I appreciate the question from the Senator from Virginia. I would note, I do not think we should shut anything down except ObamaCare. I think we should fund it all. Indeed, I have indicated a…
I appreciate the question from the Senator from Virginia. I would note, I do not think we should shut anything down except ObamaCare. I think we should fund it all. Indeed, I have indicated a willingness--the Senator from Virginia knows well that I think we have a deep spending problem in this country and Congress has abdicated its responsibility and built a record debt.
It has gone from $10 trillion when the President was elected to now nearly $17 trillion--over a 60-percent increase. So if you ask me, do I like a continuing resolution that funds everything the Federal Government is doing without significant spending cuts, no. I would much rather have real spending cuts, roll up our sleeves and address the out-of-control spending and debt.
But I am perfectly willing to vote for a continuing resolution that maintains the status quo on everything, except for ObamaCare, because I view the gravity of ObamaCare, the threat of ObamaCare to hard-working American men and women so grave. As you know, in politics and in life you have got to pick your battles. We have to pick our battles one at a time.
So over time, I would prefer for us to work to have real spending cuts. But I do not think the avenue to doing that is that we should shut down the government. In my view, we should not shut down the government. The only way a government shutdown will happen--it may happen--is if majority leader Harry Reid and President Obama decide they want to shut down the government in order to force ObamaCare on the American people.
The Senator from Virginia is correct, and I have stated that I will not vote for a continuing resolution that funds ObamaCare. I believe this body should not vote for a continuing resolution that funds ObamaCare. Why? Because the facts show it is not working.
That is why the unions that used to support it are, one after the other, coming out against it.
That is most assuredly correct.
Thanks to the work of a whole lot of Texas men and women across the State who really worked their hearts out. Yes, we were privileged to win the primary by 14 points and to win the general election by 15 points.
I would agree with all of that.
I appreciate the question from the Senator from Virginia. He raises a very good and a fair point. I think that point is particularly valid for those Senators--I would note that all three of the Senators in the Chamber right now were elected in 2012. I think the point that he raises is particularly valid for those of us who were ruining in 2012, when this was an issue before the voters.
Now, in the hypothetical given, which I am not sure is entirely hypothetical, what I do not know is the exact representation that candidate made to the voters in his or her State, the exact statements that candidate made. I absolutely agree that he should honor the commitments made to the people. I would also note that all of us have an obligation to take note of changed circumstances, to take note of new facts that come to light, and even honoring your commitments does not mean that you ignore changed circumstances.
To give an example, prior to World War II, there were quite a few Members of this body and in the House of Representatives who campaigned and said they would keep America out of the war. Following Pearl Harbor, it was a different circumstance. It was a changed circumstance. I think, quite reasonably, people change their views.
Constituents change their views and representatives change their views based on changed circumstances. So I would submit--listen, the argument the Senator makes is a serious one. I would not encourage any Member of this body to disregard the commitments they made to their constituents.
But I would, at the same time, encourage every Member not just to keep in mind the promises made on the campaign trail but the ongoing views of their constituents, because as circumstances change all of us respond to changed circumstances including our constituents. So one must certainly respect the promises made, but at the same time in the 9 months we have been here, in the year since the 3 of us were active candidates, the situation on ObamaCare has changed.
Look, I very much was opposed to ObamaCare a year ago, 2 years ago, and 3 years ago. At the time it passed, I thought it was a bad idea. But a year ago, the unions did not oppose it. A year ago, the President had not granted exemptions for big corporations. A year ago, Members of Congress had not gone to the President and asked for an exemption and got it. A year ago, we had not seen companies all over this country forcing people into 29 hours a week. A year ago we had not seen one big corporation after another dropping their health insurance coverage, such as UPS telling 15,000 employees: Your spousal coverage is being dropped because of ObamaCare. Your husbands and wives have just lost their coverage. So I would submit that the circumstances have changed.
I appreciate the question from the Senator from Virginia as well. Look, there is no doubt President Obama was reelected. I wish he had not been. I obviously did not support his election, but the majority of the American people voted for him to be reelected. That is to his credit.
I would point out that I do not agree with one of the premises of the question proposed by the Senator from Virginia, which is namely that the national election was fought over ObamaCare. I think the national election--No. 1, President Obama is a spectacularly talented candidate, a far more talented candidate than the Republican candidate. I think Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, but not the political candidate that Barack Obama is.
But, No. 2, once we got to the general election, much to my great dismay, Republicans did not make the election about ObamaCare. In fact, if you contrast the elections in 2010 and 2012, in 2010 Republicans ran all over the country on let's stop ObamaCare. The result was a tidal wave election for Republicans in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. It resulted in new personnel in both places. It resulted in Republicans taking over the House of Representatives. It resulted in a significant number of new Republicans in this body.
In 2012, Republicans did not focus. Indeed, the general election did not make nearly as much of an issue about ObamaCare and how it was failing the American people as it should have. As a consequence, I think an awful lot of people stayed home. I will commend the Obama campaign. They did a fabulous job of mobilizing their supporters. They also did a very good job of focusing on a lot of issues other than ObamaCare. Indeed, I would suggest to the Senator from Virginia, that if the premise of his question were correct, then President Obama would have campaigned on: I passed ObamaCare. Vote for me and let's preserve ObamaCare. We would have seen TV ads saturating that this is the signature achievement. It was very interesting. That was not the campaign President Obama ran. There was almost a bipartisan agreement not to mention ObamaCare; unfortunately, Republicans did far too little of it. But it is not like the President ran a lot focusing on it either.
I appreciate the question from the Senator from Virginia. Let me say I appreciate the good faith and seriousness with which he approaches
this issue and the other issues before this body. One notable thing: Of the three Senators who are on the floor right now, all of us are freshmen. One of the things I appreciate about this freshman class, as all of us came to Washington before we were sworn in as Senators, we had a weeklong orientation process. We went and had dinners with our spouses, and we got to know each other as human beings. That is something that doesn't happen very often in Washington anymore. It used to happen in a bygone era, but it doesn't happen much anymore.
One of the interesting consequences that not many people have commented about--but it is something I find quite significant--is in the freshman class there were far more Democrats than Republicans, but to the best of my knowledge, no freshman has spoken ill of another freshman. I am not aware of it if it has happened. I think part of the reason for that was spending that time together, getting to know each other as people.
The Senator from Virginia and I disagree on a number of issues. Yet I hope and believe that we each understand that the other is operating in good faith based on principles he believes are correct. That is a foundation for actually solving problems and moving forward in this country.
One of the unfortunate consequences as you see both sides of this Chamber pommel each other is that many of us don't even know each other. One of the interesting dynamics, from my perspective, is that many of the senior Democrats frequently choose to say some fairly strident things directed at me. Many of them I don't really know. I haven't had the opportunity to get to know them, and I have had conversations with freshman Democrats asking the senior Republicans: Do you know them? The answer I have been told is, not really. We sit on committees, but most of us are on four or five committees. We are running from one hearing to another. You often run into a hearing, you ask a few questions, you run out, and you are off to the next meeting. You are meeting with your constituents, you are doing this and doing that. You don't have an opportunity to get to know each other. I am hopeful that the good will we have seen among the freshmen can spill over more broadly.
I wish to say also, on the point the Senator from Virginia made about reasonable and productive amendments to improve the system, look, it is very difficult to have the sorts of reforms I have talked about with ObamaCare in place because ObamaCare has so dominated the health care market. It has made government the chief mover and operator. You can't have positive free market reforms with ObamaCare there. The approach I am advocating doesn't work as long as ObamaCare makes the government the chief mover and operator. That is much the same in situations and nations that have adopted single-payer socialized health.
I would note that the Senator from Virginia expressed an interest in positive reforms to address some of the most egregious aspects of health care. I would encourage the Senator from Virginia to direct those comments to the majority leader of this body because the majority leader of this body has decided on this vote, that we will have one amendment and one amendment only, as far as I understand. That amendment will be funding ObamaCare in its entirety. The majority leader has decided we are not going to have amendments on the sorts of things the Senator from Virginia suggested, ways to improve the system.
If, for example, the majority leader does not want an amendment, apparently, on addressing the medical devices tax--a large majority of Senators in this body voted during the Budget proceeding against the medical devices tax because we understand it is killing jobs, destroying innovation, and it is one of the most punitive, destructive aspects of this bill. Yet the majority leader, as I understand it, said we are not going to have a vote on that. Why? Because that would actually affirmatively help fix things, and so we are not going to do that. I am putting words into the why, but that is the only reason I can think of.
Another example is Senator Vitter's amendment to repeal the congressional exemption. I understand many Members of Congress don't want to be in the exchanges, don't want to lose their subsidy, don't want to have the same rules apply to them that apply to millions of Americans. I understand that personally, but I think it is utterly indefensible for Members of Congress to be treated better than the American people. I think we ought to have a vote on the Vitter amendment.
I have stated before that I think it ought to be expanded so that every Member of Congress, all the congressional staff, the President, the political appointees, and every Federal employee should be subject to ObamaCare. They shouldn't be exempted. There shouldn't be a gilded class in Washington that operates on different rules than those of the American people. That would be a positive reform indeed. Indeed, I would suggest it would be a populist reform. Yet the majority leader has said: No, we can't vote on that. I am going to assume part of the reason is because having a debate on that, on the merits--the position that Congress should have a privileged position is indefensible.
Another example: The House of Representatives has voted to delay the individual mandate. They have said: Listen, if you are going to delay the employer's mandate for big businesses, why treat big businesses better than individuals and hard-working American families? Let's delay them both. If you are going to delay one, delay them both.
That passed the majority of the House--and, indeed, a considerable number of Democrats. I don't have the number in front of me, but a considerable number of Democrats in the House voted for that. The majority leader of the Senate has said: No, we are not going to vote on that.
Yet another instance: We have all been astonished and dismayed by the abuse that has occurred in the IRS that has been made public and has been admitted to. Quite a number of Members of this body would like to see the IRS removed from enforcing ObamaCare.
That is a position a large majority of Americans support. The majority leader of this body, as I understand it, has said: No, we can't vote on that. We are not going to have that positive reform. We are not going to have a vote. We are only going to vote to fund it all.
There are a great many amendments we could make that would make this situation better. It is only because the majority leader has decided to shut down the Senate to not make this process worse, but we are not having those amendments.
I thank the Senator from Virginia. I would urge him to make those arguments to the leader of his party and this institution so that we can have full and open debate and vote on these amendments because this isn't working. It is fundamentally not working. We need to respond to the American people. We need to listen to the American people, and we need to fix it.
At this point I wish to return to reading some more tweets. As the night goes on, I hope to read even more tweets. I would encourage anyone who would like to see--the folks in the gallery who just waved, I am not sure if they have their electronics. If you do tweet, it may end up here and I may have the chance to read it, the ``MakeDCListen.''
Make D.C. listen because ``We the People'' are on to you
and will not stand for tyranny. Hoorah.
I like that.
Defund ObamaCare because if I can't get a job now, what
hope will I have later. Make D.C. listen.
Make D.C. listen because it makes entry-level jobs
disappear for young Americans.
Make D.C. listen because I want to keep my own doctor.
Defund ObamaCare because we don't want government-run health
care. Make D.C. listen.
ObamaCare is a job killer. We can't afford it. Make D.C.
listen.
Make D.C. listen. If it is bad for Congress, they have no
right to force it on their constituents. Vote to defund it.
I want my 40 hours. Make D.C. listen.
Start listening to the people instead of who is lining your
pockets. We are the ones who vote. Make D.C. listen.
Here is a tweet from Greg Abbott, my former boss, the attorney general of Texas, who is running for Governor of Texas, and a very good man.
ObamaCare is destructive to our economy, to jobs, to
liberty, and to health care access. Make D.C. listen.
Thanks, boss. I appreciate it, and I agree.
Make D.C. listen by committing to always cast your vote for
those who do listen and act accordingly.
Make D.C. listen because government is too large already.
ObamaCare violates our rights. We cannot, as America, allow
this ``solution'' to continue. Make D.C. listen.
Small business owners. If ObamaCare is implemented, I will
be forced to drop my group insurance for my employees. Make
D.C. listen.
When can the citizens expect our way. If everyone else is
getting them, shouldn't we make D.C. listen?
That is a great point. Why is it that President Obama treats giant corporations and Members of Congress better than hard-working Americans? I think it is indefensible. Yet this body right now, unless we act differently, is going to allow that status quo to continue.
The same Senators should live by the same rules as the
American people and should not be controversial. It should be
obvious. Make D.C. listen.
That is exactly right.
Congress has exempted itself and staffers from the
monstrous law for an obvious reason. Don't we deserve the
same? Make D.C. listen.
Make D.C. listen. Make Americans finally see what is in the
bill, and we hate it.
Thank you for standing up to the status quo in D.C.
Senate phone lines are jammed. Start using facts, social
media. Go to . . .
And it lists a private Web site for a list of Twitter accounts.
Make D.C. listen.
I think that point, by the way, is really quite potent, that as effective as the phones are--I think the phones are very effective-- there is e-mail, Facebook, Twitter. There are an awful lot of ways for the American people to speak up and make DC listen.
Today the Cleveland Clinic saved my dad's life. The U.S.
Senate saved their jobs. Make D.C. listen.
That is powerful.
How can any American support a law that punishes success.
That is unAmerican. Defund ObamaCare now. Make D.C. listen.
Defund ObamaCare because it is a tax that was never read
until it was passed. ``We the People'' demand representation.
Make D.C. listen.
Defund ObamaCare because it will ruin our generation and
will destroy America and the American Dream. Make D.C.
listen.
ObamaCare is destructive to our country. Defund ObamaCare.
Stand up for our freedom. Make D.C. listen.
If ObamaCare is so great, why is everyone not going to have
it? Make D.C. listen.
The Congress, the President, and Federal workers have
forgotten they work for us and should have to obey the same
laws and rules we do. Make D.C. listen.
Make D.C. listen. My children cannot get full-time jobs
because of ObamaCare. Can't wait to see how much my premiums
will go up during open enrollment. Defund ObamaCare because
it is not good enough for Congress. Make D.C. listen.
The American people are screaming to STOP OBAMACARE. Make
DC listen. Leave us alone.
At this point I want to talk about the topic of rate shock. We all remember some 3\1/2\ years ago when President Obama told the American people that by the end of his first term the average American family's health insurance premiums would drop by $2,500. The end of his first term, as we know, was last year, and that hasn't happened. That has not been the effect.
What has happened instead? According to a Kaiser Family Foundation report in 2012, the average cost of premiums for family coverage has risen by more than $3,000 since 2008. Now, $3,000 compared to $2,500 is a $5,500 swing. That is a big swing. That is a big impact for any hard- working American family.
But you know who is impacted the most? Those who are struggling the most. Single moms, working one or two jobs trying to feed their kids, trying to put food on the table. You know, $5,500 a year is a real difference. The consistent pattern is that the people who are the biggest losers under ObamaCare are the most vulnerable among us--they are young people, African Americans, Hispanics, single moms. They are the ones not able to get jobs, they are the ones being laid off from their jobs, they are the ones being forcibly put into part-time work at 29 hours a week, they are the ones facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and they are the ones losing their health insurance.
The actuarial firm of Oliver Wyman estimates premiums in the individual market will increase an average of 40 percent. The Society of Actuaries estimates an average premium increase of 32 percent in the individual markets.
The Obama administration unilaterally delayed a provision of the law that limits out-of-pocket payments--e.g., deductibles, copayments--to $6,350 per individual or $12,700 per family.
According to Avik Roy, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and writer for Forbes.com:
If you compare the cheapest plan on health care.gov to the
cheapest ``bronze plan'' on the new Covered California
insurance exchange, premiums for healthy 25 year olds will
increase by 147 percent, a median of $183 on the exchange
versus $74 today; and premiums for healthy 40 year olds will
increase by 149 percent, a median of $234 on the exchange
versus $94 today. And because California bars insurers from
charging different rates based on gender--and so do Colorado,
Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington--the war on young
people's premiums will fare just as poorly for women in
California and many other States. Despite ObamaCare
subsidies, many Americans will still be paying higher
premiums in 2014 as a result of ObamaCare.
Even with the government subsidy they are going to be paying higher premiums.
For example, Americans earning as little as $25,000 will
still pay more, even including subsidies.
The Ohio Department of Insurance--we talked about this earlier, how every 4 years both parties focus rather intensely on Ohio. When it is a Presidential year, when it is a swing State, suddenly Ohio is the center of the universe. We get to 2013, a nonpresidential year, and Ohio seems to command an awful lot less attention in this body. But what is happening in Ohio? Well, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced ObamaCare will increase individual market health premiums by 88 percent. That is not a mild increase. That is not a percent or two. Eighty-eight percent is a big deal for a family struggling to pay their bills.
In California, ObamaCare is estimated to have increased individual health insurance premiums by anywhere from 64 percent to 146 percent.
In Florida, Florida's insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty told the Palm Beach Post that insurance rates will rise by 5 to 20 percent in the small group market and by 30 to 40 percent in the individual market.
If the men and women in America can easily afford to pay an extra 30, 40 percent or, in the case of California an extra 146 percent on health insurance, then we don't have anything to be worried about. But when I travel home that is not what the men and women of America tell me. That is not what Texans say. Texans say they are working hard to make ends meet; that their life has gotten harder because of ObamaCare.
