Tim Bishop Leads House Members in Call for End to Shutdown
U.S. Representative Tim Bishop, of Southampton, and a fellow Democratic congressman, of Florida, led 200 members of the House Saturday in demanding that House Speaker John Boehner bring a vote to the floor on a “clean” bill to end the federal government shutdown.
In a letter October 5, Bishop and Representative Patrick E. Murphy said that funding the government should not be tied to Republican efforts to block the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the president’s hallmark healthcare legislation, which is often called Obamacare.
“The solution to this crisis is a simple piece of legislation that funds the government at levels that have already passed both Chambers of Congress,” the letter states. “At this point, to attach defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act to legislation needed to re-open the government is to put our economy at risk in order to advance a political agenda.”
Bishop said the shutdown was “manufactured by the Tea Party” and not only does it damage the economy, but national security as well. “The only way forward for the GOP leadership is to abandon the extremists in their caucus and join with Democrats in finding a reasonable solution.”
On Tuesday, President Obama in a press conference once again called on Republicans to end the shutdown. In his own Tuesday press conference, Boehner said it is the president who isn’t willing to negotiate and causing the shutdown to drag on. “When it comes to the issue of funding our government, the House has passed four bills—four bills to fund our government and provide fairness to the American people under ObamaCare,” Boehner said. “Each of those four bills was rejected by the United States Senate.”
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