Article snippet: U.S. Senate Majority Leader the Senate will break with longstanding precedent and delay the start of its August recess until the third week of the month in order to continue to work on health care, tax reform and budget matters. The decision will eat into Senators’ time with their families and constituents, and there will likely be cancelled fundraisers and scrapped government-sponsored trips abroad. McConnell, R-KY, criticized the Democrats for the change, saying the delay comes in order to provide more time to “complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle.” “Once the Senate completes its work on health care reform, we will turn to other important issues including the National Defense Authorization Act and the backlog of critical nominations that have been mindlessly stalled by the Democrat,” said McConnell in a statement. Ten Republican senators -- David Perdue, R-GA, Steve Daines, R-MT, Mike Rounds, R-SD, Luther Strange, R-AL, Dan Sullivan, R-AK and Thorn Tillis, R-NC -- immediately released a joint statement, praising McConnell for the change. “We are glad leadership took our concerns into consideration. It is time to get results for the American people,” the senators commented. The same 10 GOP senators sent a letter on June 30 to McConnell, warning that only “33 potential working days remained before the end of the fiscal year” and that ... Link to the full article to read more