A constituent in Vidalia, TX, wrote on September 19, 2013:
I decided to do some research on ObamaCare insurance for me
and my husband since neither of us have any insurance. I used
the calculator to calculate how much ``affordable insurance''
would cost us. I had really hoped this might be our chance to
get insurance. To my SHOCK it would cost us $16,026, and this
was for the silver plan, which only pays 70 percent. My
husband is disabled and receives Social Security benefits,
but they say he cannot get Medicaid for 2 years after he was
approved. He has another year before he qualifies. He is 62
and I am 56, and we have been without insurance since he lost
his job 4 years ago. There is no possible way to pay $16,026
from our take-home pay, plus have to pay an additional 30
percent cost on any health costs we may incur. This is not
affordable health care. The crime of it all is that if my
husband and I do not enroll we will be fined. This is crazy.
Please stop this madness.
I will pass on some more words from Texans. Today we received welcome news of support from several of our friends in the Texas legislature who are backing our effort to fund the government and to defund ObamaCare. The Texas Conservative Coalition--67 members of the Texas legislature--released a letter which I would like to read. It begins:
Dear Senators Cornyn and Cruz and Texas Members of the
House of Representatives: Representing the State of Texas,
with its 26 million people, we write at this most urgent hour
for you to do all you can to defund ObamaCare and fund the
Federal Government.
We have done all that we can to help stop ObamaCare from
harming Texans. No. 1, we refused to create the ObamaCare
health exchanges and No. 2 we have refused to expand the
Medicaid Program under the false pretense of taking Federal
money now while burdening taxpayers with millions of dollars
in new costs later.
But some of the most pernicious parts of ObamaCare can only
be stopped at the Federal level. Only you can stop the
Federal
Government from enforcing the individual mandates. Only
you can stop the government from creating a new budget-
busting entitlement that will drive up the cost of
insurance around the country. Only you can stop Federal
bureaucrats from drafting and imposing thousands of pages
of redtape. And only you can stop the Federal Government
from destroying the quality of our health care system.
Therefore, we applaud the action of the United States House
of Representatives on Friday, September 20, 2013, to pass a
bill that defunds ObamaCare and funds the Federal Government.
Next, it is up to Senators Cornyn and Cruz to hold the line
and make sure Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid
does not use procedural tricks to strip the defunding
language from the House bill.
I would note--and this is not in the letter, this is me speaking-- this is exactly the debate we are in the middle of right now. The vote on Friday or Saturday on cloture is going to be the critical vote in this battle in the Senate. If Republicans stand together, we can prevent Harry Reid from shutting off debate, we can prevent Harry Reid from funding ObamaCare using 51 Democratic votes on a straight party- line vote. But that is only if Republicans stand together. If Republicans, instead, choose to vote for Harry Reid, choose to vote for giving the Democrats the ability to fund ObamaCare, then that too will be our responsibility. And it will be incumbent upon each of us to explain to our constituents why we voted to allow Harry Reid and the Democrats to fund ObamaCare despite the fact it is destroying jobs and hurting millions of Americans.
Returning to the letter:
We know Republican Senators will need continued support
from the Republican-led House to prevent Democrats from
funding ObamaCare. Together, we can prevail. Remember the
spirit of so many Texans who have fought much worse odds in
the past. Stay strong, stay resolute, and do not give in.
I am thankful my home State of Texas has such principled conservatives among its elected officials to have fought hard to resist ObamaCare, and I am very grateful for their support and their encouragement. Their leadership is the reason Texas has one of the strongest economies in the Nation and is one of the fastest growing States in the Nation. Texas is proof that conservative principles put in practice actually work and provide opportunity for the most vulnerable among us.
There is a reason why so many people from all across this country are moving to Texas, and it is because Texas is where the jobs are. If you look across this country, ObamaCare is killing jobs all over this Nation.
I want to look now at the impact to my home State of Texas. ObamaCare will devastate jobs, growth, and the economy. It hasn't even been fully implemented and yet it is already hurting Americans, even those in conservative States that have worked hard to resist the influence of ObamaCare.
According to the Advisory Board's Daily Briefing, 15 Governors are opposing Medicaid expansion. I applaud those conservative leaders-- Governor Haley in South Carolina, Governor Walker in Michigan, Governor Jindal in Louisiana, Governor Bentley in Alabama, Governor Brownback in Kansas, and many others--but particularly Governor Perry in my home State of Texas. Texas leaders in the House and Senate elected statewide have stood united to resist the influence of ObamaCare in our State. But the tragedy is, even with their efforts, Texans still aren't exempt from its negative impact.
Governor Perry in March of 2012 said:
ObamaCare will cost the State of Texas at least $27 billion
over the next 10 years.
Senator Jane Nelson, Texas Senator and chair of the Senate House of Health and Human Services, said in September 2012:
ObamaCare is the wrong approach to our health care
challenges. It does more harm than good. It will hurt our
economy, eliminate jobs, balloon the State budget, and
perhaps most importantly stretch to the limit our already
overburdened health care system.
Senator Nelson also observed:
Texas is a large, geographically diverse border State with
challenges that are unique from other States. The one-size-
fits-all approach of ObamaCare is wrong for Texas. If given
the opportunity, we can design an efficient system that
better meets the needs of our citizens.
In March of 2012 Senator Nelson observed:
ObamaCare creates more problems than it solves, ballooning
the deficit, overwhelming our health system, and burdening
employers at a time when they are just struggling to survive.
In March of 2010 Senator Nelson observed:
In Texas, I am deeply concerned about the devastating
impacts Federal health care reforms will have on our State
budget. The Health and Human Services Commission estimates it
will cost up to $24 billion over a 10-year period.
Considering our projected budget shortfalls for the upcoming
legislative session will be somewhere between $9 billion and
$16 billion, it is clear that our Health and Human Services
budget--which accounts for a third of the total spending
already--will continue to consume precious resources that
would otherwise be available for our schools, our highways,
and other important services. I am concerned that the Federal
Government's plan will jeopardize our efforts on the State
level. One size does not fit all, especially in Texas. Our
State government spreads more health care dollars across more
terrain than any other State. We have challenges along the
border in our remote rural areas and in our inner cities that
are unique to our State and our costs will be
disproportionately high.
One could perhaps listen to those who say: Those are conservative Republicans. We expect conservative Republicans to oppose ObamaCare. But how about others? How about those who are not conservative Republicans? On April 24, 2013, the United Union of Roofers published a press release opposing ObamaCare because it jeopardizes their existing health plans. Their press release read: Roofers union seeks repeal- reform of Affordable Care Act. Cites loss of benefits to members, harm to industry and multiemployer health plans.
Washington, DC. The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers, and Allied Workers International President Kinsey M. Robinson issued the following statement on April 16, 2013, calling for a repeal or complete reform of the President's Affordable Care Act.
This is not the union calling for a slight adjustment. This is the union calling for repeal: Repeal the law outright.
Our union and its members have supported President Obama
and his administration for both of his terms in office.
So these are President Obama's supporters. These are the labor unions.
But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in
the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances totally
ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the
act's provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in
unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the
promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-
sponsored coverage could keep it. These provisions jeopardize
our multi-employer health plans and have the potential to
cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair
bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide
health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case may
cause our members and their families to lose the benefits
they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health
benefits.
For decades, our multi-employer health and welfare plans
have provided the necessary medical coverage for our members
and their families to protect them in times of illness and
medical needs. This collaboration between labor and
management has been a model of success that should be
emulated rather than ignored. I refuse to remain silent or
idly watch as the ACA destroys those protections.
Let me read that sentence again, because that is coming from the leader of a labor union that has supported President Obama in two elections:
I refuse to remain silent or idly watch as the ACA destroys
those protections. I therefore call for repeal or complete
reform of the Affordable Care Act to protect our employers,
our industry, and our most important asset, our members and
their families.
Let me ask right now. Do Members of the Senate have concern for hard- working union members? Do Members of the Senate have concern for the families of hard-working union members who are saying in writing, We supported the President, but this law isn't working?
If Members of the Senate were listening to the people, this letter would get our attention. If Members of the Senate were listening to the people, Democratic Senators and Republican Senators would stand up and say, This thing isn't working.
The IRS employees union doesn't want to be subject to ObamaCare. The union representing IRS workers, tasked with enforcing ObamaCare, vocally opposes participating in the law's exchanges. IRS union leaders provided their members with a form letter expressing concern with legislation to ``push Federal employees out of the
Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.''
Now I want to focus on exactly what happened here. The IRS employees' union sent letters to their members, form letters, drafted to you and me, drafted to Members of this Senate, where the IRS employees union asked the IRS employees: Write a letter to your Senators, write a letter to your congressmen saying, Exempt us from ObamaCare. Apparently, the IRS employees union believes Congress will listen to them.
How about the American people? These are the men and women in charge of enforcing ObamaCare. These are the men and women the statute gives the responsibility to go to every hard-working American and say, We are going to force you to participate in ObamaCare. They don't want to be in it. I would suggest that is not an accident. They know exactly what they don't want to be a part of, and the fact that they have sent those letters ought to be a warning call that sounds from the high heavens.
And yet another example--and this is an example I have made multiple references to tonight--is a letter from the Teamsters. I would note that neither Leader Reid nor Leader Pelosi on the House side are on the floor. Neither are listening or participating in this debate.
Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi. When you and the
President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you
pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we
could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right
now, unless you and the Obama administration enact an
equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned
health benefits but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour
workweek that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Like millions of other Americans, our members are the
frontline workers in the American economy. We have been
strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should
have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also
been strong supporters of you.
This is directed to majority leader Harry Reid and minority leader Nancy Pelosi.
In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground,
gone door to door to get out the vote, run phone banks, and
raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come
back to haunt us.
Let me read that again. This is the president of the Teamsters describing the political efforts that members of the Teamsters all over this country have done to elect Democrats to the Senate and the House. In his words, he said, because of ObamaCare and their vision of supporting Democrats politically, ``Now this vision has come back to haunt us.'' If that doesn't get the attention of the men and women in this body, I don't know what does.
The letter continues:
Since the ACA was enacted we have been bringing our deep
concerns to the administration seeking reasonable regulatory
interpretations of the statute and to help prevent the
destruction of nonprofit health plans. As you both know
firsthand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and
met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent
agencies.
The average American does not have the political sway that a major labor union like the Teamsters has. The average American especially does not have the political sway that a major labor union has with this President--a Democratic President--with a Democratic majority in the Senate. And yet the head of the Teamsters says that:
. . . their persuasive arguments have been disregarded and
they have been met with a stone wall by the White House and
the pertinent agencies.
If a powerful labor union with friends in high office in Washington is met with a stone wall, what is the average American met with? Do you think the reception is more welcoming to the average American? Perhaps the average American doesn't even get to see that stone wall to be rejected, doesn't even have the forum to raise those arguments to have them disregard and rejected.
The letter continues:
This is especially stinging, because other stakeholders
have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their
respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last
week's huge accommodation for the employer community,
extending the statutorily mandated December 31, 2013 deadline
for the employer-mandated penalties. Time is running out.
Congress wrote this law. We voted for you. We have a problem.
You need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA
are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating
nightmare scenarios.
``Nightmare.'' That is the word the Teamsters used. ``Nightmare.'' Some Democratic Senators object to the use of the word ``train wreck.'' Perhaps ``nightmare'' would be better. That comes from the Teamsters in writing, describing what ObamaCare is doing.
Nightmare is fitting. It is past midnight. Why are we here? Because the American people are experiencing the nightmare that is ObamaCare and we need to help them wake up from this very bad dream.
The Teamsters letter continues:
First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep
employees' work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous
employers have begun to cut workers' hours to avoid this
obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact
is twofold. Fewer hours means less pay while also losing our
current health benefits.
How does that sound? The majority leader told the American people on television that ObamaCare is terrific. Fewer hours meaning less pay and losing your current health benefits, that doesn't sound terrific to me. That doesn't sound terrific to the millions of Teamsters, the millions of union workers, the millions of hard-working Americans who are experiencing the negative consequences of ObamaCare.
The letter continues:
Second, millions of Americans are covered by nonprofit
health insurance plans like the one in which most of our
members participate. These nonprofit plans are governed
jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Our health plans have been built over decades by working men
and women. Under the ACA, as interpreted by this
administration, our employees will be treated differently and
not eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such,
many employees will be relegated to second-class status and
shut out of the help offered to buy for-profit insurance
plans. Finally, even though nonprofit plans like ours won't
receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they will be
taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these
restrictions will make nonprofit plans like ours
unsustainable and will undermine the health care market as
viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we
represent--
I would note, he didn't say on behalf of the hundreds or on behalf of the thousands. He said:
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we
represent and the families they support, we can no longer
stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care
Act that will destroy the very health and well-being of our
members, along with millions of other hard-working Americans.
I want to remember that phrase, ``We can no longer stand silent.'' I am going to return to it in a moment.
We believe that there are commonsense corrections that can
be made within the existing statute that will allow our
members to continue to keep their current health benefits and
plans, just as you and the President pledged. Unless changes
are made, however, that promise is hollow. We continue to
stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it
stands will hurt millions of Americans, including the members
of our respective unions. We are looking to you to make sure
these changes are made.
James P. Hoffa, General President, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters.
I don't have to remind anyone that the Teamsters and Mr. Hoffa are not loyal Republicans. They are not even disloyal Republicans. They have been active foot soldiers in the army to elect President Obama and to elect Democrats to this body.
This letter describes ObamaCare as a nightmare. This letter describes how it is hurting millions of Americans, including the members of their respective unions. And interestingly enough, this letter uses the same phrase, ``We can no longer stand silent,'' that the roofers union used. ``We won't stand silent, either.''
Why is it that both of these unions used that same phrase? Everyone in this body understands politics, understands sticking with your team, dancing with the team that brought you. No union is eager to criticize President Obama. They have too much invested in this administration. And there is a lot of pressure--a lot of pressure--on the labor unions. I can't imagine what the repercussions were to Mr. Hoffa and to the Teamsters after this letter was sent. I am quite certain it did not produce joy and celebration in the political classes of Washington.
I think it is quite striking, though, that both the roofers union and the
Teamsters said we can no longer stand silent, because the pressure is enormous.
Let me tell you about another group that is right now standing silent that I hope can no longer stand silent and that consists of elected Democrats in this body. Elected Democrats in this body--these union men and women knocked on doors, worked to elect many Members of this body. If their union leaders cannot stand silent, I hope the politicians who pledged to fight for them won't stand silent either.
What a remarkable thing it would be to see a Democrat to have the courage of James Hoffa, to see a Democratic Senator stand and have the courage to say: You know, look, I supported ObamaCare. That is what Mr. Hoffa said. I supported it at first because I believed the promise that was made. I thought this thing might work, but we have seen it has not. It is a nightmare. It is hurting hard-working American families. Any Democrat who did so would be certain to receive serious repercussions from the party. Political parties do not like it when you rock the boat. I can promise you Senator Lee and I have more than a passing awareness of that in our respective party. But at the end of the day, if you are responding to the American people, if you are listening to the American people, you are doing their job. I hope in the course of this week that of the 54 Democrats in this body, we will see one, two, three--I hope we see a dozen who have the courage Mr. Hoffa showed, have the courage to speak out about the train wreck, about the nightmare that is ObamaCare, that is hurting Americans, that is killing jobs, that is pushing people into part-time work, that is driving up health care premiums and is causing more and more people to lose their health insurance. That is the courage we need.
But you know what. It will not come from business as usual in Washington. It will not come from wanting to be popular in the conference lunches. It will only come from elected officials making the decision, the radical decision to get back to the job we are supposed to do in listening to the people. Make DC listen. That is what we should be doing.
I am happy to yield for a question without yielding the floor.
Well, I thank my friend the junior Senator from Utah for his very fine, learned question. It is truly a privilege to serve in this body alongside a constitutional scholar, alongside a Senator who takes fidelity to the Constitution so seriously, so appropriately seriously.
Senator Lee's question is exactly right: How seriously do the men and woman in this body take the Constitution? How seriously do we take the obligation? Each of us swears to uphold the Constitution. Yet it is easy, particularly in an era in which the Supreme Court is deemed to be the primary arbiter of constitutionality, for Members of Congress, members of the executive branch, to say: That is their problem. We pass the laws; the Court figures out if they are constitutional.
I would very much agree with Senator Lee's proposition that doing so is an abdication of our responsibility, that every one of us has an obligation to not support any law that is contrary to the Constitution and to oppose any law that is.
I would note that among the House Members who joined us was Congressman Justin Amash. He came to the floor of the Senate to join us to support this effort. I note Congressman Amash has the unique distinction of joining you and me and Senator Paul in the description of being--I believe the term was ``wacko birds,'' which, I for one--I am not sure to which particular avian species that refers, but whichever one it is, if it reflects a fidelity to the Constitution, a fidelity to liberty, and a willingness to fight to defend the principles this country was founded on, then I--and I believe I can speak for you and Rand and Congressman Amash--and I think quite a few others of us are very, very proud ``wacko birds.''
We are talking about an important topic. We are talking about a topic that impacts millions of Americans. But at the same time, we cannot lose our sense of humor, and we cannot lose our sense of hope and optimism.
I will note that my staff has been with me here all night, tirelessly fighting because they believe in America. We believe in America. We believe there can be something better. You look at the explosion of government, the explosion of spending, the explosion of debt, the explosion of taxes, the explosion of regulation, the stagnation of economic growth, and it is easy to throw up your hands and say: Can we ever get back to that United States of America we once were?
