News from Mission Viejo’s Congressman

Congressman Gary Miller released his Weekly Roundup on Jan. 21. Miller represents California’s 42nd Congressional District, which includes all of Mission Viejo.

From the newsletter, This Week in Congress:

On Tuesday [Jan. 18], the House approved legislation to end the mandatory printing of bills and resolutions and save Americans an estimated $35 million over ten years. Current law requires the Government Printing Office to print hard copies of all bills and resolutions introduced in Congress. Whenever a Member of Congress introduces a bill or resolution, the Government Printing Office prints 200 paper copies. In the 110th Congress, Members introduced 14,042 bills and resolutions. That amounts to 2.8 million paper copies, many of which are simply thrown away for a lack of use. By eliminating the mandatory printing of every introduced bill, and instead using technology to ensure that bills are available online for anyone to examine, we can achieve significant savings to taxpayers, while still ensuring accountable and open government.

ObamaCare Repeal. On Wednesday, the House voted to repeal the job-killing government takeover of healthcare. If not repealed, the government takeover of health care will result in $2.6 trillion in new spending and continue destroying jobs, increasing the cost of care and causing budget deficits and debt to explode. Despite busting America’s budget, the healthcare takeover does nothing to lower healthcare costs or grow the economy. The Democrats’ government takeover of healthcare contains job-destroying tax hikes, spending and employer mandates, making it harder for business to create jobs. Removing these barriers will provide private-sector employers with more certainty and help the nation’s economy get back to creating jobs.

ObamaCare Replace. On Thursday, the House approved H.Res. 9, which instructs the committees of jurisdiction to recommend legislation that expands access and improves affordability of healthcare and health insurance and reforms medical liability insurance.

Next Week:
Reducing Spending: Next week the House will consider legislation to reduce FY 2011 spending levels to FY 2008 levels or less for the remainder of the fiscal year. H.Res. 38 would require the House Budget Committee to submit budget allocation levels in the Congressional Record for the remainder of FY 2011 that are set at FY 2008 spending levels. Pursuant to the rules of the 112th Congress (H.Res.5), the Budget Committee is required to file budget allocations levels to subcommittees (known as section 302(a) allocations) for fiscal year 2011 in the Congressional Record. Under the House Rules, aggregates and allocations printed in the Congressional Record would serve as the budget for the remainder of FY 2011, until Congress adopts a new budget.

YouCut: Also next week, the House is expected to consider one YouCut item. YouCut was designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress.