{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://brat.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=299", "Rep. Brat on Passage of 21st Century Cures Act", "2016-11-30", "2016", "2016-11", "Republican", "House", "VA", "David Brat", "B001290", "brat.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Brat (R-Va.) issued the following statement after the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act\u00a0H.R. 34,\u00a0which funds the National Institutes\u00a0of Health (NIH) initiatives\u00a0and the\u00a0fight against opioid abuse:\r\n\u201cI represent all my constituents and their interests in Washington, and I am particularly sensitive to their needs when I am called to vote. While this bill helps fund cures for thousands of diseases including cancer and Alzheimer\u2019s, and provides funds to fight the opioid epidemic, it leaves members with a Faustian bargain.\r\nThis 996 page bill is a cynical ploy engineered by D.C. lobbyists to pit very serious diseases and concerns, some of which do have legitimate need for Federal funds, against fiscal responsibility and sanity.\r\nOver the past several months, I have met with many parents who have lost their children to the ravages of vicious diseases and to the nightmare of the heroin epidemic. I have heroic sheriffs in my district who are creating \u00a0programs to rehabilitate addicts in their prisons virtually out of thin air and lack the Federal help they need.\r\nAll my constituents deserve their interests heard in Washington, and there is no question that funds are needed \u00a0for the fight. At the same time, those funds should have flowed through the regular order process. Despite my persistent advocacy, we did not pass a budget this year, and failed to pass all the spending bills.\r\nLast year when this legislation was brought up for a floor vote,\u00a0it\u00a0was set on auto-pilot\u00a0spending. I introduced an amendment to\u00a0move funding for this legislation back into\u00a0the budget and subject to appropriations\u00a0, according to\u00a0regular order. This bill does that; but it authorizes $6 billion in discretionary spending that will not be subject to scoring by the Congressional Budget Office.\u00a0The Cures Act also creates a spending account for the FDA and NIH that is not subject to the budgetary caps. Its spending is structured in a convoluted and disingenuous way, relying on bogus savings that do not exist. For instance, the bill claims to be paid for with slush funds created by Obamacare, even though we\u2019ve promised to repeal that bill in its entirety next year. Equally problematic, each of the individual bills which were wrapped up into this one are so enormous that the connections between the benefits of the bill and how each individual bill is paid for are are almost impossible to follow.\r\nThe draft of this bill was put out the day after Thanksgiving and less than a week later, we are voting on it. We\u00a0are not taking the time to make the tough decisions on which areas the Federal government has a role to play, and which problems should be sent back to the states. Thus we are left\u00a0in the position that epidemics like opioid addiction do not receive the attention they need.\r\nThis\u00a0bill was bundled together in a week by approximately 1500 lobbyists \u2013 3 lobbyists for every 1 member of Congress.\u00a0I could not be more upset with the process used to create this. While members may be criticized for their votes on this, I believe that the true blame lies with lobbyists and leadership who are pitting funding for the neediest of our constituents against fiscal responsibility.\u201d###", 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": ["http://brat.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=299"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3114300090819597, "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"}