A Democratic senator admitted that Obamacare is hurting businesses and acknowledged he still has “a sliver of hope” that there won’t be a government shutdown.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) still maintained the party line that Obamacare fixes shouldn’t be part of the continuing budget resolution.
“One of the aspects of Obamacare that I think needs attention is its effects on businesses, on increasing their expenses at a time when they are recovering from the greatest recession in recent history. There are other areas that may need improvement but the way to address those issues are separately, not to hold hostage the entire nation in effect trying to decimate a program that’s been passed by the Congress, signed by the President, upheld by Supreme Court, reconfirmed by in effect a recent election when it was a central issue in the presidential race,” Blumenthal said Sunday on CNN.
“And this kind of holding hostage is really inimical to interest of the entire nation. Again, very bad for our economy, undercutting job growth and I think really calmer heads, common sense ought to prevail here.”
If there’s a shutdown, he added, “we can come back as quickly as possible to address the issues on the test separately from the resolution to continue the work of the government.”
“The sliver of hope is really for the majority of both parties. And I’m not going to try to be partisan in what I have to say, but obviously we’re talking about a very narrow fringe ideologically extremist group in the House of Representatives that has in effect refused to compromise in the way they sent back a plan that they knew was doomed. They are taking the President’s signature program and saying, you need to abandon it. And that kind of negotiating stance or public policy position simply is unreasonable and intransigent or worse,” the senator continued.
Blumenthal was asked about the stated Tea Party goal of changing the way business is done in Washington.
“The way to do business is to compromise through reasonable and sensible approaches. That’s the way that I did business for 20 years as attorney general, my state’s chief elected law enforcement officer. I was a law enforcer as a United States attorney beforehand. I have settled plenty of cases,” he said. “And there is no way to go into a negotiation and say, I’m going to destroy the President’s signature program which has been passed by the Congress and signed by the President, upheld by the Supreme Court. And by the way, it will go into effect and has gone into effect already in significant part, but it will continue to function regardless of what happens in shutting down the government.”
“In the meantime, our economy will suffer the credibility and trust and our government will be undercut. Jobs will be undermined and economic recovery will be set back. So I’m hoping still that sliver of hope that the majority of Republicans will say no to this fringe extremist ideological group that is in effect holding the nation hostage.”
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