Senator Chuck Grassley
Members of Congress are scheduled for a week-long recess in October, time off Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says they should refuse and instead, stay in Washington D.C. and work.
With unresolved issues like health care and tax reform, Grassley says senators should pledge now to give up that week. Grassley’s called for the abandoning of the fall break twice on Twitter in recent days.
“It isn’t really a demand at this point,” Grassley says. “It’s kind of getting people thinking in terms of all we’ve got to do and we tend to come up short of getting everything done we need to get done and this year has been pretty worse.” Grassley, a Republican, says there’s an overwhelming amount of work which needs to be addressed and he fears there’s precious little time to plow through it all.
“We have to increase the debt limit,” Grassley says. “We have to take care of Hurricane Harvey. We have to get the funding done for next year and a lot of other things, particularly, nominations that are slow coming from the White House but even slower getting though the United States Senate.” With all of the items on the Congressional docket between now and Christmas, Grassley says they can’t afford to take another week off in October.
“What about tax reform? What about 72,000 Iowans not getting health insurance and that’s why we need to reform Obamacare?” Grassley says. “We ought to get started on infrastructure and now the economy’s going to slow down because of Hurricane Harvey.” By working that extra week, Grassley says it would help to send a message to the American people that Congress is “thoughtfully approaching our problems.”