees choose to go without coverage, they don’t get the care they need, and that becomes a huge problem for employers when they get sick and don’t show up to work.
At the same time, insurers are becoming increasingly reluctant to offer policies to small employers, since the employees who sign up for the insurance tend to be the ones who are less healthy and cost more. As a result, many insurers have started gaming the system – offering policies for the first year, as required by law, and then using a loophole in the law that allows them not to renew.
The projections of ObamaCare’s success were overestimated. The projections of its cost were underestimated. And we still haven’t found a way to provide health care for everyone at a price that is sustainable and ensures quality care for the long haul. There is a consistent theme in all of this: ObamaCare has cancer, and it’s spreading. Its diseased organs are now surfacing.
It’s time to recalibrate the financing of the Affordable Care Act, subject it to a rigorous analysis of what works and what doesn’t and present a new business plan that American taxpayers can live with.
Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu is an acclaimed ophthalmologist and entrepreneur who has been recognized as an international visionary in the business of medicine and health information technology. He is the founder of VitalSpring Technologies Inc., a privately held enterprise software company focused on providing employers with applications to empower them to become more sophisticated purchasers of health care. Dr. Potarazu is the founder and chairman of WellZone, a social platform for driving consumer engagement in health.
Ryan vows 'bottom up' effort to unite GOP but signals no to helping Democrats on immigration, family leave
New House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan on Sunday renewed his vow to unify congressional Republicans but suggested no compromises with congressional Democrats on their push for immigration reform or passage of a family leave act.
The Wisconsin Republican told “Fox News Sunday” that he would change how House Republicans “do business” by ending the top-down leadership system and said the party needs a more “long-term” vision.
However, Ryan, who was elected Thursday to the speakership post, also called Democrat-backed paid family leave another federal entitlement.
“I don’t think people asked me to be speaker so I can take more money from hard-working taxpayers, so I can create some new federal entitlement,” he said.
Ryan also disagreed with all-out attempts by Washington Democrats in recent weeks to portray him as hypocritical for not supporting family leave legislation but insisting that he’d take the speakership post only if he was able to return to Wisconsin on weekends to be with his young family.
The passage of such legislation -- which would include paid maturity leave for female workers -- has been a priority for 2016 Democratic presidential candidates.
“You deserve quality time with your family,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, said at a women’s forum two weeks ago in Washington. “But every mother and father in America deserves that time too. And we Democrats will be loud and clear in calling on you to make paid family leave a priority at the outset of your speakership.”
Ryan said Sunday: “So if you’re asking me, because I want to … continue being the best dad and husband and speaker … means I should sign up for some new, unfunded entitlement, that doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Ryan’s sharpest message for Democrats was perhaps on the issue of comprehensive reform for the U.S. immigration system, led by President Obama.
Ryan, who appeared on the five major Sunday political talk shows, said no such legislation will get passed during the president’s remaining 14 months in office.
“We can’t trust this president on immigration reform,” Ryan told Fox News. “He has already proven untrustworthy because he’s tried to circumvent the legislative process with is executive orders.”
However, Ryan allowed that Democrats and Republicans could achieve consensus on the issues of border security and enforcing fines for violating federal immigration laws. He also said that no immigration-reform bills would reach the House floor unless they have support from the majority of chamber Republicans.
On the issue of uniting the House Republican conference, Ryan told Fox News: “We have to show people where we’re going and what horizon we’re shooting for. I think we’ve been bold on tactics but not on policy.”
Ryan was voted in as new speaker after a tumultuous several weeks in which dissent among the House Republican conference’s most conservative members led to Ohio GOP Rep. John Boehner resigning from the speakership.
Ryan and Republican leaders insist Ryan was recruited for the job and accepted only after forming some consensus with the conservative caucus.
“I cannot pick up where John Boehner left off,” Ryan said Sunday, in the pre-taped Fox News interview. “I can’t do things the same way. We have to do things differently.
Among the concerns raised by the conservative caucus and other rank-and-file members are: their legislation not getting a full floor vote and who gets appointed to lead the committees.
A GOP House member told FoxNews.com on Friday that Ryan agrees that more legislation should come from the committees.
And on Sunday, Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “We need to get Congress working like it was intended to by our founders, a bottom-up, consensus driven process.”
Ryan repeated that he didn’t agree with the process that last week led to the two-year budget deal, which was driven by GOP House leaders, passed with full Democrat support but few Republican votes.
He said the process “stunk” but argued that members had to agree to the proposal, which included spending and borrowing increases, because of critical Nov. 3 and Dec. 11 deadlines.
“We fight over tactics because we don’t have a vision,” Ryan said. “Leadership presented us with a bill a few days beforehand.”
He also dismissed talk that he might have to attack Republicans in the GOP-run Senate for failing, as some argue, to pass legislation coming from the House.
“I don’t think we throw any Republicans under the bus,” Ryan said. “I was not asked to dis-unify the Republican Party in the Congress. … I wasn’t made dictator of the House. I was made speaker of the House.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Tit for Tat ? ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the an...
-
NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more th...