A newly elected congressman said lawmakers had a moral obligation to stop the health care law at any cost.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has been credited as the architect of the plan to tie funding of the Affordable Care Act to the continuing resolution to fund the federal government, a plan that led earlier this week to the legislative impasse that shut down the federal government.
“We’ve talked a whole lot in this chamber about the fact that there was a vote taken, that a president was elected – and indeed we did elect a president a mere nine months ago,” Meadows said Sunday as lawmakers debated a measure to fund the government but delay ACA for one year.
“But I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that I was also elected some nine months ago, and we did not elect a dictator, we elected a president,” Meadows said.
Citing the Federalist Papers, the tea party-backed Meadows urged his fellow House Republicans to use “the power of the purse … as the most complete and effectual weapon ... for obtaining a redress of every grievance” – in this case, their opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
Meadows, who represents western North Carolina, convinced 79 of his colleagues to sign on to the letter, and he led a group of 40 lawmakers demanding that Obamacare funding be stripped from any continuing resolution approved by the House.
“It is time that we stop acting like loyal subjects and start acting like the representatives that we were voted into office to uphold,” Meadows said.
Watch the video posted Sept. 29, 2013, on YouTube:
[Image via YouTube]
