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Jeff Miller Weekly Message

On March 23, almost one year ago, the Democrat leadership in the House and Senate used legislative gimmickry to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act over the objections of millions of American citizens. In fact, the Democrats brought this bill up in such a disingenuous way that the only people who had the chance to read the bill completely were the people who drafted it. Even Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House, was quoted as saying, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy." That is no way to do business, and it is especially irresponsible when the business in question is an incredible expansion of the government.

We are now approaching the anniversary, and the Democrat leadership still doesn’t seem to get it. ObamaCare is an extremely unpopular bill. According to a recent national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, barely one in four Americans think their families will be better off under ObamaCare. One of the first orders of business in the Republican controlled 112th Congress was to pass H.R. 2, a bill to repeal ObamaCare. Even during the debate on H.R. 2, many Democrats showed that they still just don’t get it. They continued to use voodoo mathematics to support their bizarre claim that government run health care would save the taxpayers money. The new House majority has also voted to defund the law as part of H.R. 1, and to repeal the 1099 small business mandate. Last week, Speaker Boehner announced the House will soon vote to eliminate mandatory spending slush funds in ObamaCare.

Under ObamaCare, taxes will be imposed on individuals who try to use their Health Savings Accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicines. Taxes will even be levied on those who are healthy and decided to forego health insurance. This new tax burden is one definite way to destroy jobs in the private-sector and worsen our already ailing economy.

I believe that there are ways to improve our health care system to make it more efficient and affordable; however, many of these common sense proposals were left out of ObamaCare. ObamaCare does nothing to address potential physician shortages or physician reimbursement rates. Neglecting these two important issues place our nation’s most sick and vulnerable people at considerable risk. As baby-boomers begin to retire, physicians will see an even higher demand for their services, while also seeing drastic payment cuts for their services when treating Medicare patients. The consequence of these two actions will result in longer wait times for Medicare patients, and very well could potentially force physicians to stop treating them all together. As a result of this devastating law, seniors could be forced to leave a Medicare plan they are satisfied with—something that the President promised would never happen.

Our nation simply cannot afford ObamaCare. The damaging effects of this law are far and wide, and it is imperative that individuals, not Washington bureaucrats, are responsible for making decisions about their own personal health care. I am proud to stand with the growing number of Americans who support repealing and replacing this law with alternatives focused on expanding affordable and quality health coverage. For more than a year, citizens from across the nation have raised their objections to government run health care. The House of Representatives has already passed numerous bills to repeal and replace ObamaCare. I call on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to listen to the voice of the American people and bring all repeal and replace legislation to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote.

Jeff Miller's Weekly comments

Another week has passed in Congress with Senate Democrats refusing to acknowledge and confront our rapidly increasing national debt or dealing with last year’s budget, let alone fiscal year 2012. Majority Leader Reid’s time-wasting votes on both a Democrat proposal to cut $6 billion and our House-passed proposal to cut $57 billion were nothing more than a political stunt and did little to move the ball forward on cutting spending now.

To put this growing problem in context, I wanted to share with you some startling numbers about America’s fiscal situation:

•         The United States is now more than $14 trillion in debt, and very close to surpassing the entire annual value of goods and services produced in this country (GDP is about $14.4 trillion).

•         This record-level of debt is equal to $45,500 for EVERY American, and $127,500 for every current taxpayer.

•         The federal deficit surpassed $1 trillion each year for the past two years and is estimated to be $1.5 trillion for this year.

•         The U.S. borrows 42 cents of every dollar spent.

•         In February, the federal government reported its largest monthly deficit ever - $223 billion.  In comparison, the budget deficit for all of 2007 was just $161 billion.

Democrats proposed a budget for the remainder of 2011 that cuts only $6 billion.  That is less than 1/30 of just last month’s deficit.  That is no answer to our country’s fiscal woes.  I continue to urge all of my colleagues across the aisle to join Republicans in cutting $100 billion from the President’s budget request this year, and preparing to further reduce government spending during the upcoming FY2012 budget cycle.

Earlier this month, a Government Accountability Office Report found hundreds of duplicative federal programs.  There are fifteen agencies that deal with food safety and 80 programs for “economic development.”  More than 100 programs within the Department of Transportation manage surface transportation and twenty-four different agencies handle information technology.  Eighty-two separate programs are involved in “teacher quality.” We could save billions of dollars every year by eliminating and consolidating these duplicative programs alone.  Congress will be taking a hard look at this report as we put together next year’s budget to make sure we become more efficient by reducing the size of government.

Finally, I applaud Speaker John Boehner and the entire majority leadership team for their commitment to reducing not just yearly discretionary spending, but their pledge to tackle our entitlement programs.  Currently, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid account for more than 40 percent of our annual budget.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, at current trends these three programs will consume almost the entirety of the federal budget by 2050. We need to deal with this issue now, otherwise we will face the crushing debt problems seen in Europe.

No one is advocating cutting seniors’ benefits.  This has been a common attack thrown around on talk shows and in Washington.  But if we can make small changes now that take effect decades in the future, we can put these programs back on sound footing and make significant strides in balancing the federal budget. 

A number of people continue to argue incorrectly that we can fix our national debt by simply eliminating government waste, fraud, and abuse, or by cutting defense spending and foreign aid.  A poll late last month by the Tarrance Group found that sixty percent of Americans believe our budget problems can be solved by eliminating waste and fraud.  But even eliminating the tens of billions of dollars of waste found in the recent GAO report would barely register against our long-term national debt.  We must root out waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government, but it is not the total answer to reducing the national debt.  The poll also found that sixty-three percent believe the federal government spends more on defense and foreign aid than it does on Medicare and Social Security.  However, in FY 2010, spending for those two programs totaled more than $1.1 trillion, while funding for the Defense Department and State Department came to $712 billion.

We cannot sustain record deficit after record deficit and turn a blind eye to the problem just because the issue is difficult and the stakes are high.  Put simply, big, bold steps are needed to ensure we leave America a better country for the next generation.   I stand ready with my colleagues in Congress to move forward on entitlement reform and discretionary budget cuts in order to put our country back on a sustainable economic track.