Senator David Vitter (R-LA) has been busy since the new Congress convened in 2015, introducing several new bills on the first day.
One of the bills represents one of Vitter’s ongoing efforts that began in 2011. It would eliminate the $1 coin in an effort to save money. The legislation was originally introduced in 2011 and has stalled in Congress on more than one occasion, the latest case being one year ago.
“Even though many in Congress, including myself, hoped that dollar coins would eventually save taxpayers money, it’s turned out to be one of those unnecessary and, quite frankly, wasteful programs that we should eliminate,” Vitter said. “Banks and credit unions are increasingly returning the dollar coins to the Federal Reserve because people don’t want them and aren’t using them. So the most sensible thing to do is for Congress to quit spending taxpayer dollars producing and storing the unwanted coins.”
Vitter has also introduced legislation to end automatic pay increases for Members of Congress, institute term limits for Members of Congress, and prevent lawmakers from being exempt from Obamacare.
Vitter first introduced legislation in 2009 to end the automatic pay increases for Congressmen, so he is giving it another go in 2015. The legislation would permanently end automatic pay increases and force Congress to vote on a pay raise. Congress hasn’t had a pay raise since 2009.
Under Vitter’s term limits bill, no Member of the House could hold more than three terms, and no Senator could hold more than two terms.
The legislation on Obamacare would require that all Members of Congress, all Congressional staff, the President, Vice-President, and all political appointees within the administration purchase their health insurance on the Obamacare Exchange and receive the same amount of financial support from tax credits or subsidies as any American would outside of Washington.
Vitter has made a go at this before also. In 2013, he was behind legislation that would have reversed the decision made by the Office of Personnel Management to exempt Members of Congress from the Obamacare exchanges (see Legislation Introduced to Stop Lawmakers’ Exemption from Obamacare).
