The tone of House debate was notably different from last year’s health care brawl, which featured thousands of protesters chanting outside the Capitol and incited, in various parts of the nation, threats of violence against lawmakers, including Giffords.
Tuesday’s rhetoric, though, resembled an old-fashioned Capitol debate. Each side came ready with facts, anecdotes and hyperbole, but no personal vitriol.
Repeal “will take away new rights and freedoms, put insurance companies back in charge and balloon the deficit,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.
No, said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, the law “expands the dependency state in America for political reasons.”
Such rhetoric is hardly unusual at the Capitol. But nowhere was the tension that gripped the House for the past two years.
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