Earlier this morning, I spoke with Congressman Steve King (R-IA) in an exclusive interview about new developments on his discharge petition to repeal ObamaCare. King got the first Democrat, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS) to sign the discharge petition earlier this week. He remains about 40 signatures short of forcing Nancy Pelosi to schedule a floor vote on the repeal bill, but getting the first Democrat to sign the petition shows more bipartisanship for repeal that Pelosi had for ObamaCare’s passage, King points out. I asked King why the other Democrats who voted against ObamaCare haven’t signed the discharge petition, even though they now use that vote to protect themselves in their re-election campaigns, a hypocrisy which King hopes their opponents will highlight in the midterm elections:
I also spoke with Rep. King about the tax cut expirations facing Congress, and he didn’t mince words about his disappointment with John Boehner’s remarks from last weekend on that subject. King questioned the wisdom of playing the “hole card” at the beginning of negotiations rather than the end, and said that the conservative caucus felt discouraged by his apparent concession. Thirty Democrats have signed up to extend all of the expiring tax cuts, which means Pelosi and Barack Obama are on the extreme side in this debate.
King also talks about the Tea Party and Constitution Day, for which his office released the following celebratory statement:
“Our Founding Fathers who drafted the United States Constitution were brilliant men who understood the threat posed to individual liberties by a large and intrusive federal government,” said King. “One of the ways the Founding Fathers sought to limit the power of the federal government was by reserving powers to the individual states, and to the people themselves, at the expense of a national government that would otherwise inappropriately claim them. The inclusion of the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights was a means by which our Founding Fathers intended to stop the destructive reach of a growing federal government.”
“Events occurring on September 17, 2010, underscore the importance of the Tenth Amendment. Today’s federal government has become so brazen that it claims the ability to penalize Americans for failing to purchase government approved health insurance, a power the Constitution’s drafters never sanctioned. It is the Tenth Amendment that stands in the way of these kinds of attempted power grabs by the federal government, and as Americans celebrate the anniversary of the Constitution’s signing they should also celebrate the inclusion of this important protection against government overreach.”
Be sure to watch it all.
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