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Pelosi - Town Hall Protests Un-American
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
08/10/09 9:46 AM EDT
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., are decrying an "ugly campaign" by angry mobs who are disrupting town hall meetings to discuss health care reform.
The two top House Democrats penned an op-ed piece in USA Today to promote the Health Care reform legislation that is now making its way through the Congress. The bill has a price tag of more than $1 trillion and would be funded by tax increases. It would create a massive government-run insurance plan and would cut back on Medicare expenditures.
As lawmakers try to sell the plan at August town hall meetings in their districts, some have been met with angry crowds who are opposed to the steep cost of the plan and the scope of the government takeover.
Pelosi and Hoyer called the disruptions, "an ugly campaign," designed "not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue."
Pelosi and Hoyer pointed to incidents involving protesters hanging lawmakers in effigy, displaying their names on tombstones and generally shouting down any meaningful discussion.
Pelosi and Hoyer called the acts "simply un-American."
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