But there are signs, glimmers of hope. Look right now at one of the most popular television shows in the United States--``Duck Dynasty.'' This is a show about a God-fearing family of successful entrepreneurs who love guns, who love to hunt, and who believe in the American dream. It is something that, according to Congress, almost should not exist, yet a lot of wisdom. Millions of Americans tune in to ``Duck Dynasty.'' So I want to point out just a few words of wisdom from ``Duck Dynasty'' that are probably good for all of us to hear.
Willie observed:
You put 5 rednecks on a mower, it's gonna be epic.
Phil said:
In a subdivision, you call 911. At home, I AM 911!
Si said:
Some people say I'm a dreamer, others say, ``If you fall
asleep at work again we're going to let you go.''
Jase said:
Redneck rule number one, most things can be fixed with duct
tape and extension cords.
That is actually very true.
Phil said:
I think our problem is a spiritual one.
Phil also said:
When you get older and you start dating, I want you to be
able to say one thing, ``I can bait a hook.''
One day maybe Caroline and Catherine will be able to say that.
Phil also said, very simply:
Happy, happy, happy.
I say this to the junior Senator from Utah, when we defund ObamaCare, we are all going to be happy, happy, happy.
Miss Kay said:
Our marriage is living proof that love & family can get you
through everything.
Si said:
I live by my own rules (reviewed, revised, and approved by
my wife) . . . but still my own.
Jep said:
Faith, family, and facial hair.
Let me point out to the junior Senator from Utah that if we continue doing this long enough, we may have facial hair on the floor of Senate. That is all right.
Willie said:
Are you kidding me? I'm straight up hunger games with a
bow.
Si said:
Ford F150, Chevy Silverado, Dodge Ram, Toyota Tundra. As a
married man, these are the only pickup lines I am allowed to
use.
Jase said:
Where I come from, your truck is an exact reflection on
your personality.
Si said:
I make up people all the time to get out of stuff.
Si also said:
A redneck walkin' into Bass Pro Shops gets more excited
than a 12 year old girl going to a Justin Beaver concert.
Let me point out that that is Justin Beaver, B-e-a-v-e-r.
Si also said:
Your beard is so hairy, even Dora can't explore it.
Si also said:
Your beard's so stupid it takes 2 hours to watch 60
minutes!
And finally Si said:
I am the MacGyver of cooking. You bring me a piece of
bread, cabbage, coconut, mustard greens, pigs feet, pine
cones . . . and a woodpecker, I'll make you a good chicken
pot pie.
Let me suggest that kind of homespun wisdom is what this country was built on. It is who we are. Look, there are some things to chuckle on, but there is an awful lot of common sense.
On the same theme, I want to point to one of my favorite songs. It is a song that came out following the tragic attacks on this country of 9/ 11, but it speaks more broadly to who we are as Americans, that we can overcome any challenge, any obstacle, including, I think, the obstacle of ObamaCare--admittedly, a very, very different challenge than that which occurred on 9/11,
but ultimately the American spirit and faith and freedom that underlie it will help us overcome every challenge. That is Toby Keith's song ``Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.''
Toby Keith observed--and, Mr. President, I am going to make a promise to you. I am not going to endeavor to sing because even if it might not violate the Senate rules, it would violate rules of musical harmony, human decency, and possibly even the Geneva Conventions. So I will not subject you to my musical rendition, but I will at least share the words from ``Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.''
American Girls and American Guys
We'll always stand up and salute
We'll always recognize
When we see Old Glory flying
There's a lot of men dead
So we can sleep in peace at night
When we lay down our head.
My daddy served in the army
Where he lost his right eye
But he flew a flag out in our yard
Until the day that he died
He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me
To grow up and live happy
In the land of the free.
Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the 4th of July.
Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.
Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your [posterior]--
Edited for our friends on C-SPAN--
It's the American way.
Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.
If you want to talk about the American spirit, it is hard to listen to that song and not think about who we are as a people, not think about the threats.
Let me give you an example of a different threat, a different threat to our liberty that every bit as much we have to rise up against. I want to read for you a statement of September 12, 2012, that Hobby Lobby put out on ObamaCare and religious freedom. Religious freedom is foundational to who we are. So let's read what David Green, the CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., stated.
When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we
were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling
miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn't much
bigger than most people's living rooms, but we had faith that
we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God's
work. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation's
largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500
locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine
business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a
family.
We're Christians, and we run our business on Christian
principles. I've always said that the first two goals of our
business are 1) to run our business in harmony with God's
laws, and 2) to focus on people more than money. And that's
what we've tried to do. We close early so our employees can
see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on
Sundays, one of the week's biggest shopping days, so that our
workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We
believe that it is by God's grace that Hobby Lobby has
endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We've not
only added jobs in a weak economy, we've also raised wages
for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees
start at 80% above minimum wage.
But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A
new government health care mandate says that our family
business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing
drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we
don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions. Which means
that we don't cover emergency contraception, the morning-
after pill or the week-after pill.
We believe that doing so might end a life after the moment
of conception, something that is contrary to our most
important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on
which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to
comply, we could face $1.3 million per day in government
fines.
Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad
economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that has
raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to
fine a family for running its business according to its
beliefs. It's not right.
I know people will say we ought to follow the rules, that
it's the same for everybody. But that's not true. The
government has exempted thousands of companies from its
mandates, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won't
exempt them for reasons of religious belief.
So, Hobby Lobby--and my family--are forced to make a
choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today,
represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking
a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our
business. We don't like to go running into court, but we no
longer have a choice. We believe people are more important
than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important
than turning a profit.
My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue
growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of
employees, but the government is going to make that much more
difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between
following our faith and following the law. I say that's a
choice no American--and no American business--should have to
make.
Now, you might ask, what does that letter from Hobby Lobby have to do with Toby Keith's terrific song? I am going to suggest they have an awful lot to do with each other. Our Nation was founded by men and women fleeing religious persecution from across the globe, fleeing governments that sought to impose their rules to restrict the religious liberty of men and women.
Our Founding Fathers, the people who formed the United States of America, fled those countries and came here. Why? To establish a country where everyone could worship God with all of your heart, mind and soul, according to the dictates of your conscience. The men and women watching this at home--not all of you may share the religious convictions of the CEO of Hobby Lobby. You may or may not be Christians. If you are Christians, you may or may not share his faith and his interpretation of what his faith requires.
But if you look at the history of our country, the Federal Government is telling that CEO--the Federal Government is telling Catholic hospitals and Catholic charities that they must violate their religious beliefs. Why? Because government knows best. You know, there is a reason why the Bill of Rights begins with the First Amendment and why the First Amendment begins with protecting religious liberty, protecting the religious liberty of all of us, because it is foundational. The Founding Fathers who formed our country understood that if you did not have the freedom to seek out God, then every other freedom could be stripped away. Yet this administration has demonstrated a hostility to religious faith that is staggering, indeed.
In recent months, we saw an Air Force chaplain in Alaska face punishment and repercussions for posting a blog post in which he stated, ``there are no atheists in foxholes.''
Now, mind you, this was a chaplain. His job is to minister to the spiritual life of the men and women of the Air Force. Yet that statement was deemed inhospitable to atheists and inconsistent with the military and this administration. Now, the irony, of course, is that particular statement was said previously by a general named Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as we all know was President of the United States.
Indeed, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had more than a passing familiarity with the military. That statement comes from a speech President Eisenhower gave to the American Legion--I believe it was in 1954--in which he was describing a story of four immortal chaplains. That story is a story young people do not learn any more. It is a story a lot of people do not know. President Eisenhower told it.
I had the opportunity recently to speak at the American Legion's national convention. I had the opportunity to share it. There were a number of particularly older veterans, World War II veterans, who knew the story of the four immortal chaplains.
That is the story of the USS Dorchester that was hit by a U-boat torpedo and was sinking. There were four chaplains aboard that ship.
I believe two were Protestant, one was Catholic, and one was Jewish. They were handing out life vests. They realized they did not have enough life vests for the men and women on that ship. Each of those four chaplains removed his life vest and gave it to another passenger. Those other passengers were saved and those four chaplains stood together on the deck of the ship singing and praying as the ship went down.
The point of the story is, when the chaplains put their life vests on other passengers, gave their life vests, gave their lives for other passengers, they did not ask each passenger: Are you a Christian? Are you a Jew? Is your religious faith the same as mine? Because, as President Eisenhower explained, there are no atheists in foxholes, and they were there sacrificing for their fellow man.
You know religious liberty is foundational to who we are. One of the most pernicious aspects of ObamaCare is that it disregards religious liberty, when you have the Federal Government getting so intimately involved in health care. It has necessitated the Federal Government trampling on good faith religious beliefs.
Look, nobody has questioned the good faith religious beliefs of the owners of Hobby Lobby. Even if you do not share their views, what about your religious beliefs? If the government can order them to violate their religious beliefs, what is to stop them from ordering you to violate yours?
That is wrong. That is inconsistent with who we are as Americans. That is one of the many reasons Americans are fed up with what is happening under ObamaCare.
You know, earlier I was reading some of the stories from individual constituents. I would like to return to that. A constituent in Humble, TX, wrote on September 10, 2013:
I am one of many Americans adversely affected by Mr.
Obama's health care. I just received a letter stating that as
the Affordable Care Act draws fuller to close implementation,
I will no longer have access to the group medical PPO plan,
the group dental plan, or the group vision plan effective
January 1, 2014. I am 62, in good health, but need health
insurance. I do not know what my options will be if I can
even afford a government-run plan.
That is not me speaking. That is reading a letter from one individual who is 62 years old who had insurance but is losing that insurance because of ObamaCare. Not working. It is simply not working.
Another constituent from Fort Worth, TX, wrote on September 9, 2013:
My husband was with IBM for over 30 years. We considered
the health insurance was part of our salary. Two weeks ago, I
found out that they are canceling the insurance for retirees
and their spouses because of ObamaCare. They say they will
give me a lump sum of money to buy another plan. But I assume
once that money is gone, I will be responsible for the
payments. Thank you for all you're doing to stop ObamaCare.
By the way, my primary physician just closed his practice
because of ObamaCare. He said he didn't think he could give
the kind of care to his patients that they deserve.
There are two things there that are very striking. No. 1 is the situation of this woman so many Americans across this country are experiencing. They had a health plan they liked. They had health insurance they liked. We remember 3\1/2\ years ago when the President promised the American people: If you like your health insurance you can keep it. We now know that statement was flatly, objectively 100 percent false. We now know that it is not the case, if you like your health insurance you can keep it, because ObamaCare is causing people all over the country, like this woman in Ft. Worth, TX, to lose her health insurance.
They are understandably not happy about it. They are hurting. They are suffering. But, secondly, I think it is very interesting, the point about her primary physician. We are also seeing doctors leaving the practice of medicine, advising young students: Don't go to med school because ObamaCare is destroying the practice of medicine. If the goal is to expand access to health care, driving good physicians out of the practice of medicine is completely antithetical to that goal.
Another constituent, a retired couple from Bayou Vista, TX, wrote on the September 9, 2013:
My wife and I are retired living on a fixed income. We
worked hard our whole lives protecting our credit and saved
enough money to buy a modest home in Bayou Vista, TX. If the
insurance premiums being published in the local newspaper
materialize, we will no longer be able to afford to live in
our home. We could not sell it either. The facts, if left
unchanged, will destroy many coastal communities and result
in our personal financial ruin. We would have no choice but
to walk from our mortgage. We would lose all of the
investment we have made in this house. Our credit would be
ruined.
These are the words of a retired couple living on a fixed income who managed to save up to buy a home for their retirement for their golden years. ObamaCare is threatening to turn their retirement into a nightmare. I remind you that the word ``nightmare'' is not mine. That word ``nightmare'' is the word of James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters.
That nightmare is very real for that couple. It is real for so many Americans. Yet it is a nightmare. It is now late at night. I am going to venture to say most Members of the Senate are home in bed asleep while America lives the nightmare. If we were listening to the people, we would not be home asleep. If we were listening to the people, we would be experiencing that nightmare, we would be waking up--much like my little girls do sometimes when they have a scary dream--but we would be responding like any parent does when your child has a nightmare. You come in and try to make the nightmare go away.
America is experiencing that nightmare and it is even worse. Because here, the Senate caused that nightmare. We passed the law that is the nightmare for the American people, and Senators on both sides of the aisle have been telling the American people they are too busy, there are too many other priorities on their list to even talk about the nightmare that is ObamaCare.
That is wrong. That is fundamentally wrong. We need to make DC listen.
It is a very good question the Senator from Utah poses, and I would note there is only one way; that is, if you are trying to confuse and deceive your constituents. There is no intellectually honest way to do it.
If you ask any rational person: If the Republicans vote along with Harry Reid and 53 Senate Democrats to allow Harry Reid and 53 Senate Democrats to fund ObamaCare, have they stood for defunding ObamaCare? Of course not. It is not a difficult question. It is not complicated.
Those who want to confuse their constituents want complication. Those who have, at least initially, stated they intend to vote to allow Harry Reid and the Democrats to fund ObamaCare are at the same time--often within hours of those statements--telling their constituents: I am leading the fight to defund ObamaCare, you can't have it both ways. You cannot have it both ways. You are either willing to stand for your principles and not just on an empty show.
There was an exchange earlier with the Senator from Illinois where he was saying he wasn't surprised by the House vote. He was certain of those votes because they had voted 40-some-odd times to defund ObamaCare. But there was a big difference in this Friday vote, a big difference in why the commentators in DC, the pundits, and all of the learned gray beards said this one wouldn't happen. The other 40-some- odd times were symbolic votes. They never had a chance to pass it into law.
It is not difficult to get Republicans to vote in symbolic votes against ObamaCare. Indeed, in this body I have introduced two amendments this year that at the time, when there were 45 Republicans in this body, all 45 Republicans voted against it. We are going to have another vote. If Majority Leader Reid is successful in shutting off debate on funding ObamaCare, then all 46 Republicans will have to vote against it, and they will tell people: Hey, I voted against him, when it didn't matter. They will leave out the ``when it didn't matter'' part. They will leave out that I voted to allow Harry Reid to do that, but then once the matter was decided, I cast a vote against it to confuse my constituents.
We wonder why Americans are cynical about politics. They are cynical
about politics because too many leaders in this body, too many Democrats and too many Republicans are not listening to the American people.
Let me read statements from a number of think tank leaders across the country.
Matthew J. Brouillette from the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania.
Giving more citizens health insurance is not the same as
giving them health care. The tragic outcome is that ObamaCare
will harm the very Pennsylvanians it purports to help.
Francis X. De Luca from the Civitas Institute of North Carolina.
ObamaCare is about neither health nor care. It is about
forcing Americans to buy a service they may neither need nor
want. In the end, it will reduce the availability of health
services for citizens while making those available more
costly.
That sounds like a great option: Fewer choices than the ones you have and more expensive. No wonder James Hoffa, head of the Teamsters, calls ObamaCare a nightmare. No wonder so many Americans are suffering and asking for Congress to listen to their pleas to give them the same exemption President Obama has already given huge corporations and Members of Congress.
Connor Boyack from the Libertas Institute in Utah:
The Affordable Care Act is unfair, invasive and an
illegitimate burden on taxpayers. In attempting to remedy
certain health care problems, it follows the historical
pattern of government intervention and creates even more of
them.
Ellen Weaver from the Palmetto Policy Forum in South Carolina.
South Carolinians are already starting to feel the front
end of the shockwave as several local employers cut work
schedules to part time. And we are left to imagine the
ultimate decimation on the budgets of Palmetto State families
as personal rates skyrocket and people are forced off their
current insurance that we were promised we would be able to
keep. In fact, just last week, Palmetto Policy Forum's
president received a letter telling her she would be losing
her private policy. And this is just the beginning of the
promised ``trainwreck.''
Sally Pipes from the Pacific Research Institute in California.
Unless ObamaCare is repealed and replaced, America will be
on the ``road to serfdom'' and there will be no off-ramp. We
will be headed for a single-payer, Medicare for all system
such as exists in Canada. Americans will face long waiting
lists for care, rationed care, and a lack of access to the
latest treatments and procedures. Where will the best doctors
and we as patients go to get first-rate care?
Interestingly enough, the majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, agrees with Ms. Pipes. Both Sally Pipes and Majority Leader Reid say the end result of ObamaCare is--and indeed is designed to be--single- payer, government socialized health care. The only difference is that Majority Leader Reid thinks that is a good idea and Sally Pipes and the American people think that is a terrible idea. Because we don't want our care rationed, we don't want government bureaucrats deciding who gets health care when, we don't want waiting periods, and we don't want low-quality health care, which is what happens at the end of this road if we continue down it.
Justin Owen, the Beacon Center of Tennessee.
ObamaCare presents the most dangerous threat to
Tennesseans' jobs and health security than anything coming
out of Washington. And that says a lot these days.
Paul Gessing of the Rio Grande Foundation, New Mexico.
ObamaCare locks in the worst aspects of American health
care. Rather than restoring the patient-doctor relationship,
it puts the IRS and the Federal Government alongside
insurance companies between patients and their doctors.
Matt Mayer, Opportunity, OH.
ObamaCare is distorting insurance markets, forcing Ohioans
to make changes they do not want to make and expanding one of
the least effective and most costly government programs in
U.S. history.
Mike Stenhouse from the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
In Rhode Island, not only will up to 75 percent of those
currently uninsured remain uninsured after ObamaCare is
implemented, but our State has still not determined how to
pay for its wasteful exchange after the Federal subsidies
end.
Scott Moody from the Maine Heritage Policy Center observed:
The Maine Heritage Policy Center has profiled several Maine
businesses employing hundreds of Mainers that simply can't
afford to absorb the increased costs under ObamaCare. In
fact, in one case the higher ObamaCare costs will consume
anywhere from 54 percent to 134 percent of the company's
profits.
