Yoho

The Democrat caught up with Representative Ted Yoho (R-FL) to talk about the latest happenings in Washington. Here is a brief look at what Yoho has been up to. 

Yoho seeks to cut government spending

“We need to focus on getting our spending under control,” Yoho said. “We don’t have a revenue problem in this country, we have a spending problem. We need to address these things.”

Yoho said on Jan. 14 and Feb. 7, 2014, he will be in Washington to discuss the continuing resolution.

“It’s not to cut programs, it’s to reform programs so that we have the programs we’re going to need,” Yoho said. “That’s Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and nutritional programs. We need to look at them because those consume about 80-85 percent of our mandatory spending.”

He continued, “Then we need to look at revenue growth. The best way to  do that is to grow an economy by getting government out of the way of business.”

Energy

Yoho said they’re going to be voting on energy policies coming up before the end of the year. These are things which will allow an increase in energy production in this country that will lead to independence for energy.

“If you look at what’s been going on, increase in energy production in this country is way up because of the policies that allow private owners on private land to explore for natural gas and petroleum products,” Yoho said. “If you look at the federal programs, they’re down 15-20 percent down in production because of the over-regulations. If you go back to the private land, you can get a permit to start drilling within about 30 days. On government land, it takes almost a year. We’re looking to reform that process to increase production, not just on private land, but also on public land.”

The Numbers Act

“This bill is to hold the administration accountable on what they deem a success to the Affordable Care Act,” Yoho stated. “They’re saying that if they can enroll seven million by March, it’s a successful program. Instead of fighting the administration, I agree with them. If they can do that, we’ll say it’s a success. However, if you don’t reach those numbers, it’s a failure and the whole thing should be repealed and HR 3121 should be implemented as law.”

Replacement Act, HR 3121. Yoho said this bill would replace the affordable health care act. 

“It takes care of all those things we’re worried about: pre-existing medical conditions; letting adult children stay on their parent’s policies until age 26; it takes care of people that can’t afford insurance. It takes care of all those things. The important thing is it keeps healthcare out of government’s hands, and places it back between you and your doctor,” he said.

Healthcare website

Yoho said a bill in the works will hold the secretary of the health and human services accountable to get the healthcare website up and running.

“For every month it’s not up and running and it stays on the government accountability office (GAO) monitoring it, their paycheck gets deducted five percent each month. It puts pressure on the person in charge of this to get it right,” said Yoho.

“They have had three-and-a-half years to design a website. They spent over $115-118 million dollars of the American tax payers money, to create a product, a software program, to roll this out and it’s not up and running. It’s not acceptable. They would be fired in the private sector, and they need to be held accountable in our government. I think it goes beyond that. They knew it was faulty and they rolled it out anyway,” Yoho said. 

“We’re asking people to help us by going to cosponsor.gov. and they can sign up to sponsor these bills and we need public support,” Yoho said.