WASHINGTON – Chautauqua County’s Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning) is defending his decision to vote against a bi-partisan compromise on Wednesday that prevented the federal government from defaulting on its loans and also ended a two-and-a-half week government shutdown.
During a conference call with local media on Thursday afternoon, Reed stood by his decision to be among the 144 members of the House to vote against the spending measure, which extends government spending for next three months, but does nothing to resolve the fundamental issues of spending and deficits that divide Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Reed said as far as he was concerned, the bill did nothing to address the real financial problems that the nation is facing…
“I didn’t go to Washington DC to kick the can down the road,” Reed explained to regional media. “This question of our national debt – this question of our fiscal crisis, our debt crisis and our potential currency crisis needs to be dealt with. There was nothing, nothing, in the proposal [Wednesday night] that dealt with those issues. To me it was simply about saying, ‘We need to deal with this question now, sooner rather than later.'”
Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)
Reed also explained that he cast his “no vote” to express his frustration with congress and its inability to immediately address financial issues, even though it could have done so prior to Wednesday’s vote.
“There were opportunities to do at a minimum some spending reductions that we all agree upon and the honest proposal that we put together, in a bipartisan way,” Reed said. “There’s about $230 billion worth of spending reductions that the president has proposed in his own budget that Democrats had seemed to support and Republicans had seemed to support. So why don’t we at least do that which we agree? At a minimum, why don’t we end the special treatment for members of congress? That would have sent a signal to America that the culture of DC is changing and that’s something I was willing to support and would have voted for if it came to the floor of the House.”
Reed did say that as of Thursday, he’ll try to remain optimistic that some type of an agreement can be reached to address spending and deficits prior the January 15 deadline, but he also believes that the same differences that were present in the weeks building up to this most recent deadline will also still be present as lawmakers approach the new one at the start of 2014.
You don’t negotiate with terrorists like Reed while they have a gun to your head. The “special treatment” you’re talking about isn’t special treatment at all. the federal government is their EMPLOYER. Employers all over this country provide employer assistance for health insurance. Reed’s vote was despicable and treasonous we WILL vote Reed out of office in just over a year from now. WE WILL NOT FORGET THIS SEDITION AND TREASON!!!!
Reed was still short-sightedly trying to send a message about the deficit by voting no on the compromise to re-open the government? The treasury defaulting would have been far more ruinous than imaginable for our economy and our standing around the world if that resolution had not passed. That is exactly the problem with Rep. Reed. He is an ideologue with apparently no compunction as to the results of his actions.