This burden could ultimately put this company out of
business, which would not only mean no health insurance for
their employees, but it would also mean no jobs either.
Doesn't that describe the nightmare James Hoffa of the Teamsters was talking about--employees losing their jobs, employees being forced into part-time work and losing their health insurance all at the same time? No wonder the unions are speaking out or remaining silent no longer.
How long will it be until we see Democratic Senators who have the courage of James Hoffa to remain silent no longer and to speak out for the men and women of America who are losing their jobs, who are being forced into part-time work and are losing their health insurance? How long will it be before all 46 Republicans do more than give speeches against ObamaCare and actually stand and fight this fight, stop saying we can't win it and actually stand up and start to win it?
Paul Mero from the Sutherland Institute in Utah:
The ACA is a hallucinogen for its recipients and defenders
in the search for prudent ways to address the medical needs
of our uninsured. A true Utah solution will rely on our
people, not the federal government.
Mike Thompson from the Thomas Jefferson Institute in Virginia:
It looks as if those on the low end of the income scale
will be harmed as part time employees will see their hours
cut and full time employees moved to part time. Small
businesses, the engine of job creation, are seeing their
health care costs rising forcing them to employ fewer people
than they would otherwise.
Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation:
Obamacare is destroying the quality of health care in
Idaho. The onslaught of new regulations and the fear of what
might come next from Washington is not only raising costs, it
has prompted countless Idaho doctors to give up medicine or
join large hospital or group medical practices. As a result,
the close knit doctor-patient relationships that have endured
in many of our communities have vanished entirely.
Do you like your doctor? Do you like continuing to see your doctor? With ObamaCare, that relationship is in jeopardy. Why do you think so many Americans are unhappy with this law?
Janie White of the Wyoming Policy Institute:
ObamaCare is closing businesses in the small populated
state of Wyoming. Full-time is going to part-time and in a
state where small business is prevalent, it's hurting an
entire state; not just one industry.
Dave Trabert of the Kansas Policy Institute:
Scholars at Kansas Policy Institute estimate that Medicaid
is expected to consume 31% of Kansas' General Fund Budget by
2023 under Obamacare and its proposed Medicaid expansion. The
``woodwork effect'' of Obamacare alone is expected to cause
over $4 billion in tax increases or spending reductions for
other government services in just the first ten years of
Obamacare.
Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute:
Because of the Budget Control Act, which the Republicans
passed in 2011, spending reductions for the next fiscal year
are already set in place by law and will require
approximately $1.3 trillion in discretionary cuts over the
next eight years. These cuts can either be done through
another round of sequestration in which the Obama
Administration will determine what is cut, or it will be done
proactively by defunding ObamaCare which, according to the
latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, will cost
$1.85 trillion over the next 11 years. Keep in mind that in
2010 the CBO estimated that Obamacare would only cost $898
billion for the first 10 years. With the U.S. already facing
a $16 trillion debt and continuing to run a trillion dollar
annual deficit, and with all the uncertainty surrounding what
Obamacare will actually cost, defunding Obamacare would be an
act of fiscal responsibility as intended by the passage of
the Budget Control Act.
Carl Graham from the Montana Policy Institute:
Obamacare has already resulted in the consolidation and
centralization of the health care industry in Montana,
removing choices and competition, especially in the state's
rural areas.
Andy Matthews of the Nevada Policy Research Institute:
At a time when Nevada is already suffering under the
highest unemployment rate in the nation, the so-called
Affordable Care Act now threatens to do even more damage to
the Silver State's jobs picture. Every day I hear from
frustrated business owners who would like nothing more than
to hire new employees but can't because of the many barriers
to hiring that this law has created.
Trent England of the Freedom Foundation in Washington State:
Washington State's Freedom Foundation reports some small
businesses are already being told their health insurance
rates will double, punishing some of the state's hardest
working people, hurting job creation, and stifling economic
growth.
Robert Alt from the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio:
So far, Obamacare has been a game of drawing straws: a good
deal for the IRS and others who have the ability to secure
exemptions for themselves: Congress, a motley group of
companies with connections, some unions, and friends of the
Obama administration; and the short straws being won by
average Americans, medical professionals, small businesses,
the overwhelming majority of seniors who are happy with their
current plans, and our children and grandchildren. The
results of this rigged game are an invasion of privacy,
increase in healthcare and insurance costs, loss of freedom,
distortion of the free market, and a host of changes
Americans never hoped for.
Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts:
The ACA will slow the future of innovation in
Massachusetts, especially in the medical device field, which
faces hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes. In
addition, the so-called ``cadillac-tax'' that will burden
many Massachusetts Chevy drivers: Over half of the citizens
of the state by 2018, including union members, and hundreds
of thousands of the middle-class.
Kim Crockett from the Center for the American Experiment in Minnesota:
Minnesota has one of the finest health care systems in the
world. It is unfortunate that Gov. Mark Dayton has whole-
heartedly embraced the incursion of federal authority in our
state. The ACA is anything but affordable and threatens the
delivery of quality care to all but the most financially
secure Minnesotans. The gross misallocation of local, state
and federal resources could instead have been used to improve
health care. Instead we are bureaucratizing it. We continue
to advocate for portable, patient-owned defined contribution
plan as an alternative to one-size-fits-all health care.
Jim Vokal of the Platt Institute of Nebraska:
At the expense of middle class, every day Nebraskans,
Obamacare's implementation will cause undue hardship on the
families and the younger generation all across the state.
Governmental intervention rather than personal choice is not
the Nebraska way.
Ashley Landess from the South Carolina Policy Council:
SC business owners are forced to close their doors and sell
off family businesses, not only b/c they can't afford the
mandate but because they can't even predict the cost--and
neither can anyone else.
Brett Healy from the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy of Wisconsin:
Before Obamacare, Wisconsin had one of the better health
insurance markets in the country that covered the vast
majority of our citizens. Now, under Obamacare, Wisconsinites
will see insurance premiums increase on average 51% and in
many parts of the Badger State, we will have only one company
to choose from and no consumer choice. In Wisconsin, the
Affordable Care Act is proving to be not affordable at all
and the uncertainty surrounding its implementation is
weighing on our employers and holding back our economic
recovery. Wisconsinites deserve better.
J. Robert McClure, III, from the James Madison Institute in Florida:
In Florida, where tourism and seasonal hiring are a way of
life, small businesses and large ones are confused and
frustrated as to how to move forward. Arbitrary delays and
enforcement by the federal government of this invasive and
unwieldy law have created a climate of paralysis in Florida
when it comes to job creation and planning. In a state of
roughly 19 million people, where the economic climate is
poised in every way to take off, no organization be it in
business, education, healthcare or government knows how to
proceed. The Affordable Care Act has only created stagnation
and insecurity in Florida--with a hefty price tag to come,
paid for on the backs of every taxpayer in the state.
State representative Geanie Morrison from the Texas Conservative Coalition:
The so-called Affordable Care Act is not even fully
implemented, and is already costing jobs, leading to costly
increases in insurance premiums, and promising billions of
dollars in new taxes. Texans should not have to shoulder the
cost of Obamacare, which is why we implore our Texas
delegation to defund this unpopular, unworkable, and
unaffordable law.
And Finally, Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute of Kentucky:
Obamacare will devastate Kentucky's already-struggling
economy. We already have entire areas where expectant mothers
in rural areas must drive two hours to see an ob/gyn. But
there will be nowhere that any Kentucky family or small-
business owner can go to hide from the increased costs and
destruction of our personal liberties resulting from this
policy of redistribution.
That list of quotes spans the country. It wasn't just one region. It wasn't just Republican States. It wasn't just Democratic States. Those are quotes from think tanks in North Carolina, Utah, South Carolina, California, Tennessee, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maine, Utah, Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, Alabama, Montana, Washington State, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, and in the State of Kentucky.
Let me ask everyone watching: Have the Senators from each of those States come out and said they will defund ObamaCare? Have the Democratic Senators from each of those States said: I have listened to my constituents, I have listened to the people who are losing their jobs, who are being pushed into part-time work, who are seeing health insurance premiums skyrocket or losing their health insurance. Have the Democratic Senators representing those States said that?
And have the Republicans representing those States said, we will stand together, and Republicans will be united against cloture on this bill because we are not going to vote to allow Harry Reid and the Democrats to fund ObamaCare, to gut the House Republican bill? And if they haven't, it is a reasonable question to ask why. Why aren't elected officials listening to the people? We need to together make D.C. listen.
Well, I thank my friend from Utah for his remarkable discourse on constitutional law.
As for the latest question he asked, one might think the Hundred Years War lasted 100 years, but think again.
It was 116 years.
Things are not always as they seem.
(Ms. BALDWIN assumed the Chair.)
I yield for this question. Most would say China. But think again. Chinese gooseberries actually come from New Zealand.
The way things are labeled are not always, in fact, what they are.
I will yield for a question without yielding the floor.
I say to Senator Lee, I do. A lot of people would say it must be black. If we were dealing with ordinary English language, it would be black. But perhaps airplane manufacturers think like Congress because the black box on an airplane is orange.
I will yield for that question and note it could possibly be Panama. You might think if you call it a Panama hat it would make sense that it would be Panama. But, no, think again. Ecuador. Ecuador makes Panama hats. I do not know that anyone makes Ecuador hats.
I yield for that question. Curiously enough, I do. You might think a camel's hair brush must be made of camel's hair. There are lots of
camels. They have hair. Surely you can make a brush. Well, maybe you can. I do not know if you can. But a camel's hair brush is made of squirrel fur. It makes you wonder. The squirrels apparently have a very bad marketing department if they give their fur that gets credited to the camels.
Again, I will yield for the purpose of that question to note a purple finch--listen, similar to most husbands, I have a color palate of about six colors. I remember once my wife asked me, with regard to a tile--we were redoing our bathroom. It was a white tile. She was long distance. She said: What shade of white? I will note that was a question I was utterly incapable of responding to. I was not aware there were shades of white, and my vocabulary does not cover such things. I finally dropped it in a FedEx envelope and simply sent it to her. I was like: It is a white tile. I know nothing beyond that.
But yet your question: What color is a purple finch? I would tend to think it would be purple, but I would think wrong if that were the case because a purple finch is crimson red.
I will yield for the purpose of that question as well. Indeed, I can tell you that. Now, you would think, if you call a chain of islands the Canary Islands, it must be a bird, maybe a bird in a coal mine but some sort of bird. Think again. The Canary Islands are named after a dog. I would note, the Canary Islands are a chain of islands I have some real connection to because my grandfather, my father's father, was born in the Canary Islands. Indeed, he moved to Cuba when he was 1, was raised in Cuba. My father was born in Cuba, was raised in Cuba.
The lesson from all of these is striking. Labels do not always mean what they say. Some might wonder, what does this chain of insightful questions from my friend, the junior Senator from Utah--how does it relate to the issue of ObamaCare?
If we look at Senator Lee's tremendous discourse of the Constitution--and I would note, by the way, there is not another Senator in the Senate who could give that constitutional lecture that my friend Senator Lee did, sharing with this body. I wish all 100 of us had been here to hear that because a lot of Senators--all Senators would be well served by learning or relearning those basic constitutional principles.
I yield for the purpose of that question as well--and they might well.
One of the striking things--and although under the rules of the Senate I am not allowed to ask Senator Lee a question, I can pose a rhetorical question to the body, and should Senator Lee have thoughts on that rhetorical question, he can choose to ask me a question that might contain his thoughts on that rhetorical question posed to the body.
So given that sort of convoluted reasoning, which may explain why we are in the Senate with the odd and precarious procedures that govern this body, I am going to ask this rhetorical question to the body, which is, Senator Lee explained that the Supreme Court of the United States upheld ObamaCare, after concluding it exceeded the commerce clause authority of Congress, by concluding that it was a tax. By calling it a tax, it was able to force it into a different line of jurisprudence and uphold it under the taxing clause, the taxing power of Congress.
I would ask rhetorically of this body, was it an accident that the ObamaCare statute did not call the individual mandate a tax? Maybe it was a scribe's error. Maybe it was they meant to call it a tax, they thought it was a tax, and a clerk writing just wrote the wrong word. So instead of ``tax,'' the word ``penalty.'' Surely that is not consequential. It must purely have been an accident. As a related component of that, was it an accident that the President of the United States went on national television and told the people of America, while this was under consideration, this is not a tax.
He affirmatively said this is not a tax.
Mind you, the argument that the U.S. Department of Justice made, the Obama administration made to the Supreme Court was this is a tax, although the statute did not say it. The argument the Supreme Court ultimately found persuasive was: This is a tax, although the statute said it was a penalty and not a tax.
The question I would rhetorically pose is: Was it an accident or is there perhaps another reason why elected politicians would not call something a tax?
I will be happy to yield for the purpose of a question.
I think the good Senator from Utah is exactly correct. Indeed, as he quite rightly explained, it was not an accident that Congress deliberately did not call the individual mandate in ObamaCare a tax, nor was it an accident that the President of the United States explicitly said it is not a tax, because the effort was to represent to the American people that it was something quite different.
Indeed, again, asking a question rhetorically to the body--I know Senator Lee is aware; I know many other Senators are aware--of a lot of cases in the Supreme Court, the commandeering line of cases that provides that one of the things this body cannot do, Congress cannot do, is commandeer a State legislature, commandeer a State lawmaking apparatus or a State executive agency to implement, to carry out Federal law and Federal policy.
Indeed, the Supreme Court has explained the reasoning behind the commandeering line of cases; that fundamental to our democratic system, fundamental to our constitutional system is the notion of accountability, the notion that the voters should be able to determine who is it that put this policy in place.
If Congress could commandeer and force State legislatures to carry out Federal policies, it might be that voters would get mad at the State legislators, and they would be mad at the wrong people because if the decisions were coming from Congress and yet it was the State legislators being commandeered into acting, that would frustrate the principles of accountability that underlie our constitutional structure.
So the Supreme Court has explained that to make the democratic system work, the voters need to be able to understand who has made a decision, what that decision is, and if they do not like it, they need to be able to, as they say colloquially, throw the bums out.
The Affordable Care Act in Congress, declining to call it a tax. I might ask, did the Supreme Court's rewriting the statute to call it a tax for Congress, to call it a tax for the President--despite the fact that both had said it was not--did that contravene the accountability principles that underlie the Supreme Court's commandeering doctrine that underlie the constitutional principles of, frankly, a republican form of government, where we may know who our elected officials are and what their actions are, and that they may be held accountable for those actions so that a democratic republic can function?
I will yield for the purpose of a question without yielding the floor.
It is an excellent question from Senator Lee. The answer is quite simple. If Congress acted to make clear that nothing in the Affordable Care Act created a tax, that would remove the entire basis for the Supreme Court's upholding ObamaCare. Indeed, it would be a relatively simple matter in subsequent litigation for the Court to conclude under the matter it has already concluded that the other bases for upholding the act are not present.
When have you elected officials who go to the people, and go to the people as Senator Lee still quite rightly noted and still say it is not a tax, you would think they would happily vote for it, except there is a vested interest. I would note there is a difference between calling this a tax when Congress said and says it is not, and the examples we went through of the Hundred Years War and the purple finch, and that those are relatively innocuous misnomers, where there is something designed to be actively deceptive.
Indeed, another one you could add to that litany we went through is you might think if an act were titled ``An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to modify the first-time homebuyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces,'' you might think that is the title of an act that would concern something about the first-time homebuyer's credit, perhaps even members of the Armed Forces. Depending on the content of it, it might even be an act that Senator Lee and I together would support.
Yet think again. That act is ObamaCare. This is the 2,000-plus pages of ObamaCare, a little bit worse for wear. Right on the cover of it on page 1: December 24, 2009, ordered to be printed and passed. Resolved, that the bill from the House of Representatives, titled H.R. 3590, entitled, an Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to modify the first-time homebuyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Services and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes, do pass the following.
Then what was this amendment that was done? Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert. Everything for the first-time homebuyer's credit, everything about the Armed Forces, that all got erased. The title stayed there but it all got erased. Suddenly, ObamaCare was born.
That was a creature, that was a fact that came out of the procedural games that had to be played to force ObamaCare into law on a straight party-line vote. But I would note that this body has not forgotten how to play those games. Indeed, I would ask again rhetorically to the body, is the game the Democratic majority of Congress played in passing ObamaCare, saying it was not a tax, when in fact it was a
tax, when it was not a tax, any different than what right now some members of the Republican conference are doing when they say they will vote for cloture in order to give Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats the ability to fully fund ObamaCare, and that they will do so because they want to defund ObamaCare? Is that fundamentally any different, presenting one story to tell the voters and a different story in terms of what will happen in this body? When it comes to accountability, I wonder if we are seeing much the same games played out again, games that undermine the integrity of this institution, games that undermine the confidence the American people have that our elected representatives listen to us.
I am happy to yield for the purpose of a question without yielding the floor.
I thank my friend from Utah for that question.
On the motion to proceed, on the decision of whether to take up the bill, I think there is widespread agreement that we should take up this bill as there is no more important bill we could be debating now than this. Indeed, in my view, there should not only be 3 Senators in this Chamber, there should be 100. The urgency facing this country from ObamaCare is such that we have nothing better to do. When James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says that ObamaCare is a nightmare, frankly, Senators shouldn't be asleep while the Nation is undergoing a nightmare.
