Kevin Roberts: “for the first time in 5 years, Congress has enacted a full budget that balances. Under our previous leadership, we only…”

“for the first time in 5 years, Congress has enacted a full budget that balances. Under our previous leadership, we only passed one budget. We have to look all the way back to 2001 to find the last time Congress passed a balanced 10-year budget. It is vitally important that we go through the regular budgeting process to ensure we are being efficient and effective when spending hard-working taxpayers' dollars. Now that we have a final budget framework, we can have the opportunity to adjust spending and make policy changes to rein in the excesses of this administration. The first step in this is the consideration of the budget reconciliation bill. We have before us a budget bill that not only reduces the Federal deficit, but it does so by dismantling many of the key provisions of the President's health care law known as ObamaCare. We are more than 5 years into its implementation; however, many of the same problems that those of us who were here during the original debate warned of are still causing harm to consumers, and new issues continue to arise. We continue, unfortunately, to see higher costs, less choice for individuals, and higher taxes. Prior to open enrollment starting, CMS released the ``2016 Marketplace Affordability Snapshot.'' This shows that across the 37 States that use the Federal marketplace, Kansas included, the cost of the second lowest silver plan, or the benchmark plan, will increase on average 7.5 percent as of next year.…”