Day: <span>January 2, 2018</span>

Neglecting health care for kids while boosting the wealthy; how did your representative vote?

 

Passing that awful tax bill on the eve of the holidays was bad enough, but the majority in Congress compounded the felony by failing to renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program before 2017 drew to a close. A CHIP bill never came to a vote.

That means a huge package of tax cuts and tax breaks for the super-wealthy and what amounts to a private school voucher plan for K-12 are a lock, while the hard-working parents of about 8.9 million low-income American children (almost 400,000 in Texas) still don’t know if they will be able to get basic health care for their kids after existing funding runs out in a few weeks.

Want to do something about it? You can. This is an election year, and here are the members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House from Texas who voted for the tax bill while putting off the health care needs of children:

Both U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn voted for it. Cornyn won’t be up for re-election until 2020, but Cruz will be on the ballot this year. Cruz not only voted for the tax bill, but he also was the sponsor of the voucher amendment that was tacked on to it. His amendment will allow parents to spend as much as $10,000 per child per year from their tax-advantaged 529 savings accounts for K-12 tuition at religious and private schools. Previously, those accounts were limited to college tuition.

The new tax law also will add more than a trillion dollars to the deficit and potentially jeopardize some crucial programs for middle- and low-income Americans, including Social Security and Medicare, when the bills for the billionaire tax cuts come due in a few years. Here are the U.S. House members from Texas who voted for the new tax law. Some aren’t running for re-election, but most are:

Louie Gohmert (District 1), Ted Poe (District 2), Sam Johnson (District 3), John Ratcliffe (District 4), Jeb Hensarling (District 5), Joe Barton (District 6), John Culberson (District 7), Kevin Brady (District 8), Michael McCaul (District 10), Mike Conaway (District 11), Kay Granger (District 12), Mac Thornberry (District 13), Randy Weber (District 14).

Also, Bill Flores (District 17), Jodey Arrington (District 19), Lamar Smith (District 21), Pete Olson (District 22), Will Hurd (District 23), Kenny Marchant (District 24), Roger Williams (District 25), Michael Burgess (District 26), Blake Farenthold (District 27), John Carter (District 31), Pete Sessions (District 32) and Brian Babin (District 36).

Kevin Brady (District 8) also was the chief House sponsor of the tax law.

If you don’t know who represents you in the U.S. House, go to the link below, fill in your home address and under district type, select “congressional.”

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx

Elections have consequences, and this new tax law is one of them. So is the neglect of children’s health care. Now, there will be another election, and a chance for change.