Choosing to Come Together
The events of last Wednesday were nothing short of horrific. I am appalled at what I saw and fully support the prosecution of every participant and planner of the uprising. Snap impeachment, however, without a complete investigation sets a dangerous precedent. The impeachment vote may feel politically expedient to Democrats, but this is not the correct way to address the violence nor will it bring our country together. Instead we should be moving forward to work on the key challenges our country faces. I remain committed to building on our accomplishments from the past four years, which had given us one of the strongest economies in American history prior to COVID-19, as we safely reopen and rebuild.
Over the last four years, we have made unprecedented progress on trade. We updated our trade relationships and trade agreements at an historic pace – securing updated comprehensive agreements with Canada, Mexico, and South Korea; entering into Phase One agreements with China and Japan; and removing trade barriers in several other countries. We need to do more to open even greater opportunities to sell abroad as we rebuild our economy. Now is not the time to retrench or view trade agreements as leverage for unrelated and divisive issues. I will use my position on the Ways and Means Committee to keep our momentum going by addressing China and completing trade agreements with United Kingdom and Kenya.
In 2017, we enacted historic tax reform, but we still need to make permanent the tax relief for families and small businesses from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The original version of tax reform we moved out of the Ways and Means Committee included permanence, but Democrats were unwilling to provide the needed support to get that done in the final version. I will continue to encourage my colleagues on Ways and Means to provide this certainty for the American people.
The Ways and Means Committee also has an important role to play as we continue improving rural access to health care. The pandemic has shown how valuable telehealth can be in safely connecting patients and their providers while eliminating the need to travel long distances. I hope we can continue reducing barriers to those services. At the end of last year, language from my bill – the Rural Health Clinic Modernization Act – was signed into law. This language improves Rural Health Clinic payments and represents the first payment update for RHCs since 1988, which will help the 4,100 RHCs nationwide continue to provide essential primary care and preventative services in rural and underserved areas, either independently or affiliated with a hospital with fewer than 50 beds. There are still technical corrections from this bill which would need to be addressed and I will continue my work to improve rural health care.
America is the greatest country on earth. Although we find our country divided, I have the utmost confidence we will find a way to heal. As President Lincoln once said, "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Let's choose to come together, debate the issues, and move our country forward.