The vote that matters is the vote on cloture on the bill. It will occur on either Friday or Saturday of this week. On that vote, 60 Senators, vote yes for cloture. That is a vote to shut off debate, a vote to say we will not debate anymore. What it does is it opens the door, it sets the stage. It allows the majority leader Harry Reid to fully fund ObamaCare with just 51 Democratic votes. That means for the Republican side of the aisle that any Republican who votes along with Harry Reid--and you quite rightly know that Leader Reid and presumably all of the Democrats will vote for cloture on a bill with which most, if not all of them disagree. They get the joke. There is no mystery to this when the majority leader has announced: I am going to shut off all other amendments and I am going to add one amendment to totally gut the bill and to transform it, to do to this bill what they did to this bill.
Can you imagine if we were debating cloture? This is actually a very good analogy. Imagine if this bill were coming over, the bill that was turning into ObamaCare, and we had the same procedural arrangement-- cloture vote first at 60 votes and then all amendments to be approved at 51 votes. Imagine if Republicans said: I support an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code to modify the first-time home buyer credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces. That is a good idea, so I am voting yes for cloture.
That is the bill I supported. It is the bill that came over, and it is the bill that I have right now.
Imagine if that were the scenario, and imagine that majority leader Harry Reid had announced: Once we get cloture, I am going to offer an amendment to strip every word of that bill you say you support, strip it all out and to replace it with 2,000 pages of ObamaCare.
I would suggest that any Republican who stood up and said: I am voting for cloture to give Harry Reid the ability to strip out the bill that I support--which he said he is going to do--and to replace it with a bill that I say I oppose and not just oppose slightly, that I say I oppose passionately, I would suggest that would be beyond irrational. Indeed, it would be so irrational to do that, and I would suggest no Member of the Senate is capable of such irrationality. This means, if they are saying that, it is for a deliberate purpose. It is because they affirmatively desire that outcome and yet they wish to be able to tell their constituents something different. It is fundamentally the same dynamic that leads to the cynicism about Washington that ``our elected leaders don't listen to us.''
I wish to note on a different front that serving in an elected office is a tremendous privilege. It is a humbling experience. You get to meet people from all over the State, sometimes from all over the country. You get to meet incredible people. You get to meet people who have done remarkable things.
One of the people I have been privileged to meet is my colleague and friend Senator Mike Lee. We have learned tonight a number of extraordinary things about him, a number of things that border on the superhuman.
No. 1, we have learned that Senator Mike Lee would be willing to purchase a ton of rocks and a Barry Manilow record simply to bring his wife milk and eggs. That is extraordinary matrimonial fidelity.
No. 2, we have learned that Senator Mike Lee as a boy could be run over with a Buick filled with seven people and not have his foot injured. That, too, is extraordinary and superhuman.
No. 3, we have been privileged with a tour de force constitutional lecture with no notes, with no materials in front of him that, frankly, was reminiscent to me of a former boss of mine.
Senator Lee is the son of a legend in law. His late father, Rex Lee, was the Solicitor General of the United States. I did not have the opportunity to meet his late father but have known him by reputation for much of my life because he was revered as one of the finest Supreme Court advocates who ever lived. I think Mike was all but weaned on the Constitution as a young lad.
The discourse Senator Lee just presented to this Nation reminded me of my boss, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who, like Senator Lee, had a deep love for the Constitution and, like Senator Lee, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Constitution and could weave the battles we have had to rein in government power to protect individual liberty into a tapestry of narrative that explained what it is we are fighting for.
I will say that as we stand here now at 3:35 in the morning, I feel privileged. I feel fortunate to be standing side by side with my friend.
I will say this: If ever I am threatened by a Buick with seven people in it, I want to put Mike Lee between me and the Buick.
I yield to the gentleman without yielding the floor.
I thank my friend from Utah for his very kind comments regarding my father, and I will say that he and I--I will paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, who said: If I have seen a little bit further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. I will say one thing. Senator Lee and I are both fortunate. We are blessed to be the sons of fathers whom we admire immensely and who, I think for both of us, played a big part in trying to raise us to be principled, to fight for liberty, and to fight for the Constitution.
When you think about the journeys to freedom that constitute who we are as American people, all of us have a story. It doesn't matter--in any group you go to, you could get 1,000 people in an audience, and each person could come up to the microphone and tell their family story of someone who risked everything to be here.
My dad as a kid was born in Cuba. We mentioned earlier that his father had come from the Canary Islands when he was 1. As a young man-- my dad was 14 when he began to get involved in the Cuban Revolution. At the time, Batista was the dictator. Batista was cruel, corrupt, closely aligned with the Mafia, and he was oppressive.
The revolution occurred--dad was a 14-year-old boy, and I am looking at the pages who are sitting here now who are older than 14, and I would suggest, if you could imagine at the age of 14 finding yourself in a war, finding yourself fighting a war, hoping to liberate the country, being asked to fight against the army, and being asked to fight for freedom. The revolution was being fought on behalf of Fidel Castro, and indeed my father was one of many freedom fighters who fought on behalf of Castro. My father didn't know Castro. He was a kid. He was not a high ranking person in the revolution. I can tell you, my dad and the kids who were fighting, none of them knew at the time Fidel Castro was a communist. As my father describes it today, he says: Look, we were all 14- and 15-year-old boys. We were too dumb to know about that. We were just fighting for freedom. We just wanted to get out from under the boot of Batista.
For 4 years my father fought with the revolution. When he turned 17, my dad went out and partied. He was enjoying himself. He was a 17-year- old young revolutionary. He was in a white suit. You know, Senator Lee, Latinos love white suits. He was in a white suit and he was partying it up in Havana and he disappeared.
For several days my grandfather went looking for him. My grandfather--my grandparents knew their son was involved in the revolution. He hadn't hid that from his parents. And they also knew if your son is involved in the revolution and he disappears, it is a bad, bad thing. Well, after searching for him for several days--searching the jails, searching around--they found my dad. He was in a jail. He had been imprisoned, and he had been tortured.
I will confess to this day I don't know a lot about what happened. Different people have different experiences. My father doesn't talk much about it. To the best of my knowledge, other than our colleague Senator John McCain, whom all of us respect immensely for his tremendous service and sacrifice to this Nation, I am not aware of any of our colleagues in this body who have experienced anything like imprisonment and torture--and what my father experienced was a tiny fraction of what John McCain went through in the years he was in that Vietnam prison. But my dad, when I was growing up, never would really tell me what happened there.
But I remember one night when I was a kid--I think I was in high school, maybe junior high or high school, I don't remember--my dad and I had gone to see the movie Rambo. My dad and I both liked movies. He had taken me to see Rambo, and it was a fun movie to see as a kid. It happened that night--my parents owned a small business, and my dad had one of his clients over for dinner--that during the course of dinner, my father was talking to his client, and he was feeling a little gregarious, and he started talking. He said: You know, my son Ted and I went to see Rambo this evening. And you might remember there is a pretty nasty scene where Rambo is strapped to a bed frame and being subjected to electric shock. Not a very pleasant scene in the movie. My dad was saying: You know, the Cubans weren't nearly so fancy when it came to torture. We watched the movie Rambo. They didn't have any fancy bed frames and electric shock or anything. The Cubans were much more simple in their torture. Basically, they would just come in every hour and beat the living daylights out of you. They would just beat you, and beat you, and beat you. Then they would leave, come back in an hour and do it again.
I can tell you my grandmother said when my dad came out of that jail cell in Cuba the white suit he was wearing, you couldn't see a spot of white on it, that every inch of that suit was covered with mud and blood from where he had been beaten. And my father's teeth, she said, were dangling from his mouth in shards. Today, my father is a pastor in Dallas, and his front teeth are not his own because when he was a kid they were kicked out of his mouth in a Cuban jail.
He got out of that jail and at that point my grandfather told him, he said: Look, Rafael, they know who you are now. In fact, the Batista police were following my dad hoping he would lead them to others in the revolution. The only reason he got out is they thought: Well, maybe if we let him go he will be dumb enough to go to some other people in the revolution and we can track them down too. So my grandfather said: Listen, they know who you are. At this point they are just going to hunt you down and kill you. You can't stay here.
So my father applied to three U.S. universities. He applied to the University of Miami, he applied to LSU, and he applied to the University of Texas. It was pure happenstance that the first one to let him in was the University of Texas. Had it been otherwise, had it been the University of Miami, I might today be a constituent of our friend Marco Rubio. But it so happened it was the University of Texas, and that led to my father getting on a plane in 1957 when he was 18.
I want again to talk to the pages who are here. Some of you may be 18 or near it. I want you to imagine at the age of 18 getting on a plane and flying away from your family, thousands of miles away to another country--to a country where you don't know anybody, you don't have any family, and you don't speak the language. Imagine walking off the plane.
My father had the suit on his back. He couldn't take anything with him. He couldn't take a suitcase or anything. He was wearing a suit. The one possession he had was a slide rule that was in his pocket. I see looks of somewhat confusion on the faces of the pages. I note anytime I talk to young people they have utterly no idea what a slide rule is. That was the one possession he had that he had taken from Cuba. And my grandmother, before he left, sewed $100 into the inside of his underwear. She wanted him to have at least a little money when he landed.
So in 1957 he shows up in Austin, and his first priority was to get a place to live. So he went and found a place to live. And then he had to get a job. And the job he got was washing dishes. Why washing dishes? Because you didn't have to speak English. He couldn't speak English. He made 50 cents an hour. He didn't have to talk to anyone. He could take a dish, stick it under hot water, scrub it, and move on to the next one. That he could do.
My dad worked 7 days a week washing dishes and then as a cook to pay his way through the University of Texas. And times were tight. I can't imagine. I didn't have to go through that. I don't believe Senator Lee had to go through the experience of going to school full time and working full time. My dad worked 7 days a week while he was going to school full time as a student. It wasn't that he wanted to. He didn't have any other alternatives. There wasn't anyone else providing for him.
I remember a couple of stories my father told me of his time in college. With the indulgence of the Chair, I will share those stories because they are stories, I think, of the American experience; they are shared experience.
The great thing about working in a restaurant is they let you eat while you work. So during the 8 hours, he would eat those 8 hours. The other 16 hours he wouldn't eat. It was even better when he got promoted to being a cook, because as a cook you really got a chance to eat. For example, one of the things the restaurant served was fried shrimp. My dad had a policy that anyone who ordered a dozen shrimp, he would cook 13 and eat one. During the course of the day a lot of people would order fried shrimp, and he would just eat one steadily throughout the day. My dad used to try to drink 6 or 7 glasses of milk during the day. He figured there was no percentage in water, and he needed the nutrients. Because when he left, he was going another 16 hours without eating until he came back to work the next day. He didn't have money for food.
There was one little exception. There was a coffee shop he found in town. He went in one day, and he splurged. It was one of the few times he actually spent money, and he spent money for a cup of coffee. Another gentleman in the coffee shop came in and ordered some toast. My dad saw the waitress take out of a bag a fresh loaf of bread, take both of the heels and throw them away, and then take two other slices of bread, put them in the toaster and toast them. My father said: What are you doing? You are throwing away perfectly good food. And she said: well, we can't serve the heels.
When you are desperate and you are hungry, you have incentive to do all sorts of things, and so my father said: Listen, do me a favor. Save them for me. Just save them for me. You can't serve them, I will eat them. He used to go into that coffee shop, and that waitress very kindly would save the heels when she opened a new loaf. When he would come in she would have five, six, or seven heels. She would toast them and give him butter, and he would order one cup of coffee and have five or six heels of toast and drink his coffee.
Another similar story. There were a lot of immigrants at the University of Texas who didn't have two nickels between them, and he went over to some friends who I think were brothers and they invited him over for dinner. He was sitting down for dinner with a big pot of black beans. Cubans love black beans. When he was reaching in to get black beans, they said: Watch out for the nail. Watch out for the nail? What on Earth are you talking about? These two brothers explained: Look, we don't have money for food. So what little money we have, we have enough to have beans each night, and we have enough to purchase a little tiny paper-thin steak. The brothers said: Initially, we started to cut the steak in half so we would each eat it. To be honest, we both left hungry and we weren't happy with that. So we decided instead of doing that, we would take a nail, drop it in the beans, and we would fish for the nail. Whoever got the nail with their beans got the whole steak and the other brother didn't get any steak at all.
They said: Rafael, since you are our guest--and he was kind of waiting for them to say we are going to give you the steak, but they were not quite that generous. But they said: Since you are
our guest, we will give you half of the steak and we are going to fish for the nail for the other half.
One other story. In his freshman or sophomore year, I'm not sure which, my dad and a couple of other Cubans who were students there decided they wanted to have a Christmas dinner. The Cuban tradition of Christmas is to roast a whole pig.
Indeed, if I may digress, when I was dating my wife Heidi--Heidi is the love of my life, she is my best friend. She was raised in California. She and her whole family are vegetarians. I remember Heidi brought me back to meet her parents for Christmas, and we were sitting there having Christmas dinner. I would note that a vegetarian Christmas dinner is just like any other Christmas dinner except the entree never comes. Everything else is wonderful, but you keep waiting for them to bring out the entree and it is not there.
My now in-laws, who are wonderful tremendous people, who were missionaries and just wonderful people, they were trying to get to know this strange young man their daughter had brought home. And they said: Ted, tell us, how does your family celebrate Christmas? I said: Well, we are Cuban, and the Cuban tradition is that on Christmas Eve we roast a whole pig.
I must tell you the look of abject horror. If you can imagine a table full of California vegetarians, when I said we roast a whole pig. I don't think if I had said we consumed live kittens it would have more horrified them than that so viscerally carnivorous tale.
But my dad and a couple of his Cuban buddies decided they wanted to have a Christmas dinner, and to actually celebrate. So they drove to a farm just outside of Austin. They found some farmers in central Texas and said: Listen, is there any chance we could somehow buy a little piglet from you? Can we do something so we could get it and roast it? We would like to have it at Christmas Eve dinner. These farmers decided they wanted to have fun with my dad and these kids, so they said: Tell you what. We will take this little piglet and let him loose in a corral filled with mud. If you can catch it, you can have him for free. My dad and his friends chased that piglet for close to an hour, running around in the mud. They finally caught the piglet, the farmers gave it to them, they took it home, and they roasted it for Christmas Eve.
The epilogue to the story about my in-laws is that when Heidi and I became engaged, her mother called her and said: Sweetheart, are you prepared to catch the pig? Thankfully Heidi reassured her she was quite confident in our marriage that there would be no pig catching that she would indeed be carrying out, and that has indeed proven true.
All of us have stories about our families. My father has been my inspiration ever since I was a kid because I think it is a great blessing, a tremendous blessing to be the child of someone who has fled oppression, to be the child of someone who came here seeking freedom. It makes you realize that what we have in the United States of America is precious, it is wonderful, it is unique, and we cannot possibly risk giving it up.
At the same time, I am amazed at how commonplace my father's story is. Every American has a story just like that. Sometimes it is us, sometimes it is our parents, sometimes it is our great-great- grandparents. But I have yet to encounter someone who doesn't have a story like that in their background, often closer than one might think. I think the most shared characteristic among all of us as Americans is we are the children of those who risked everything for freedom.
Sometimes people ask, what differentiates Americans from, say, Europeans, Americans from other countries? I think more than anything it is in our DNA to value liberty and opportunity above all else.
When ObamaCare was being passed 3\1/2\ years ago, I think the proponents believed--in fact, they stated--that once it is in place Americans would come to love it and would give up their liberty, would give up their freedom in exchange for bread and circuses. Yet 3\1/2\ years later we see ObamaCare is less popular now than it was then. That is true all over the country. That is true in every region. That is true among Republicans, among Democrats, among Independents, and among Libertarians.
There are several reasons for that. One is simple facts. Forget party ideology affiliations. The simple fact is this isn't working. If you look at it on its face, it is a train wreck, as the Democratic Senator who was the lead author of ObamaCare has described. On its face it is a nightmare, as James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, has described it.
ObamaCare in practice is killing jobs all over this country. It is causing small businesses to stay small, not to grow, not to create jobs. It is causing Americans all over this country to forcibly reduce to 29 hours a week. Do you know who is being reduced the most? It ain't the rich. It ain't, as the President likes to put it, the millionaires and billionaires. The millionaires and billionaires are doing great. They are richer today than when President Obama was elected.
I think the biggest lie in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of the rich. I think it is a complete and total falsehood. The rich do great with big government. Business does great with big government. Why? Because big business gets into bed with big government.
What have we seen with ObamaCare? The rich and powerful get special exemptions. Big businesses? The President exempts them. Members of Congress? The President exempts us. It is the little guy who doesn't have an army of lobbyists, doesn't have special interests, the little guy is the one left out.
So who are the people losing their jobs? Who are the people forcibly having reduced hours? Who are the people facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums? Who are the people having their insurance dropped? It is people such as the disabled retirees whose letters I was reading earlier today. It is people like my father.
If ObamaCare was the law in 1957, when my father was washing dishes, I think it is a virtual certainty that he would have found his hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week--if he had been lucky enough to get a job in the first place. He might not have been hired at all. That is happening to people all over the country. The people who are losing under ObamaCare are people like my dad, teenaged kids who don't speak English, who are recent immigrants, who are Hispanic, who are African Americans, single moms.
I have a good friend who is now a justice on the Texas Supreme Court whose mom was a single mom and waited tables. He computed the distance she walked as a waitress to bring him up. I don't remember the exact measurements, but it was some remarkable number of times walking from the Earth to the Moon and back that she walked so her kids could have a better life. That single mom who was waiting tables, her son is now a justice in the Texas Supreme Court. That is the story of America. But if ObamaCare had been in place, that single mom waiting tables is working 29 hours a week. Try feeding a family on 29 hours a week. You can't do it. It cannot be done.
