Senator Burr releases statement on continuing resolution

Today, U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) released the following statement regarding today’s vote on the House-passed Continuing Resolution:

“I have voted 56 times to defeat, dismantle, and defund Obamacare. When Obamacare was first brought before the Senate in 2009, my fellow Republicans and I on the HELP Committee did everything in our power to stop this bill from moving forward. After Democrats rammed it through committee on a straight party-line vote, Senator Coburn and I spent countless hours on the Senate floor to rally against the bill and used every procedural tactic at our disposal to block its passage. Unfortunately, the 2008 elections gave Democrats an overwhelming majority in Washington, which they used to force Obamacare into law.

I believed then, as I do now, that Obamacare would be a disaster for the American people. The evidence since its passage has confirmed our worst fears—it is putting a wet blanket on job creation, squeezing more of Americans’ hard-earned take-home pay, increasing health care costs, and decreasing access to quality healthcare. That is why my colleagues and I have never given up the fight to repeal this law in its entirety and replace it with patient-centered reforms that increase access and affordability to quality care and put patients and doctors back in charge.

I voted today to advance the exact bill that a handful of my colleagues asked for. Filibustering such a bill is not only the height of hypocrisy, but also lays bare for the world the hollowness of this so-called strategy. Continuing resolution or not, Obamacare will get funded because it is largely made up of mandatory programs. A legislative strategy that takes into account neither the rules of the Senate nor the mechanics of the law you are seeking to dismantle is not much of a strategy, and making things up on the fly is not responsible governing.

Instead, I will continue to work with my colleagues to bring people together to pursue serious legislative proposals to get rid of Obamacare, and make the case to the American people of the dangers of this disastrous law.”