{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=355729", "Griffith: \u201cIf Obamacare is good for the goose, why is it not good for the gander?\u201d", "2013-10-16", "2013", "2013-10", "Republican", "House", "VA", "Morgan Griffith", "G000568", "morgangriffith.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) issued the following statement after the House of Representatives passed the Senate amendments to raise the debt ceiling without corresponding spending cuts:\r\n\u201cIn our legislative process, each side must give up some priorities to come to a common agreement.\u00a0 Over the past several weeks, my colleagues and I made numerous attempts to compromise, but the President and the Democrat-controlled Senate never negotiated in good faith with House Republicans.\u00a0 In fact, while House Republicans were considering a proposal that would have only required the President and his political appointees to live under Obamacare like the rest of the American people, the President told House Democrats that he would veto any debt ceiling bill that included that provision.\u00a0 If Obamacare is good for the goose, why is it not good for the gander?*\u00a0 Further, the final agreement\u2019s only \u2018concession\u2019 to Republicans is that the Administration follow what is in existing law \u2013 that Americans receiving taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies be required to verify that they meet income eligibility requirements.\r\n\u201cHowever, Republicans don\u2019t control the White House or the Senate, and we did not win this Obamacare battle.\u00a0 But I continue to believe that the health care law is a train wreck that can not and will not work, and remain committed to seeing it repealed and replaced.\u00a0 \r\n\u201cIt is true that this evening\u2019s Senate amendments raise the debt ceiling for nearly four months and put us on a track to negotiations to agree to a budget for the first time since 2009.\u00a0 But the President, who once called letting the debt rise unchecked \u2018unpatriotic,\u2019 has been insisting that he won\u2019t negotiate over raising the debt ceiling.\u00a0 While hopeful, I am skeptical that the President and Senate will change course, and come to the table to constructively work with Republicans to rein in the federal government\u2019s spending addiction.\u00a0 We need a clear, disciplined, well-thought-out spending reduction plan in order to decrease our deficits and our debt, preventing us from further burdening future generations of Americans with excessive debt.\u00a0 For that reason and others, I could not in good conscience vote in favor of the Senate amendments.\u201d\r\n###\u00a0\r\n*The President would be the gander, the American people would be the goose.\r\n###", 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://morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=355729"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6709331646561623, "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"}