{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=NewsletterArchive&ContentRecord_id=3d7f3a29-b9e5-4896-b93e-627833e7c2cc", "Fall Newsletter", "2013-11-20", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "TN", "Lamar Alexander", "A000360", "www.alexander.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "I\u2019d like to share with you some of what I\u2019ve been working on in Washington and Tennessee this fall:\r\nStanding up for Tennessee\u2019s three ROTC programs\r\nOn Nov. 6, I announced that the U.S. Army agreed not to close three Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps (ROTC) programs in Tennessee as it had previously announced, and instead will give them two years to improve to meet the Army\u2019s current needs. We\u2019re proud of these programs \u2014 they\u2019ve produced some of our nation\u2019s outstanding military leaders. That makes the Army\u2019s announcement a major victory for East Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technology University and University of Tennessee Martin, and I applaud Congressmen Roe, Black and Fincher and Senator Corker for their leadership on this issue as well. On Nov. 8 I was in Johnson City, where I was glad to visit with students from the ROTC department at ETSU.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nClick here to read more about the Army\u2019s announcement.\r\nPresident Obama\u2019s HHS Secretary should resign\r\nOn Oct. 29 I went to the floor of the U.S. Senate and called on President Obama to relieve his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, of her duties because of the disastrous rollout of Obamacare. Taxpayers have spent more than $400 million to create exchanges that after three-and-a-half years still don\u2019t work, and this is on top of Obamacare\u2019s rising costs and fewer choices. Secretary Sebelius is refusing to answer our questions on the exchanges and tell us what went wrong. No private sector executive would escape this kind of accountability after such a poor performance.\r\nClick here to see video of my speech calling for Sebelius\u2019s resignation, and here to read more about the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.\r\nHolding the president accountable for his \u201cif you like your plan\u201d promise\r\nOn Nov. 5, I called on the Obama administration to put into law the president\u2019s promise that \u201cif you like your plan, you can keep it.\u201d During a hearing of the Senate health committee \u2013 of which I am the lead Republican \u2013 I asked Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about that promise. Today, the White House\u2019s website still says: \u201cIf you like your plan you can keep it and you don\u2019t have to change a thing due to the health care law,\u201d even though at least 5 million Americans are losing their policies starting Jan. 1, because many plans are outlawed under Obamacare. On Oct. 28, I introduced the Exchange Information Disclosure Act, which would require the administration to provide weekly reports to Congress, the states and the public on the Obamacare exchanges.\r\nClick here to see video from the Nov. 5 health committee hearing, and here to read more about my legislation requiring weekly reports on Obamacare.\r\nPassing legislation to help prevent another meningitis outbreak\r\nOn Nov. 18, the U.S. Senate passed my legislation to help prevent another meningitis outbreak like the one that killed 16 Tennesseans and sickened so many others. The House passed the legislation on Sept. 28, and it will soon become law. This legislation will fix the uncertainty over who is in charge of the sort of compounding facilities that were tied to the meningitis outbreak. We need to make it clear exactly who is on the flagpole for preventing another one.\r\nClick here to read more about the Senate\u2019s vote and to watch a video of me discussing my legislation.\r\nFixing our $17.1 trillion federal debt\r\nWe need to redouble our efforts to fix the country\u2019s $17.1 trillion federal debt. We could start by passing the plan I\u2019ve introduced with Senator Corker, the Fiscal Sustainability Act, which would reduce the growth of out-of-control entitlement spending by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. The entitlement programs driving the federal debt are unsustainable. If Congress and President Obama don\u2019t make tough decisions now to address out-of-control spending, young Americans will be forever known as the debt-paying generation. We will have watched America pass from the hands of the \u201cgreatest generation\u201d to the \u201cdebt-paying generation,\u201d with nothing to show for it but the bill.\r\nTo read more about my proposal to cut $1 trillion from the growth in entitlement spending over the next 10 years, click here.\r\nDiscussing jobs and workforce needs with the Northeast Tennessee Workforce Investment Board\r\n\r\nOn Nov. 8, I gathered with dozens of business, education and community leaders and members of the Northeast Tennessee Workforce Investment Board to talk about jobs and workforce needs. I heard from many different people about what this part of the state needs to build on its success.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFighting to help protect Tennesseans from IRS abuses\r\nI\u2019m working with U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) to pass the IRS Abuse Protection Act to require the federal government to tell taxpayers whenever the Internal Revenue Service has accessed their tax returns or other tax information. The IRS violated the First Amendment rights of the American people when it created what amounted to an enemies list of conservatives, including Tennessee Tea Party groups, to keep people quiet. This legislation, which I introduced in the U.S. Senate on Sept. 10, would require the U.S. Treasury to notify taxpayers, in writing, each time the IRS accesses their tax accounts, tax returns or other tax return information \u2013 and tell them why and how it was used. This legislation would help give taxpayers better protection to stop the IRS from violating their First Amendment constitutional rights to speak up and speak out.\r\nClick here to read more about my bill to help protect against IRS abuses.\r\n\u00a0\r\nI also thought you might be interested in the following articles:\r\nThe Tennessean: Sen. Alexander to push for weekly health exchange updates\r\nThe Hill: Alexander vows to fight Obama\u2019s policies that are \u2018hurting\u2019 US workers\r\n\r\nOp-ed by Sen. Alexander and Rep. Fincher: Act protects groups from IRS abuses", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=NewsletterArchive&ContentRecord_id=3d7f3a29-b9e5-4896-b93e-627833e7c2cc"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.802647951990366, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}