So what happens instead? People get their hours forcibly reduced. They either can't earn enough to feed their family so they leave the workforce altogether and they go on welfare. Not that they want to. They want to be working. But if Congress has passed a law so that the only job they can get is 29 hours a week, that is not enough to feed their family. Right now one in seven Americans is on food stamps. What a travesty. It is not a travesty from the perspective of the budget; it is not a travesty from the perspective of the taxpayers. It is a travesty from the perspective of those people on food stamps who would rather be working, who would rather have the dignity of work to provide for their family and to climb the economic ladder.
My dad started washing dishes, but he didn't stay there. After washing dishes he got a job as a cook. After a cook he got a job as a teaching assistant. After a teaching assistant he got hired at IBM as a computer programmer. Then he started his own business. If he doesn't get hired washing dishes, he doesn't get the next job as a cook, he doesn't get the next job as a teaching assistant, he doesn't get the next job at IBM, he doesn't get the next job starting his own business.
If you look at those single moms who are waiting tables and suddenly get their hours reduced to 29 hours a week, if she ends up giving up, going on food stamps, going on welfare, saying I can't earn enough in the market to provide for my family, not only does that have devastating effects on her and on her kids, but it also means she won't have a chance to move up the ladder. She won't have a chance to get that next job. Maybe if she was waiting tables, she would get promoted to being assistant manager and then manager. Maybe she would have another opportunity moving up the ladder. But if she doesn't get on that first rung, we know to an absolute certainty you won't go to the second or third rung. What a travesty.
This is a country of unlimited opportunity, and ObamaCare is cutting off that opportunity. It is shutting down that opportunity. Those are who are hurt the most under ObamaCare.
There are many reasons why ObamaCare is problematic. It is problematic because it is the biggest job killer in America. It is a train wreck because it is forcing more and more people to be driven into part-time work 29 hours a week.
The second thing the single mom can do--suppose she doesn't give up. Suppose she says, Darn it, I want to work to provide for my kids. I am not going to give up. I am not going to go on welfare and stop working in the workplace. The other option is to go find another job. So then she has two jobs at 29 hours a week. Her kids now see less of their mom. And, by the way, neither one gives her health care. So the Affordable Care Act and all the great benefits of that haven't helped her at all. Instead of being at one job where she could work and focus on that one job and potentially climb the ladder to different opportunities, she is working two part-time jobs. Part-time jobs are much harder to advance in your career with. She is also dealing with commuting. She has got to get from one job to the other. For a single mom whose time is at a premium, who would like to be at her kids' soccer game if ever she could work the schedule to do that, if she has to drive from one place to the other back and forth, there are a lot of soccer games that single mom is never getting to, not to mention the headaches of having two different jobs and two different bosses. If you have boss No. 1 who says, I want you to work Tuesday morning, and boss No. 2 says, I want you to work Tuesday morning at my place, how do you balance those? Both of them say, I don't care about your other job. I need you here. What a nightmare.
ObamaCare is a train wreck. It is a nightmare because it is killing jobs, because it is driving up health insurance, because it is causing more and more people to lose their health insurance. But it is also fundamentally wrong for a broader reason: because it infringes on our liberty.
The Federal Government is telling every American: You must purchase health insurance. The individual mandate, we are going to make you purchase health insurance. If not, the IRS is going to come and find you.
The Federal Government is telling Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals, Christian companies like Hobby Lobby: You must pay for health insurance procedures that violate your religious dictates. They may not violate everyone's religious dictates. There may be a lot of people in this country who have no religious qualms about that whatsoever, and that is fine. Each of us is entitled--indeed, encouraged--to seek out God Almighty with all of our heart, mind, and soul as best we can, and we will follow different paths. But I guarantee you, if the Federal Government can tell Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals: You must violate your religious beliefs or we are going to fine you out of business; if the Federal Government can tell that to Hobby Lobby, a Christian company, they can tell that to you too. Whatever your religious beliefs happen to be, if the Federal Government can say: Violate your religious faith or we are coming after you, that is a dangerous Rubicon we have crossed.
We are a nation that was founded on liberty. Always defend liberty. You can't go wrong with that as a mantra.
In the interest of that, I would like to share a few excerpts of one of my favorite books, ``Atlas Shrugged'' by Ayn Rand. Let me encourage any of you who have not read ``Atlas Shrugged'' to go tomorrow and buy ``Atlas Shrugged'' and read it. What is interesting is in the last 3 years sales of ``Atlas Shrugged'' have exploded, because we are living in the days of Ayn Rand.
I will share a few excerpts that are all fundamentally about liberty and the liberty that ObamaCare infringes.
Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your
recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that
productive work is the process by which man's consciousness
controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring
knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose of
translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth
and the image of one's values--that all work is creative work
if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done
by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has
learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and
the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is
possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your
way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become
a fear-corroded ape--
There is a phrase you don't hear often in modern parlance.
--on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down
into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity
is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of
motion: decay--
My, is that happening across this country as a result of ObamaCare, people being forced to settle down into jobs that require less than our mind's full capacity
--that your work is the process of achieving your values, and
to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to
live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its
driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you,
with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who
has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the
mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch,
that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine
slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader
prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap
heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a
hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work
is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any
killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value
you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or
love, can be only travelers you choose to share your
journey and must be travelers going on their own power in
the same direction.''
A few other excerpts.
What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right
and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon
it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by
the good at any price.
Boy, that is counsel the Senate should listen to. That is counsel I would encourage for every Democratic Senator who feels the urge of party loyalty, to stand by their party, to stand by ObamaCare because it is the natural thing to do. Yet we saw union leaders, we saw the roofers union, we saw James Hoffa of the Teamsters say they cannot remain silent any longer. Why? Because of the suffering ObamaCare is visiting on so many working men and women. It is a nightmare, according to James Hoffa of the Teamsters. I encourage my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, as difficult as it is to cross one's party leaders--I say with perhaps a little familiarity with the consequences of so doing that it is survivable and that ultimately it is liberating; that the Democratic Senators of this body maintain their fidelity, their loyalty not to the party apparatus, not to the party bosses, but to the men and women who sent them here, to the men and women like the union members of the Teamsters who are pleading with Members of Congress: Hear our suffering. ObamaCare is a nightmare.
With that prism in mind, let me reread Ayn Rand's excerpt:
What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right
and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon
it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by
the good at any price.
You know, at any price? Look, at the end of the day, a Member of the Senate bucks his or her party leadership, and to be honest, the prices are all pretty piddly. What a coddled world we live in that we think that if someone says a cross word to you at a cocktail party or, God forbid, even worse, leaks a scurrilous lie to some reporter, that truly is a grievous insult. Goodness gracious, compared to what the people have gone through, compared to the suffering my dad went through being tortured in a Cuban prison, that is all mild. To be honest, compared to the
single moms who are just wanting to provide for their kids, give them a good home, give them a good example, help them get a good future, the retribution any political party can impose on us for daring to buck the leadership is so mild and inconsequential, it is not even worth mentioning.
Let me encourage every Democratic Senator to try to meet that definition of morality:
Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the
truth, and courage to act upon it; dedication to that which
is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.
Let me encourage my Republican colleagues, there may be some Republicans who are inclined to vote for cloture on this bill, to give majority leader Harry Reid and the Democrats the ability to fund ObamaCare on a straight party-line vote, as some of my colleagues have publicly said they are so inclined. It is my sincere hope that between now and the vote on Friday or Saturday, their better angels prevail.
Listen, any Democrat who crosses the aisle to vote with us will face swift retribution, but at the end of the day we have a higher obligation. We have an obligation to the constituents who sent us here.
Any Republican--I know there are some Republicans who are saying: I am going to support cloture. I am going to support giving Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare. Why? Because my leadership is telling me to, and I am a good soldier. I will salute and march into battle in whatever direction leadership instructs.
I will confess that Republicans are sometimes even more susceptible to such commands to being orderly. Let me commend to every Republican, ask yourself that same test that Ayn Rand laid out.
What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right
and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon
it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by
the good at any price.
I can tell you this: If any one of the 46 Republicans in this body asks not what does our party leadership want us to do but asks the more important question of, what do our constituents want us to do, I tell you this: If I get any gathering of Texans, Texans are not conflicted. If I ask a gathering of Texans--and by the way, it doesn't matter what part of Texas--east Texas, west Texas, the panhandle, down in the valley.
I was in a gathering down in the valley a few weeks ago. The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is the poorest part of the State.
My friend Senator Lee knows the valley well because he was a missionary down in the valley. In fact, he has darned good Spanish as a result of living in the valley in Texas. In fact, I think that gives Texas a reason to claim him unofficially as a third Senator. He may not acquiesce to that, but we will claim him anyway.
I was at a gathering in the valley a few weeks ago, 200, 300 people. I would guess a significant percentage if not a majority of the people in that room were probably Democrats. A majority of them were Mexican Americans.
You know, I try to make a policy of giving the same remarks standing for the same principles regardless of whether I am talking with a group I think will necessarily agree with me or will not.
The bulk of the remarks I gave to that group before taking Q and A from the group for some time were focused on defunding ObamaCare, and it was really striking that in that group, which was largely if not predominantly Hispanic Democrats in the valley in Texas, when it came to defunding ObamaCare, to stopping the train wreck that is ObamaCare, the result was rousing sustained applause and cheers. Why? Because if you get out of the partisan prison that is Washington, it is not complicated.
There is a reason why labor unions want out. There is a reason the Teamsters, who describe that they have been knocking on doors as loyal foot soldiers for the Democratic Party, are saying: This is a nightmare. Repeal ObamaCare. Repeal it because it is a nightmare.
There is a reason why Members of Congress, why Majority Leader Reid and Democratic Senators who support ObamaCare so much for the American people said: Good golly, get us out from under it. We certainly do not want to be subject to the same rules the American people are.
There is a reason why the IRS employees' union is saying: Even though we are enforcing ObamaCare, please get us out from under it.
Under the objective facts, this is not working.
I urge every Republican who is here, before you make a decision how to vote on cloture on this bill on Friday or Saturday--and I think certainly in the time I have been in the Senate this is the most consequential vote I will cast and I believe any Member of this body will cast during the time I have been here--I ask every Republican to ask not simply what this party leadership wants you to do but what is the right thing to do for your constituents. If you gather 100 of your constituents together in a room and you ask them: How should I vote on this motion--let me frame it a little more explicitly because, you know, politicians are sometimes crafty characters. Some politicians say: I could get 100 of my citizens, and I could frame in some abstract procedural way how I would vote on the cloture to take up the bill to do the whatchamacallit and it would really be supporting the House bill. What do you think? We can talk fast enough that we can confuse some people in the room for a few minutes.
But let me suggest to any Republican Senator, gather at random 100 of your constituents--I am going to suggest even broader: not 100 Republicans, 100 constituents--and pose the following question to them: Should I as your Republican Senator vote to allow Harry Reid and the Democrats to fully fund ObamaCare with no changes, no improvements to address the train wreck that is ObamaCare on a purely party-line partisan vote of only Democrats? I will wager all the money in my bank account that every one of the--by the way, you could pick the bluest State for which a Republican Senator represents that State--I will wager that in that State, if you grab 100 of your constituents, it would not be a 50-50 proposition. I don't even think it would be a 60- 40 proposition. Your constituents overwhelmingly would say: No, don't vote to give Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare without fixing this train wreck, without stopping this nightmare.
All that it takes for us to do the right thing is to listen to the people. It is not complicated. It is not rocket science. Listen to the people.
Ayn Rand in ``Atlas Shrugged'' also held:
The nation which once held the creed that greatness is
achieved by production is now told that it is achieved by
squalor.
She also observed:
Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of
your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for
his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty
and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the
Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any
achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy
that has ever existed on this earth.
God has created men and women to be free creatures. It is
not benefiting anyone to strip them of their liberty, to make
them dependent on government.
I cannot tell you how many times I have said: Thank the good Lord that when my dad was a teenage immigrant in Texas 55 years ago, how grateful I am that some well-meaning liberal did not come and put his arm around him and say: Let me take care of you. Let me give you a government check. Let me make you dependent on the government. Don't bother washing those dishes. Don't bother working. I am going to take care of your every need. And by the way, don't bother learning English. I respect your culture so much that I am going to lock you out of the business and professional classes in this country. I am going to make sure that if you do work, you are almost surely going to be consigned to menial labor because you cannot communicate with the significant majority of Americans.
What a destructive thing to do to someone. If someone had done that to my father and he had listened, I am hard-pressed to think of anything that would have been more destructive.
At the end of the day these points are not partisan or ideological; they are common sense. They are who we are as Americans. Ask any abuelo or abuela: What do you want for your grandkids? Do you want your grandkids dependent on government? Do you want your grandkids receiving government support or do you want them working? Do
you want them working in a job, working hard? Do you want them climbing the economic ladder to success? Do you want them in a career where they can have a better life than you had and their parents had? Do you want them working in a job? I don't know of a grandmother in this country who would find that a difficult choice. That is a choice that is basic common sense. It is fundamentally destructive to the human spirit not to be able to work and stand on your own feet.
After standing here for 14 hours, I can say that when you are standing on your own feet, sometimes there is pain and sometimes some fatigue that is involved. But you know what. There is far more pain involved in rolling over, far more pain in hiding in the shadows, far more pain in not standing for principle, not standing for the good, not standing for integrity. That is what it means to be an American. We do the hard things.
To all the Republicans who say fighting this fight is going to be very hard, I sure hope they didn't run for the Senate because they wanted something easy to do. I sure hope they didn't run for the Senate because they wanted to avoid hard challenges. To the Democrats who say, I couldn't buck the party leadership, gosh, it would make the White House mad, make the party leadership mad, and make our leadership in the Senate mad, we have to be united, Team, team, team. We are not a team. We represent the people. You know the team that each of us is on? It is the American team. It is a team where we have an obligation to the men and women who sent us here. Let me be clear: We have an obligation to all the men and women who sent us here. I have an obligation not just to Republicans in the State of Texas and not just to those who voted for me in the State of Texas, although there were quite a few voters in the State of Texas who voted for President Obama and voted for me.
If you listen to Washington conventional wisdom, they would suggest that is impossible. I was pleased to get a number of Texans who did that. Even those who voted against me and disagree with everything I am doing, I still have an obligation to represent them and to try to use my best judgment and try to listen to them and fight for them.
I am convinced that every one of the 26 million Texans in my State will be better. They will have a better future, a better life, and an environment where economic growth comes back and small businesses are thriving and creating jobs and not shrinking. They will have opportunities so they are not forced into part-time work but will have full-time opportunities so more people who are like my dad--teenaged kids who can't speak English--can get that first job washing dishes. That first job helps them to get the second job, the third job, and the fourth job.
I believe in the American dream with all of my heart and might. The American dream is being jeopardized by ObamaCare, and that is a travesty that should outrage and horrify everyone in the Senate. For everyone on the Republican side who said this is hard, we might be blamed; there might be some political blame; let's let it all collapse--I have heard Republicans say, especially the pundits, Gosh, to get on TV--I will tell you that one of the best ways to get on TV is to just advise and then run away from any battle that matters. They put you on TV a lot if that is your advice.
What they say is, if Republicans stand and fight this fight, the President and Harry Reid might force a shutdown and Republicans might get blamed and, gosh, that could hurt us politically. Beyond that you might hear--and this is the very clever Republicans--ObamaCare is such a train wreck and a nightmare that we just need to sit quietly. James Hoffa said he couldn't sit silent anymore, but Republicans say to sit silently and let ObamaCare collapse on its own weight.
Never mind that Harry Reid said when it collapses on its own weight, it will lead us to single-payer socialized health care. Why? Because it will destroy the private health insurance. Never mind that. We have been told that if we do nothing, it will collapse on its own weight and everyone will blame the Democrats.
Let me make it very clear: Who cares? Listen, if everyone will blame the Democrats, then consider me the person trying to actively save the Democrats from that blame. I would gladly celebrate any Democrat brave enough to stand and say: Listen, I used to think ObamaCare was a good idea. I supported it, and I am persuaded by the facts and by my constituents. This thing isn't working. People are hurting.
When President Obama reversed course and listened to bipartisan calls to submit his decision to launch a unilateral military attack on Syria to the will of Congress, I happily and loudly praised President Obama for submitting to the constitutional authority of this party. When he went even further and listened to the calls from the American people not to put us in the middle of that sectarian war, I again happily and enthusiastically praised President Obama for being willing to change his mind and turn back because he listened to the voice of the American people. That was the right thing to do.
For everyone who thinks this is hard, I would like to turn to some of my favorite remarks from a Republican President who I suspect many on the Democratic side of the aisle admire as well because he was one of the most progressive Republicans, although he was not shy in any way, shape or form.
Indeed, Teddy Roosevelt was once giving a speech, and he was shot during the speech. He finished the speech before seeking medical attention. There was an old episode on ``Saturday Night Live''--the pages have probably never seen this--that was ``Quien es mas Macho,'' which means who is more macho. You know what. Teddy Roosevelt quien es mas macho. If you get shot while giving a speech and stand there and finish the speech, you win. Even Sean Connery is looking at him and going, wow, that guy is tough.
