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Ways & Means to Americans: Get Lost

At the Ways and Means website, one of the first things the GOP did was to cut off email contact between ordinary Americans and possibly the most powerful tax-writing committee in the Congress.

When the Republicans took control of the House, they also took control of all the House committees and the websites for those committees. At the Ways and Means website, one of the first things the GOP did was to cut off email contact between ordinary Americans and possibly the most powerful tax-writing committee in the Congress.

Back when the Democrats and chairman Sander Levin ran Ways and Means, the “Contact” dropdown included email contact to the committee. Once Dave Camp and the Republicans took over, they elected to go back to the 20th century: if you want to get in touch with Ways and Means nowadays, you’ll just have to use the telephone or snail mail. (Or you could pay to send a fax, as I did today and several times before.)

True, it’s not every day that a person has a pressing need to get in touch with Ways and Means. It’s even likely that most Americans will never feel any such need.

But for those who do, such as yours truly, it’s just one more example of Republican obstructionism. And one more example of how much was lost when the GOP took over the lower chamber.

We’re not going to stand for it. Are you?

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