Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said at a press conference on Wednesday that, unless Congress can pass a budget, healthcare reform, and a tax reform package, there should be no August recess.
Chairman Mark Meadows told reporters that Republicans need to pass significant legislation before they can go home for their recess and that includes passing a budget. The North Carolina lawmaker also explained that Congress needs to pass healthcare reform as well as tax reform that will put money back in the pockets of real Americans. Meadows said:
We need to finish the Obamacare repeal and replacement effort. Even though it is not a full repeal or a full replacement we need to go ahead and finish that. We need to agree on a set of principles on legislative text for tax reform. We need to be bold, and we need to make sure we can put it in front of the American people, which means that we need to have a corporate tax that goes down to 16%, we need to double the standard deduction which would put $1,500 back in the pockets of moms and dads and aunts and uncles, and if we have those three things done then we can go home for recess and talk about the accomplishments we have made for the American people.
Until we get results, there should be no recess.
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), the former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, detailed the long list of legislation Congress needs to pass before the end of the year, which does not even include repealing Obamacare, tax reform, and building a wall. Jordan said:
To put this all in context, before September 30th, we have CHIP reauthorization, FAA reauthorization, flood insurance reauthorization, and this little bill that has to fund the government for our fiscal year. By October we have to do a debt ceiling. Sometime before the end of this year we have to do FISA. So those are all of the things that just have to happen. We also think there should be hearings. Hearings that should take place on the CBO and the methodology and the determinations they made that led to the results on the House healthcare bill. We think there should be hearings on the Comey and Lynch matter and the investigation that they called “a matter.”
Not to mention the most important thing that the American people elected us to do which the Chairman spoke about which is repealing and replacing Obamacare. In fact, doing tax reform and reducing the tax burden on the American people, building a wall and securing our southern border, infrastructure, all those things that we have campaigned.
It’s time to make key decisions on these things that the Chairman has outlined: the debt ceiling, the Affordable Care Act repeal, and of course what the tax reform package is going to look like.
We should be here and we should get the work done. We should get the results that the American people expect us to produce.
Meadows responded to a question from the press regarding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s suggestion that Republicans should broker a deal with Democrats on healthcare reform. The Freedom Caucus chairman said, “At this point, we seem to be hamstrung and allowing eight Democrats to decide the direction of this country.”
“We, [the House] were able to do a repeal bill that most of us voted for, and the American people were willing to send it to President Trump, and to suggest Chuck Schumer wants to work on a repeal bill goes against his rhetoric,” Meadows added.
Meadows applauded McConnell for deciding to stay later into the August recess to work on healthcare, tax reform, and other priority issues. Meadows declared, “The time is now to act.”
The Freedom Caucus chair concluded, “How long do the American people have to wait for a tax cut? We have been talking about repealing Obamacare for seven years and talking about tax reform for at least 12 months; we need to pass the president’s agenda.”