Galveston Daily News - Weber: Texans want to ‘stay the course’
10/12/13 - John Wayne Ferguson
GALVESTON — With the U.S. government 11 days into a partial shutdown and a critical deadline on the country’s finances approaching, the congressman representing Galveston County believes that President Obama and Washington Democrats will agree to changes to the health care law passed in 2009.
“Can we get some concessions for ObamaCare — would I like that? Absolutely,” said U.S. Rep. Randy Weber said Friday. “Would I hold out for that? Absolutely.”
Weber said Friday that the stalemate between the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate would eventually reach a breaking point.
“I don’t think that (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid or the president can sustain their position of absolutely no negotiation,” he said, placing the lack of progress on a compromise on Washington Democrats.
Both parties have accused the other of not negotiating, though recent polls have shown that a majority of Americans see the GOP as the cause of the shutdown.
Weber, a freshman congressman who was elected in 2012 to fill the seat long occupied by Ron Paul, has been among the group of House Republicans pushing for wide-scale changes to the Affordable Care Act — also known as “ObamaCare.”
In August, Weber signed a letter, along with 80 other House Republicans, calling on House Speaker John Boehner and GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor to “defund the implementation and enforcement of ObamaCare in any relevant appropriations bill brought to the House floor in the 113th Congress, including any continuing appropriations bill.”
In September, he voted for a bill that would have funded the government while delaying parts of the health care law by a year. The health care delay was stripped from the bill when it was sent to the Senate, and sent back the House, beginning the shutdown that has resulted in, among other things, the furloughing of hundreds of thousands of government employees.
[Source]
20 Likes21 Comments
