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Congressman Greg Walden’s letter of May 23 states “I will always fight for the truth.“
In the July 9 article on Walden’s visit to Dufur, Raelyn Ricarte wrote: “He was chastised by Dixie Schanno for not doing enough to address immigration issues.” Walden told the crowd, “Obama had called House Speaker John Boehner to inform him that Democrats would not consider immigration reform prior to the November election.” Not true.
I don’t know what planet the congressman has been on, but the US Senate passed the Immigration bill S-744 on June 27, 2013 with a vote of 68-32.
In June 2013, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would ignore the popular, bipartisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate. The plan may have been endorsed by business leaders, labor unions, law enforcement, immigration advocates, leaders from the faith community, economists, and deficit hawks, but the Republican leader said it didn’t matter. Even if it had the votes to pass, it would never reach the House floor. Then, on June 30 this year, Boehner said that “no immigration bill would be considered this term.”
President Obama has been asking the House of Representatives to pass the immigration bill for a year. It absolutely contradicts what Congressman Greg Walden told the Dufur farmers July 3.
When discussing the President’s use of executive power to make changes in the Affordable Care Act and the lawsuit the Republicans are filing, Walden failed to note that President Bush made the same changes in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan that was passed in 2003 with a Republican Congress. Were there major problems with the rollout of Medicare Part D? Absolutely. The Medicare site, meant to help seniors pick benefit plans, was supposed to debut Oct. 13, 2005, but it didn’t go live until weeks later in November.
Do you see some similarities here with the ACA? The Democrats didn’t sue President Bush for changing the implementation dates nor did they try to repeal the law even once and certainly not the 50 times Walden has voted to repeal the ACA. Instead, they worked with their Republican colleagues and accepted the challenge of educating the country’s 43 million seniors.
Like Dixie Schanno said at the meeting with the Dufur ranchers, “It is time for Walden and other Republicans to come together with Democrats to find solutions to the nation’s problems.”
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