Congressman Joe Garcia, D-Fla., has only been in Washington for a few months, but already he’s asking why he’s not working more to solve problems. This week, Congress is in recess and when lawmakers return, they will have essentially four days to get a deal to stop the sequester.
“I should be in Washington, we should be sitting there trying to find solutions. This is exactly why people are so frustrated with Congress,” Garcia said on Jansing & Co., “Here’s government being run by crisis”.
Garcia says the GOP is willing to talk about revenue and, on the other side, Democrats are willing to talk about entitlement reform. Both issues are sticking points in getting a solution to stop the looming sequester—$85 billion dollars in cuts that take effect March 1st.
Deficit hawks and former deficit Commission co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles just proposed another plan. The new “grand bargain” proposes re-writing the tax code and cutting $2.4 trillion dollars from the deficit.
“We need to use it as a starting point. I’m not telling you that it’s perfect…I don’t think Senator Simpson walked down from the mountain with all the solutions but I think we need to sit and start talking about this as opposed to posturing,” Garcia said. “Whether the President invites some Republican or knows his name…these are absurd postulations.”
Garcia said immigration reform is another place where Congress needs to come together. Over the weekends, Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called a leaked White House immigration plan “dead on arrival.”
“What’s wrong with it, is that the President’s for it and now Marco Rubio is against it. This is unfortunate. I know Marco Rubio just joined us on this immigration fight, but there are many of us who’ve been working on this a long time,” Garcia said.
Kristin Donnelly