Jenkins: Congress action on budget, Medicare a good sign
With both houses of Congress working together to pass a balanced budget, and both of the major political parties working together on Medicare reform, Congresswoman and Holton native Lynn Jenkins appeared on Friday to be optimistic about what’s happening in Washington.
“The stars just kind of aligned,” Jenkins told an audience of about 30 on Friday morning at Holton City Hall. “The American people wanted us to put our bickering aside, come together and put people before politics and agree on some things. And that’s what we did.”
Still, those and other issues that Jenkins said area residents who may be “focused on state issues right now” should also continue to be of importance to her constituents. She also touched on international issues, transportation funding and environmental concerns during her visit to her home town that morning, noting she plans to return to Washington this week.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed “a budget that balances without raising taxes” prior to adjourning for the Easter break, she said. That, she noted, is an improvement on the frustration she and her Congressional colleagues usually feel because the Obama administration is reportedly involved in spending above the nation’s means.
“The president can’t point to a time where he thinks he could actually stop spending more of the taxpayers’ money than he takes in,” Jenkins said. “I always find that chilling, and I question anyone’s involvement in government if they’re unable to lay out, for the people that they represent, when they might be able to start living within their means.”
What’s also “exciting,” Jenkins said, is that the Senate has also passed a budget with the potential for balancing. When she returns to Congress this week, she noted, the two houses will “attempt to reconcile those two budgets,” an action which she claimed is “doable” as well as historic.
“This hasn’t been done for years, where you have two chambers on the same page,” she said.
That’s particularly evident when it comes to “safety net programs,” such as Medicare, a bill for which House Republicans and Democrats recently came together by an overwhelming majority to approve before taking off for Easter, Jenkins said. The bill addresses “the way that we pay doctors” and making other changes to the program, she added.
“When you don’t know if your doctor is going to get paid locally, you don’t know if you’re going to continue to have access to those services,” she said. “Leaders on Capitol Hill sat down and we pulled out things that we could all agree on. We came up with a policy to replace how we pay our doctors, so we could give them certainty that they’re going to get paid, and you will have certainty that they’re going to get paid and that they will be around.”
The bill, which also addresses income restrictions for Medicare recipients — “if you’re making more than $120,000 a year, we’re not sure that you’re reliant on Medicare,” she said — has also gained support in the Senate and from the president. That, she added, shows that “whatever we do in the nation’s capital has to be bipartisan if it’s going to happen at all.”
Other important items included a transportation plan that Jenkins said is set to expire this summer and needs to be reauthorized, but a way to pay for the plan needs to be found since Congressional leaders do not favor an increase in the federal gas tax. She also expressed concern over recent negotations with Iran on that country’s nuclear program, saying Iran is backtracking on a recently-approved framework for agreement on the program between that country and the West.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s overreaching on global warming issues also is of concern, Jenkins said, noting that other nations such as China and India don’t have similar restrictions on environmental protection in place. She also expressed her belief that the current administration has gone too far with environmental protection regulations.
“Do we go so far in putting limitations and regulations on that issue that we are no longer competitive internationally because other countries are not addressing it?” she asked. “Quite honestly, if we address it and India and China don’t, it’s a drop in the bucket and we are tying our hands because we can’t compete internationally, and our society is hurt. Finding that balance is what we’re trying to do.”
