{"id":19740,"date":"2013-12-04T10:32:30","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T15:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=19740"},"modified":"2013-12-04T10:32:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T15:32:30","slug":"oped-the-joe-pitts-government-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=19740","title":{"rendered":"Op\/Ed: The Joe Pitts government shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>By Tom Houghton<\/strong>, <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><em>Special to The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19741\" style=\"width: 181px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Houghton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19741\" class=\" wp-image-19741 \" style=\"border: 2px solid black; margin: 4px;\" alt=\"Tom Houghton\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Houghton-214x300.jpg\" width=\"171\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Houghton-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Houghton-71x100.jpg 71w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Houghton.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 171px) 100vw, 171px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-19741\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Houghton<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As a parent, husband, self-employed attorney, former township supervisor and state representative, I watched with dismay as our Washington representative, Joe Pitts, was the only representative in southeastern Pennsylvania, who supported the recent government shutdown. Whatever you think about the new healthcare law (ACA or \u201cObamacare\u201d), shutting down our government and risking damaging our nation\u2019s credit rating, simply because you don\u2019t like a law, sets a very dangerous precedent.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As a Democrat who held elected office in a heavily republican region (southern Chester County), I do realize that there are some who support radical Tea Party-type actions from their elected officials. I must say though, from the 40,000 homes I have visited over the years during my campaigns to talk about issues that matter, the vast majority of folks simply want their elected officials to get along and compromise to get things done. Does this mean that they want you to give up on your principles once you reach office? Of course not. People are just tired of the Sen. Ted Cruz \u2018my way or the highway\u2019 approach of some radicals in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Pitts is a good man and a long-time public servant, having spent decades now as a state representative and congressman. Unfortunately, his extreme positions on a multitude of issues like jobs, the environment and women\u2019s healthcare have been harmful. In voting to shut down the government and risking our nation\u2019s credit rating because he and his other tea party members don\u2019t like a law, he has simply gone too far.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tom Houghton is a West Grove attorney who represented the 13th District in the state House of Representatives.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Tom Houghton, Special to The Times As a parent, husband, self-employed attorney, former township supervisor and state representative, I watched with dismay as our Washington representative, Joe Pitts, was the only representative in southeastern Pennsylvania, who supported the recent government shutdown. Whatever you think about the new healthcare law (ACA or \u201cObamacare\u201d), shutting down [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[320,4264,4585,4584,2530],"class_list":["post-19740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-congress","tag-obamacare","tag-shutdown","tag-tom-houghton","tag-u-s-rep-joe-pitts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}