I will read the words Teddy Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. These are words for everyone who thinks this fight is too hard or that we shouldn't take a risk or we shouldn't risk political blame. These are words that every one of us should listen to:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better. The credit belongs to the man--
Or the woman--
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who
comes short again and again, because there is no effort
without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive
to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the
best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and
who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Yes, you can avoid risk. You can avoid doing the hard thing. You can avoid doing the things where you might get politically blamed. You can stay silent and hope that the other party gets blamed because there will be political benefits for that. But I am going to suggest to you that is not doing our job. That is not what we were elected to do.
We were elected to stand and fight to do the hard things for the men and women of this country because it is an extraordinary and breathtaking privilege to serve in this body. I cannot tell you how it brings me virtually to tears to think about the opportunity I have to stand here at a time when our Nation is threatened as I have never seen before. You know what. The tears that I talked about, and am now experiencing a little bit, are a very small reflection of the very real tears I have seen from men and women all across Texas.
Men and women have looked me in the eyes and said: I am scared for my country, my kids, and my grandkids. We are losing America. We are losing the wonderful free enterprise system. We are losing the prosperity. We are losing growth.
Will my kids and grandkids have a better life than I did? I don't think so. I cannot tell you how many Texans have said that. You know what. When you say that, that is not something you say like reporting the weather: It is sunny today and 78 degrees. That is heartbreaking. As Americans, it is fundamental in who we are. We believe in a better tomorrow. We believe morning
can come to America, and we believe our kids and grandkids will live with a better challenge.
If we continue down this road, we will be mired in what I call the great stagnation. Over the last 4 years, our economy has grown on average at 0.9 percent a year. If we continue down this road, we will allow young people to be what economists are starting to dub ``the lost generation.'' I am sorry to tell young people that is what economists are calling them right now. This generation is coming of age at a time when there is no economic growth and no real prospect for that to change.
What it means as a practical matter is that young people are not getting that first job or they are getting jobs--and as Ayn Rand observed--that are far less than their mind, their capacity, and their talent is capable of. What that means is they don't get their next job or their next job, so they don't develop to their full potential, and that stays with young people for decades to come.
This body needs to listen to the American people. We need to make DC listen.
I thank my friend from Utah for that very fine question. The answer as to what we can do is to do what we must, as Americans, what we always have, which is to take the responsibility on ourselves, on our shoulders, to step forward, to engage.
Edmund Burke famously said: The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
One of the tremendous aspects of the American character is Americans have never been willing to sit back and do nothing.
People all over this country are disillusioned. They are disillusioned because Washington does not listen to us. They are disillusioned because Democratic Senators do not listen to the people and Republican Senators do not listen to the people. I understand that disillusionment. I feel the same way. Everywhere I go in Texas that sentiment is expressed. I do not think there is a State in the Union where they do not feel that sense.
But there are moments--moments in time when we can change that. You think back to earlier this year, to another filibuster that occurred on this Senate floor with our friend Senator Rand Paul, when he was standing up to the administration's drone policy.
Senator Paul began that filibuster, if I remember correctly, at 11:45 a.m. When he started, virtually every Senator in this Chamber viewed what he was doing as an odd crusade. They did not support it. They did not even understand it. What matters if the Federal Government can use a drone to target a U.S. citizen, to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil? What matters that, thought most Senators.
Senator Paul began a brave crusade. I would note, during that filibuster, I was honored to stand side by side with my good friend Senator Lee as we were the first two Senators to stand in support of that and to battle the length of those 13 hours in defense of the Constitution.
During the course of that filibuster, we saw what happens when the American people get engaged. Because the American people got engaged at an incredible level, and it forced a change. For 3 consecutive weeks, President Obama had refused to do what he did that very next day, which was admit in writing that the Constitution limits his authority to target U.S. citizens.
Indeed, earlier that day before the filibuster began, it so happened that Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Lee and I were both there as part of that testimony. I remember an exchange with the Attorney General where three times I asked the Attorney General if, in his view, the Constitution allowed the U.S. Government to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil if that individual did not pose an imminent threat, and three times he responded: I do not think it would be appropriate to do so.
The first time he gave that response, I responded to the Attorney General. I said: Mr. Attorney General, you seem to have misunderstood my question. I was not asking about propriety. After all, he was not there testifying as an etiquette columnist for the local newspaper. I said: You are the Attorney General of the United States. You are the chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America. Does the
Department of Justice have a position on whether the Constitution allows the U.S. Government to use a drone to target and kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil if that individual does not pose an imminent threat? Again, the response was: I do not think it would be appropriate.
After the third time, I almost felt as if the response was: I do not understand this Constitution to which you are referring. Finally, he conceded in that back and forth: Well, when I say ``appropriate,'' I mean ``constitutional,'' which I find a curious notion that somehow ``appropriate'' and ``constitutional'' are coterminous.
You want to talk about what the American people can do? We saw during that, had not that filibuster and the American people mobilized, President Obama would have never admitted in writing what he admitted that next day, which was the Constitution limits his authority. And that matters.
We saw another example with the gun debate. Following the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT--which every one of us was horrified at--the President, sadly, did not come out and say: Let us go after violent criminals.
And listen, I think we should come down on violent criminals like a ton of bricks. Instead, the President, unfortunately, took it as an opportunity to go after the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, instead of targeting violent criminals, those who would prey on the innocent.
The conventional wisdom in Washington was the momentum behind those efforts was unstoppable. Indeed, all the talking heads, the same talking heads who during Rand's filibuster said this is foolish, this is a fool's errand, this cannot work--the American people rose up and spoke and that was proven wrong.
During the gun debate, those same talking heads--it is interesting, in the world of punditry there are no consequences for being proven wrong. You just keep going back to making those same gosh darn predictions. And you know what. If you keep making the same prediction often enough, eventually it is going to prove right.
In the gun debate all those same talking heads said: You cannot stop it. This is unstoppable. What happened again? The American people got involved by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, calling their Senators, e-mailing their Senators, speaking out at townhalls, saying: Defend the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We want the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens to be protected.
I remember on the floor of this Senate, when it came for a vote, every single proposal of the President that would have undermined the Second Amendment was voted down. That astonished observers. They said it was impossible. It was impossible until the American people engaged.
As we discussed not too long ago with Syria, the President advocated, said he was going to engage in a unilateral military strike within days. It was imminent. It was happening. There was bipartisan support from the leadership of both Houses of Congress. All those same pundits--Mr. President, if you are noticing a pattern here, there is a pattern here. These same pundits over and over again said: Whatever President Obama says, that is inevitable. It cannot be stopped. There is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing to see here. Move on.
At first the President, quite rightly, listened to bipartisan calls to submit that decision to the constitutional authority of Congress. I was quick to praise him for doing so. And, second, even more difficult, the President showed the wisdom, the prudence to listen to the voice of the American people when the American people spoke out overwhelmingly and said: We do not want to be involved in a sectarian civil war in Syria when we do not have a dog in the fight, when the rebels are in some significant way allied with Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra, radical terrorists, when there is no national security interest in getting us in the middle of this. It was overwhelming, and the entire ship of state turned on a dime. What was inevitable stopped. And it stopped because of the American people.
So the question my friend Senator Lee asked--what can the American people do? Do the same thing. But let me tell you now, you have to do it 10 times louder. You have to do it in even greater volume. Because I am sorry to say, Members of this body are dug in at a level they were not dug in on drones, at a level they were not dug in on guns, at a level they were not dug in on Syria.
The Democrats in this body, I am sorry to say, have not yet shown the willingness to speak out like James Hoffa of the Teamsters has, have not yet shown the willingness to speak out for their constituents and say: ObamaCare is failing and it is not working.
The Republicans in this body--there are quite a few of them who are angry we are having this fight. They believe it is not worthy of the time of this institution. They find themselves offended that the American people would expect us not just to have a symbolic show vote on a ObamaCare but actually to do something. Goodness gracious, this is Congress. We do not do something. Let's have another symbolic vote, and then we can put out a press release.
About an hour ago, a member of my staff showed me that this discussion--even though virtually every Senator has gone home and gone to sleep--that this discussion, this debate is not just trending No. 1 in the United States, but in one way, shape, or form is trending No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. I have never seen anything like that.
No. 2, I will confess, is Duck Dynasty, but I am going to claim Duck Dynasty as part of it since not too long ago I took the opportunity to read some words of wisdom from Duck Dynasty and I suspect that is not entirely disconnected.
I have to admit, I have seen things trend No. 1. I have never seen them trend Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 all at the same time.
Given the Senate Chamber has been largely empty for most of the night, it is self-evident that kind of involvement from the American people is not a factor of personalities. It is not a factor of myself or Mike or anyone else. And by the way, everyone who wants to distract from the subject of this debate will try to make it about personalities. If they can get the Washington press corps to write stories about personal flights, about back and forth, about civil war-- my goodness, how many times have we seen the words ``civil war'' in the last week in the press? I am wondering if reporters have it now on a macro: ``Alt'' ``C'' and it types ``civil war.'' Who cares? You know what. If you get out of Washington, DC, I do not know anyone who cares. What Americans care about is they want jobs back. They want economic growth back. They want to get back to work. They want their health care not to be taken away because of ObamaCare. Every effort to talk about anything else is all a deliberate effort to distract from the issue that matters.
The reason this is trending Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 is because, for a moment, at least, some in this body are listening to the American people. I hope and believe and think that a great many Americans want to believe that more of us will do so, that more of us on the Republican side of the aisle and more of us on the Democratic side of the aisle will forget party, forget the battle, and actually listen to the people and fight to fix these problems.
The question Senator Lee asked is: What can the American people do? I will say, nothing gets the attention of elected representatives more than hearing from their constituents in jaw-dropper numbers, in phone calls and e-mails and tweets and Facebook posts.
Some Members of this body express annoyance that why would their constituents have the temerity to dictate to us--the solons of Washington--what to do. The answer is simple. Because our constituents are our boss. We work for them. They have every right to dictate to us.
I will note, on a lighter note, my friend Congressman Louie Gohmert, who has been here all night, handed me something that was quite nice. It is from the Daily News. It ran on Friday, November 4, 1949. It is entitled ``Ode to the Welfare State.'' It reads:
Mr. Truman's St. Paul, Minn., pie-for-everybody speech last
night reminded us that, at the tail-end of the recent session
of Congress, Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio) jammed
into the Congressional Record the following poem, describing
its author only as ``a prominent Democrat of the State of
Georgia'':
It is titled ``Democratic Dialogue.''
Father must I go to work?
No, my lucky son.
We're living now on Easy Street
On dough from Washington.
We've left it up to Uncle Sam,
So don't get exercised.
Nobody has to give a damn--
We've all been subsidized.
But if Sam treats us all so well
And feeds us milk and honey,
Please daddy, tell me what the heck
He's going to use for money.
Don't worry bub, there's not a hitch
In this here noble plan--
He simply soaks the filthy rich
And helps the common man.
But father, won't there come a time
When they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
When things will go to smash?
My faith in you is shrinking son,
You nosy little brat.
You do too damn much thinking son,
To be a Democrat.
That is from the Daily News, Friday, November 4, 1949, apparently inserted into the Congressional Record by a Member of Congress.
Let's take it a different direction. We talked about liberty, liberty that is at stake here. I want to talk about that same principle. On one level, on the real, on the personal, on the hard-working American families, they are facing a loss of jobs. They are facing small businesses that are not growing. They are facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums. They are facing losing their health insurance.
But on another level, we are facing an assault on liberty. Before, we went through some of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Now, I want to go further back to 1850, to read some excerpts from a classic that I would recommend to everyone to read, Frederic Bastiat's, ``The Law.'' The Law is a primer in free enterprise.
Though expansion of government programs may be tempting,
the designers often have selfish aims, and the program almost
always thwarts the liberty and prosperity of the people.
He warns of the dangers of programs and the way in which government programs deprive the people of their rights. So Bastiat observes:
Life is a gift from God, which includes all others. This
gift is life--physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life
has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving,
developing and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish
this, he has provided us with a collection of marvelous
faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of
natural resources. By the application of our faculties to
these natural resources, we convert them into products, and
use them. This process is necessary in order that life may
run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality,
liberty, property--this is man. And in spite of the cunning
and artful political leaders, these three gifts from God
precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life,
liberty, and property do not exist because men have made
laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty,
and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws
in the first place.
Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his
person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three
basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one
of them is completely dependent on the preservation of the
other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of
our individuality? And what is property but an extension of
our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even
by force--his person, his liberty, and his property, then it
follows that a group of men have the right to organize and
support a common force to protect these rights constantly.
Thus the principle of collective rights--its reason for
existing, its lawfulness--is based on individual right. And
the common force that protects this collective right cannot
logically have any other purpose or any other mission than
that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an
individual cannot lawfully use force against the person,
liberty, or property of another individual, then the common
force--for the same reason--cannot lawfully be used to
destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or
groups.
Property and plunder. Man can live and satisfy his wants
only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his
faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of
property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his
wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of
others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now, since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain--and
since labor is pain in itself--it follows that men will
resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.
History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions,
neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes
more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to
use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal
tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of
the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of
men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and
support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted
to those who make the laws.
That would be us.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in
the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least effort
possible, explains the almost universal perversion of the
law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of
checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of
injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by
the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the
rest of the people, their personal independence by
slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property
by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who
makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he
holds.
I would note throughout the course of this debate, the central theme I have been focusing on is the disconnect between Washington and the people and the practice right now of Democrats and Republicans not to listen to the people. Let me read again that sentence from Bastiat written in 1850--not written in response to the Senate in 2013--in 1850. He says:
This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the
law, and in proportion to the power he holds.
It seems almost as though Bastiat were writing about Congress right now, about the Obama administration granting exemptions from ObamaCare to the friends, to those with political influence, the giant corporations, and to Members of Congress. Why do Members of Congress get an exemption from ObamaCare that hard-working American families do not?
Bastiat tells us this 160 years ago. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law and in proportion to the power he holds. Bastiat goes on to talk about the victims of lawful plunder.
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are
victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the
profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes
try somehow to enter--by peaceful or revolutionary means--
into the making of laws. According to their degree of
enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two
entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain
political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder,
or they may wish to share in it.
Now, let me note at this point, this goes directly to the question Senator Lee asked a little bit earlier this morning: What can the American people do? The plundered class, the hard-working American families that are finding their jobs going away, that are finding economic growth stripped away, they are finding themselves forcibly put into part-time work. They are seeing their health insurance premiums skyrocket or are seeing their health insurance jeopardized or taken away. They can come together and force our elected officials in both parties to listen to the people--make DC listen. That is what Bastiat is talking about there.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among
the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize
the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice
lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the
right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few
persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes
universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting
interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the
injustices found in society, they make these injustices
general.
As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they
establish a system of reprisals against the other classes.
They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would
demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they
emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this
legal plunder, even though it is against their own interest.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice
appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution--some for
their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
It is almost as if that sentence was written about ObamaCare. I would suggest when you read that sentence and then you pick up and read the letter from James Hoffa of the Teamsters saying: We knocked on doors. We supported President Obama. We block walked. We phone called. We supported your agenda. Now we have discovered
that this law, which is your signature achievement that you fought for, is a nightmare that is hurting millions of Americans and their families. That is what James Hoffa said. Or, as Bastiat said:
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice
appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution--some for
their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
Bastiat continued.
Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty.
Mr. De Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: Your doctrine is
only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I
go on to fraternity.
I answered him: The second half of your program will
destroy the first. In fact, it is impossible for me to
separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I
cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally
enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus
justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said
before, is in human greed; the other is in false
philanthropy.
At this point, I think that I should explain exactly what I
mean by the word plunder. Plunder violates ownership. I do
not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain,
approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its
scientific acceptance--as expressing the idea opposite to
that of property [wages, land, money, or whatever.] When a
portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns
it--without his consent and without compensation, and whether
by force or by fraud--to anyone who does not own it, then I
say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is
committed.
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to
suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits
this act that it is so supposed to suppress, I say that
plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of
view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights
is even worse. In the case of legal plunder, however, the
person who receives the benefits is not responsible for the
act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal plunder
rests with the law, the legislator, and society itself.
Therein lies the political danger.
The Law and Charity. You say: There are persons who have no
money, and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast
that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the
law supplied with milk from a source outside the society.
Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one
citizen or one class unless another citizen or other classes
have been forced to send it in.
If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he
has put in it, it is true that the law plunders nobody. But
this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no
money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be
an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some
persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this,
it is an instrument of plunder.
I would note the adage that any legislator who proposes to rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
Going back to Bastiat:
With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs,
subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and
welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free
credit, and public works. You will find that they are always
based on legal plunder, organized injustice.
Legislators Desire to Mold Mankind.
Now let us examine Raynal on this subject of mankind being
molded by the legislator. The legislator must first consider
the climate, the air, and the soil. The resources at his
disposal determine his duties. He must first consider his
locality. A population living on maritime shores must have
laws designed for navigation. . . . If it is an inland
settlement, the legislator must make his plans according to
the nature and the fertility of the soil.
Frederic Bastiat--1915--explained principles of liberty that continue across the ages, principles of liberty that we owe it to every man and woman in America to protect his or her life, liberty, and property. ObamaCare does violence to the natural rights of every American; it does violence to their opportunity.
Do you know the cruelest joke of all? ObamaCare has been justified: Let's help the least among us. That is a noble goal. We should all care about helping the least among us. The cruelest irony is that the people who are being hurt the most by ObamaCare are the least among us.
The rich, as the President frequently inveighs, millionaires and billionaires, are not hurt by ObamaCare. They are doing just fine. In fact, they are doing better. The richest segment of this country is doing better today than they were when President Obama was elected.
