Sen. Nelson supports permanently extending the Bush-era tax cuts that are due to expire at the end of this year for everybody making less than $1 million a year.
Health-care reform decision
Sen. Nelson feels the health-care law wasn’t perfect. But it was needed. The system was broken and we had to do something. Insurance companies were refusing to cover people or dropping those who got sick. So, we passed legislation to prevent insurers from running roughshod over people. And today, the Supreme Court upheld most of these reforms. Now, he thinks it’s time we finish the job of fixing our economy and creating more jobs.
President's new immigration policy
Sen. Nelson supports tough, fair, practical immigration laws that require people who want to become citizens to obey our laws, learn English, and get in line for citizenship. He also supports the DREAM Act, which says no law should punish children because their parents brought them here. If a child of an immigrant has worked hard and graduated from high school, they should able to go into the military or attend college.
New health-care rule
Sen. Nelson thinks this seems to solve the problem where a religious-affiliated institution won’t have to provide coverage if it’s not in keeping with its beliefs and women will have access to contraception. He still intends to review the specifics of the rule.
State of the Union
Sen. Nelson is really looking forward to working with a lot of his colleagues in a bipartisan way and in a civil way on some of the more specific proposals that the President outlined tonight, like creating manufacturing jobs right here and bringing them back from overseas. It's about time we start seeing more things designed and produced by American workers - and stamped ‘Made in the USA.’
Defense Spending
Because the Super Committee was unsuccessful, there automatically will be a half-trillion dollars more in defense cuts. President Obama and Defense Secretary Panetta have laid out a strategy for coping with these cuts in a way that’s designed to deal with current and anticipated threats. While Sen. Nelson thinks it needs to be reviewed, there clearly are savings that can be achieved in defense spending, just as in everything else. Still, when you get right down to it, the Pentagon budget must continue to be fully sufficient for a simple reason: we have to protect our country.
Payroll Tax Cut Agreement
After playing a needless and frustrating game of partisan politics, extremists in the House finally agreed to do the right thing and extend tax relief for 160 million Americans. Now we can get on with trying to solve some of the other challenges still facing our country. And hopefully we'll see a few more things done in a bipartisan spirit.
Hear what Nelson has to say.
Death of Kim Jong Il
Astronauts looking from the window of a space craft on the night side of the Earth see a Korea that is clearly divided - dark in the North and lit up with bright lights and alive in the South. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Sen. Nelson thinks this could prove to be a great opportunity for reform in North Korea.
Supercommittee
It was deeply disappointing to see rigid ideology and political partisanship once again get in the way of what the American people expect and deserve from Congress. Sen. Nelson and others have offered some good ideas to create jobs and reduce the deficit. But it seems nothing can get done until more members set aside partisanship and put people first. Meantime, Sen. Nelson's going to keep pushing for a fair tax code, cuts in government spending and preserving Medicare by, among other things, letting the program negotiate deep discounts from prescription drug-makers.
Debt Ceiling
Sen. Nelson’s office has been getting hundreds of calls on the President’s speech on the Debt ceiling. Most folks just want Congress to act, and Sen. Nelson agrees. He believes the President was right in saying both political parties bear responsibility for running up the federal debt. He is confident there will be enough votes in Congress now to avert a government shutdown with passage of more than $2.5 trillion in savings and spending cuts - none of which would impact Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.
Afghanistan
Sen. Nelson thinks it's time to start bringing our troops home. The President has listened to the military commanders in the field. He has the right idea about starting the withdrawal. In the last year we've taken out a good part of the Al Qaeda leadership, including bin Laden, in that Afghanistan, Pakistan region. And, we've helped the Afghan people chose their own form of government. We're training their military, their security forces, so they can defend themselves. Nelson agrees we shouldn't take all of our troops out all at once. We've come this far and we have to know that Afghanistan will have some ability to stabilize themselves and to prevent terrorists from taking over there again. We also cannot allow the terrorists to gain safe haven elsewhere in the region. Although Al Qaeda has metastasized to other parts of the world, they are on the run in that Afghanistan, Pakistan area. So, he thinks it is now the time for us to begin the process of bringing our troops home and for having an increased international participation in this war on terror.
Budget cutsThe House is blindly slashing programs to posture for 2012 political campaigns. What we need instead are responsible solutions to reduce the deficit. We need to go back to the pay-as-you-go spending rules that were in effect the last time we had a balanced budget. We also need to focus on creating jobs to grow the economy and the middle class. And we need to give the president a line-item budget veto just like most governors around the country have.