releases: http://brat.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=299
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
This data as json
| url | title | date | year | month | party | chamber | state | member_name | bioguide_id | domain | scraper | source | date_source | text | has_text | collected_at | updated_at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | legacy | WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. Brat (R-Va.) issued the following statement after the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act H.R. 34, which funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiatives and the fight against opioid abuse: “I 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’s, and provides funds to fight the opioid epidemic, it leaves members with a Faustian bargain. This 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. Over 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 programs to rehabilitate addicts in their prisons virtually out of thin air and lack the Federal help they need. All my constituents deserve their interests heard in Washington, and there is no question that funds are needed for 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. Last year when this legislation was brought up for a floor vote, it was set on auto-pilot spending. I introduced an amendment to move funding for this legislation back into the budget and subject to appropriations , according to regular 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. The 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’ve 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. The draft of this bill was put out the day after Thanksgiving and less than a week later, we are voting on it. We are 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 in the position that epidemics like opioid addiction do not receive the attention they need. This bill was bundled together in a week by approximately 1500 lobbyists – 3 lobbyists for every 1 member of Congress. I 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.”### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |