Pat Toomey Angered At Closed Process That Prevented Government Shutdown
Philadelphia (CBS) - Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey pointed to obstruction on behalf of the Democrats in the Senate for the passage of a plan many conservatives objected to that funds the government through September, telling Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that there should have been more debate before the vote.
"The remedy is we cannot tolerate Democrat senators blocking us from doing the ordinary appropriation bills. It is a complete disservice to our constituents to pass a 1,000-page, trillion-dollar bill that no one has read, can't be amended, there's no policy riders, there's no opportunity for a guy like me to go down to the Senate floor and say, 'Hey, I don't think the EPA should be doing x, y or z and I have an amendment here that would withhold any funds from that activity.' I ought to be able to have that argument. I might lose that argument. I might lose the vote but it's outrageous that we can't have fundamental power of the purse strings in the hands of Congress. This works very well for the Democrats because we don't get a chance to litigate the massive over-regulation of the Obama era."
He also expressed his continued frustration with the Affordable Care Act, as President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in the House continue to whip votes in favor of their re-booted health care proposal.
"Obamacare developed a mechanism that was really badly designed. They said, here's what we'll do, we'll require insurance companies to cover absolutely everyone, all at the same price, and, since... people who have very expensive health care will have an incentive to sign up, we will force young healthy people to sign up also. That's the mandate. We'll just force them to and we'll force them to pay much more than it actually costs to insure them so that there is a subsidy for the people whose healthcare costs are high. Guess what? Young, healthy people weren't stupid. They said, why do I want to pay way more than a legitimate cost for my health insurance, so they didn't sign up and they haven't signed up. That's why we have this death spiral going on in the individual and the exchange market, the collapse of the co-ops."
