The Week Just Passed:

President Obama’s Tax Hike Fever

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

1,800 NJ Families Lose Health Insurance Under Obamacare

Russia is Lying, Again and Again, About Ukraine

School Visits Convince Me the Future is in Good Hands

A Final Salute: Colonel Peter J. O’Hagan Jr., USMC-Ret. (1932-2014)

President Obama’s Tax Hike Fever

This past Tuesday, April 15^th, was the deadline for filing federal and state income tax returns.   The tax collector’s bite from your income is already too big, but it could have been worse.  Since he came to office, President Obama has proposed a whopping 442 tax hikes!  That’s an average of one every 4 ½ days!  I will continue to oppose the President’s relentless efforts to raise taxes on hard-working Americans and small business.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

I have not been reluctant to criticize the Obama Administration’s foreign policy when criticism is merited.  When it does make a smart foreign policy decision, however, I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

I applaud the State Department for its decision to deny a visa to Iran’s new representative to the United Nations.  Iran’s selection of Hamid Abutalebi was a deliberate provocation by Iran.  He is a self-confessed participant in the illegal seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979, which was a direct violation of U.S. national sovereignty, and of the 444-day-long hostage crisis that followed.   I am glad that we stood firm and have refused to let this terrorist into the United States.

1,800 NJ Families Lose Health Insurance Under Obamacare

President Obama seems to think he only has to enforce the laws he chooses to enforce, but one law even he cannot circumvent: the law of unintended consequences.

As the Star-Ledger recently reported, “The Affordable Care Act — the federal law that mandates everyone have insurance — effectively killed FamilyCare Advantage, a low-cost option for kids in New Jersey created by the state six years ago for parents who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid and other subsidized programs but too little to buy on a policy on their own. The state program was the first of its kind in the nation.”

An estimated low income 1,800 families who were enrolled in Family Care in New Jersey have lost health insurance for their children because of the Obamacare mandates.  Overall, 800,000 people in New Jersey were informed late last year that even if they liked their policies they wouldn’t be able to keep them because they didn’t meet the Obamacare mandates.  The evidence continues to mount that the Affordable Care Act is deeply flawed and will continue to result in unintended consequences for the American people.

Russia is Lying, Again and Again, About Ukraine

As the Russian threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty continues to grow, Russia’s total disregard for the truth in describing the situation has even caught the attention of the New York Times. 

The Times quotes Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Russian politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center, who maintains that the Putin government is even less concerned about the truth than the old Soviet leaders were.  She said, “We can’t trust anything. Even with the Soviet propaganda, when they were talking with the Soviet people, there were some rules. Now, there are no rules at all. You can invent anything.”

The United States must stand with Ukraine.  I urge the Administration to act on my March 24, 2014 request to the President to give Ukraine “Major Non-NATO Ally” status.  This would make available military supplies and training.  I will continue to support robust American efforts to assist Ukraine in defending itself and in putting pressure on Russia to stop its reckless adventurism.

Read further commentary from the Washington Post here.

School Visits Convince Me the Future is in Good Hands

This past week I visited four schools around the 11^th Congressional District to meet with middle and high school students.  I shared with them my views on current public policy issues and discussed with them their questions and concerns.

The students asked lots of great questions and shared a number of well-considered views on many of the important challenges facing America, including job creation, health care, national security, and personal privacy issues. 

Clearly, these young people already know a lot about our political system and government.  The level of their interest and engagement convinces me that the future will be in good hands when their generation comes of age.

A Final Salute: Colonel Peter J. O’Hagan Jr., USMC-Ret. (1932-2014)

New Jersey lost one of its greatest sons this week with the passing of Colonel Peter J. O’Hagan, Jr.  A proud Marine, a proud New Jerseyan, a public servant, and a statesman, Pete O’Hagan did so much for his country, his state, his county, and his community in his 81 years, as his obituary in the Star-Ledger reports.

I had the honor to deliver the eulogy at the Liturgy of Christian Burial offered Thursday at The Church of the Assumption in Morristown.  Pete was a dear friend and a great American and he will be sorely missed.  Our deepest sympathy to his wife, Barbara, and his children.