Who is getting hurt? Who is losing their jobs? Who is not finding jobs? Who is getting their hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week? Who is losing their health insurance?
I have read one letter after another from people across Texas and across this country, and not one of these letters said: I am independently wealthy, cruising on my yacht in the Caribbean, and yet ObamaCare has crimped my style. That is not what is happening. These are letters I read from the retired couple in Bayou Vista who had saved their whole life to buy their home, and now they are at risk of losing their home because of ObamaCare.
Let me read from another constituent in Houston, TX, my hometown, who on July 11, 2013, wrote:
My wife and I are currently both working jobs where there
is no provided health care coverage. My wife is a self-
employed physician and I am in sales. We have never gone
without health coverage our entire lives.
My father was in the military, so I had health care until I
graduated college. My wife had coverage through her parents
until she graduated. We never wanted to go without coverage,
so anytime our coverage had a break we went ahead and bought
catastrophic short-term coverage, even knowing we would have
coverage soon.
While my wife was in medical school, I had employer
coverage, and I bought an individual policy for her because
it was much less costly than group coverage. When my
employment status changed and neither of us had employer
coverage, I bought individual policies for both of us. We
would not risk going without health insurance.
Because we were both young and healthy at the time, the
policies were very affordable, about $130 a month. Purchasing
coverage was a no brainer.
While in her residency, we got family coverage through her
work. When she finished her residency in 2012, neither of us
had employer coverage, so it came time for another policy. We
looked around at all the options for a family of four, two
30-year-old adults, a 2-year-old boy and a newborn girl. We
found a HTIP plan for $400 a month with a $10,000 deductible.
We also had scrimped and saved so that in the event we had
a catastrophe we would have a deductible coverage. After that
our plan paid for 100 percent. This is the best coverage I
had ever purchased. I had become an educated consumer in
health care, shopping around for the best deals on
medications, and informing doctors of our situation so they
coded it properly. When we needed care we opted for urgent
care and physicians' offices instead of emergency rooms.
Many of my young healthy friends now have these plans,
either individually purchased or through their employers. As
of January 1, most of these plans will go away for us, as
most of my friends are around 30 years old. These plans are
actually decreasing the cost of health care as they inspire
us to be educated consumers. Unlike what the President said,
I don't get to ``keep my plan.''
I never thought that not purchasing insurance would be an
option for my family. I have done a fair amount of research
using the IRS info, current and estimated prices, even my own
insurance company's estimates. It looks like for the
cheapest, bronze plan, the estimated cost will be about
$1,600 per month, which is $20,000 per year. We don't qualify
for subsidies.
If I choose not to comply, I would pay a fine which, for
us, amounts to about $2,000 and save the $18,000 balance in a
bank account. Our fine will max out at about $5,000, so I
will still have $15,000 per year. I will now begin paying
cash for my health care and negotiate with doctors and
hospitals myself.
As I get older I will consider big insurance when it looks
like the cost-benefit ratio is better. No one in my family
has ever gone without coverage because health care is the No.
1 priority on our list. It still is, but this individual
mandate has caused us to consider going without insurance for
the first time. I would gladly keep my fine if I could keep
my current insurance, but that is not an option either.
Here is one of my friends' stories. He is a high school
teacher and his wife is a stay-at-home mom with two kids. His
district pays for all of his coverage and none of his
spouse's. This year they opted to purchase an individual
plan for her because it was more affordable, $150 a month
versus $500. Beginning January 1, she will be forced into
the exchange, where her estimated cost will be about $400.
They currently cannot afford this, and they don't qualify
for a subsidy because her employer offers coverage for her,
even though her income would qualify her for a 50 percent
subsidy. They will choose not to have insurance coverage on
them.
Many of the young, healthy people I have talked to told me they plan to go without insurance--people who currently purchase individual plans--because the coverage would be too expensive and the fine for most of them is much less than the coverage.
As was told to the American people, if you like your health coverage, you can keep it. We now know that promise was simply, objectively, 100 percent false. For Americans all over this country, the facts are otherwise.
It is incumbent on us, representing our constituents, to look to the reality of these facts.
Look to the young people. I don't think you could design a plan designed to harm young people more than ObamaCare. It is more than a crying irony that some 70 percent of young people voted for the President. I recognize that young people didn't necessarily understand the consequences of ObamaCare and how it is impacting their future. It is one of the things on which I hope this debate will focus.
If you are a young person coming out of school, have some student loans, and let's say you are hoping for a job and for a future, if you can't get that first job or if you are forced into part-time work, you are not going to gain the skills you need to get that second job, the third job, the fourth job, or to build a career, to get married, and to provide for your family.
We read earlier from the Wall Street Journal describing how economists now talk about young people as the ``lost generation.'' One of the striking consequences of this is that young people are putting off marriage and putting off kids. We know that has societal consequences. That has societal consequences that are altogether detrimental. And they are doing it not for matters of individual choice, they are doing it because the economy is so terrible for young people that they have no options. They have no options to provide for a spouse, to provide for kids, so they rationally choose not to begin those families until they have a job sufficient to provide for their families.
This thing isn't working. Every one of us owes it to our constituents to listen, to listen to the young people who are suffering, to listen to the single moms, to listen to the seniors, to listen to those with disabilities, to listen to the African Americans, to listen to the Hispanics who aren't getting jobs, are getting forcibly put in part- time work, facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and who are losing their health insurance.
We can vote party loyalty. That is easy to do. It is the way Washington often works. We can vote and say: Congress is exempted. We have special rules that apply to us, so it is not our problem.
Yes, it hurts hard-working Americans. If there is one thing Washington knows how to do, it is ignore the plight of hard-working Americans. Or we can show a level of coverage that has been rare in this town and step up and say we will risk retribution from our own parties. We will stand up and speak the truth. We will stand up and champion our constituents. Elected officials need to listen to the people. Together, we must make D.C. listen.
I yield for a question without yielding the floor.
I thank my friend from Utah for that very fine question, and I wish to thank the American people for doing exactly what Senator Lee just asked--for over 1.6 million Americans signing a national petition to defund ObamaCare.
You want to know why the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Friday to defund ObamaCare? The answer is simple: Because the American people rose and demanded it. At the end of the day, the House of Representatives is the people's House. I salute the House conservatives who fought and fought hard to get this done. I salute the House leadership. I salute Speaker Boehner for listening to the people.
It is not surprising the House of Representatives would do that first. For one thing, the House is designed to be the people's House. In our constitutional structure, the House has a different role than the Senate. The House of Representatives is up for election every 2 years like clockwork. In the House, you run, you get elected, you may get a little bit of a breather, enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas with your family, and then you promptly turn around and start getting ready for the next election 2 years hence. Given that, the House is, by its nature, more responsive to the people because the risks are higher in the House to not being so. The House has shown over and over, when the elected representatives stop listening to the American people, the American people are very good, to use an old phrase, at throwing the bums out.
The Senate, on the other hand, is similar to a battleship. It turns slowly. Part of that is by constitutional design. Part of that was the wisdom of the Framers. In any given 2-year cycle only one-third of this body is up for election. It is one of the things that is interesting. If you look at those Republicans who have publicly said they intend to vote for cloture, they intend to vote to give Harry Reid the power to fund ObamaCare with 51 Democratic votes, they intend to give Harry Reid the power to gut the Republican continuing resolution, most of those Republicans who have said that are not up for election in 2014.
It is amazing how it can focus the mind if you have to actually stand before the citizens. I suppose some of the Republicans who are up in 2016 and 2018 might think: There will be time. There will be time. The voters will forget. The only way to move the battleship of the Senate is for the American people to make it politically more risky to do the wrong thing than it is to do the right thing.
When we were reading Bastiat's ``The Law,'' he talked about how do you prevent plunder. You make it more risky to engage in plunder than in hard work. The same is true of politics. You make it more risky not to listen to the voices of the people. How do you do that? The only way that has ever worked is a tidal wave of outpouring. It is what we saw with drones, it is what we saw with guns, and it is what we saw with Syria. But here it has to be bigger. It has to be bigger than any of those three. Why? Because the resistance is more settled in. The Democratic side of the aisle, the party loyalty is deeply entrenched.
I hope by the end of this week we see some brave Democrats who show the courage James Hoffa of the Teamsters showed. We haven't yet. I hope that changes. I hope by the end of this week we see a lot more Republicans, even Republicans who are not up in 2014 but who may have some chance by the next election cycle the voters will have forgotten. I am not convinced of that, but it is easy for politicians to convince themselves of that. I hope we see Republicans saying: Listen, this is a conscience vote. This is a vote to do the right thing.
I have to say that in my time in the Senate this is the first time I have seen Republican leadership actively whipping the Republican conference to support Harry Reid and give him the power to enact his agenda. I have never seen that before. I am quite confident it is not what Texans expect of me. I am quite confident, when each Republican goes back to his or her home State, it is not what their constituents expect of them.
I am also quite confident, if and when we return home and stand in front of our constituents and are asked: Senator, why did you vote yes on cloture to give Harry Reid the power to fund ObamaCare, to gut the House continuing resolution, I am quite confident if the answer was: Our party leadership asked me to do that; I am expected to be a good soldier, to salute and to march into battle--you know what, none of us were elected by party leadership. That is true on the Democratic and Republican side.
Listen, if we see Democratic Senators showing courage on this issue to break, I have no doubt the Democratic leadership will be very unhappy with them. I don't want to sugarcoat what the reaction would be. On the Republican side, none of us were elected by our party leadership. We have a different boss. Our boss is the American people. Our boss consists of the constituents who elected us. I am going to submit, if you strip away all the procedural mumbo jumbo, all the smoke and mirrors, our constituents would be horrified to know the games we play, to know this is all set up to be a giant kabuki dance--theater-- where a lot of Republicans vote to give Harry Reid the authority to gut the House continuing resolution to fund ObamaCare and they go home and tell their constituents: Hey, I was voting in support of the House. Boy, with support like that, it is akin to saying you are supporting someone by handing a gun to someone who will shoot you.
We don't have to speculate. It is not hypothetical that maybe, kind of, sort of, possibly if you vote for cloture ObamaCare will be funded and the House of Representatives' continuing resolution will be gutted. We know that because Harry Reid has announced it. So any Republican who casts a vote for cloture is saying: Yes, I want Harry Reid to have the power to do that, and then I will vote against it once it no longer matters, once it is a free symbolic vote. I don't think those kind of games are consistent with the obligation we owe to our constituents.
I made reference to the IRS employees union asking to be exempted from ObamaCare, and the union sent a letter where they asked their members please send. I want to read that letter. This is
prepared, presumably, by the union bosses at the IRS employees union.
Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi:
Interestingly enough, this letter is directed to the Democratic leaders.
When you and the President sought our support, you pledged
that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep
them. Sadly, that promise is under threat.
By the way, who is saying this? The IRS employees union, the people in charge of enforcing ObamaCare on us, the American people.
Right now, unless you under the Obama administration enact
an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-
earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-
hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle
class.
I think this letter I am reading may not be the IRS employees union; it may be, in fact, the Teamsters letter. I am going to set that aside and see if we can get the actual IRS union. It is a great letter. I may read it again in the course of this discussion. But I don't think that is the IRS letter since it is signed by James Hoffa. I am pretty confident that was not the IRS employees union.
Instead, let me read another note from a constituent. But don't trust me; don't trust any politician on what is happening on ObamaCare; trust the people.
A constituent from Spring, TX, wrote on April 12, 2013:
My late husband worked for the same company for over 40
years. Because of ObamaCare, this year that company decided
it would no longer offer supplemental insurance to Medicare.
The program I was forced into has increased my monthly
premium by almost $100. Not only that, but the prescription
plan has increased the drug plan--a generic one at that--by
30 percent.
Ridiculous. This body--Democrats and Republicans--needs to listen to the people. Together, we must make DC listen.
I am happy to yield to my friend from Florida for a question without yielding the floor.
I thank my friend from Florida for that question. I had a delightful night. I had a chance to read Bastiat, Rand, and read some tweets. There are few things more enjoyable than reading tweets. And I hope that the Senator and I and Senator Lee and many other Senators who participated in this--I hope we have had some positive impact on moving this debate forward and making clear to the American people both the train wreck, the nightmare that is ObamaCare, in the words of James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, but also that right now too many members of this body are not listening to the American people, and the only remedy for that is this week the American people demanding that we make DC listen.
I am happy to yield for another question without yielding the floor.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his inspired comments and for his question. He is absolutely right. This fight is about whether hard-working Americans get the same exemptions and the same benefit President Obama has given big corporations and Members of Congress.
I wish to respond to the inspirational remarks of Senator Rubio by making five comments, the last two of which I think may well be likened to Senator Rubio who will be inspired to ask a question in response to it.
The first point is a very brief one, which is to simply thank the Senator from Florida for telling that story about the flag. I will confess as we stand here a few minutes before 7 a.m., I am a little bit tired. Senator Lee is probably a little bit tired. I will tell my colleagues, the image of the dust clearing, the smoke clearing, seeing the Star-Spangled Banner waving under the rockets' red glare, that vision is inspiring and I appreciate it. It was very kind of the Senator to tell that story and it is very meaningful, so I thank him.
Secondly, Senator Rubio talked about how the political reporters have been focusing predominantly on the game, on the political process. He is right, I haven't seen any of the news coverage; we have been here on the Senate floor so I don't know what the coverage is. But what he reports doesn't surprise me because that is the nature of political reporting in Washington. So I am going to make a request directly to those reporters who are covering this proceeding--those reporters who are reporting this proceeding--to endeavor to have at least half of what they say be focused on the actual substance of this debate, on the fact that ObamaCare is a train wreck that is killing jobs, that is forcing more and more Americans to part-time work, that is driving up their health insurance premiums, that is causing more and more Americans who are struggling to lose their health insurance. My real request would make all of the coverage to be on that, but I know that is too much to ask. But I am going to suggest if all of the coverage or most of the coverage is on the political process, on this personality or that personality, or who is up or who is down, or how this impacts the 2042 Presidential election, I am going to suggest two things. No. 1, that is not doing the job you have stepped forward to serve and do. All of us have a job. Those of us in this body elected to serve have a job to listen to the people and to fight for the men and women of America, but those of you who serve in the media have a job to report to the men and women of America what is happening, and not just on the political game.
Secondly, I want to say, if you just report on the personalities and political gains, you are taking sides on this issue. Why is that? Because those who want to keep ObamaCare funded, those who want, on Friday or Saturday when cloture comes up for a vote, for Members of this body to vote for cloture, to give Harry Reid the ability to defund ObamaCare with 51 partisan Democrat votes, they want all the coverage to be about the personality, about the politics--about anything, anything, anything other than the substance. So if you choose to cover just the personalities and the politics, you are doing exactly what some partisans in this body would like, and that is, I am going to suggest, not responsible reporting. I know each one wants to be a responsible steward of informing the public, and it would strike me that the debate we have had here impacts people's lives in a way that nobody gives a flip about the politicians involved.
A third observation about Senator Rubio's question, when he compared ObamaCare to a horror film, I enjoyed that comparison. In fact, in my mind, I heard the music from ``The Shining''--not ``The Shining,'' from ``Psycho'' in the shower scene. And it occurred to me that perhaps one of the great philosophical conundrums with which we must all wrestle is whether ObamaCare is more like Jason or Freddy. That, indeed, is a difficult question. You can put forth a powerful argument for Jason because ObamaCare is the biggest job killer in this country and when Jason put on his hockey mask and swung that machete, there was carnage like nothing else. On the other hand, we could make a powerful argument for Freddy, because as James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters said, ObamaCare is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for the men and women of America.
While the Senate slept, the men and women of America didn't get a respite from the nightmare that is causing them to lose their jobs, never getting hired, causing them to be forced to be reduced to 29 hours a week, driving up their health insurance premiums, and jeopardizing their health care.
The only way they get a respite from that nightmare, the only way we stop--there was a movie ``Freddy Vs. Jason.'' I forget. They fought each other. I forget even what happened in that movie. But the only way we stop Jason and/or Freddy is if the American people rise up in such overwhelming numbers that the Members of this Senate listen to the people and we step forward and avert this train wreck, we step forward and avert this nightmare.
Those are three observations I wanted to make at the outset. Then I want to make two more. I would note, Mr. President, as you know well, the rules of the Senate are curious at times. While I am speaking, I am not allowed to pose a question to another. I am allowed to answer questions, but not to pose a question to another Senator. But there is no prohibition in my asking a rhetorical question to the body, which may, in turn, prompt Senator Rubio to ask a question of his own and to comment perhaps on the rhetorical question I might raise.
The rhetorical question I would raise to the body--and I have two I want to ask--but I want to start the body thinking about Senator Rubio's family story. And listen, I am inspired by Senator Rubio's story every time I hear it. I am inspired. Part of it is because his family, like mine--we share many things in common. His parents, like my father, fled Cuba. His father was a bartender. My dad washed dishes. His mother, I believe, cleaned hotel rooms, if I remember correctly. My mother was a sales clerk at Foley's Department Store.
The question I would ask the Chamber is: What would have happened if when Senator Rubio's parents came from Cuba, when they arrived here, if ObamaCare had been the law of the land? What would have happened to his father and mother as they sought that job as a bartender, cleaning hotel rooms, if we had an economy with stagnant growth, where jobs were not available, and they were not able to get
hired? What would have happened if they had been lucky enough to get that job and their hours had been reduced forcibly to 29 hours a week against their wishes? What would have happened if they had faced the economic calamity for working men and women--for those struggling--that is ObamaCare? I wonder--I have thought many times about what would have happened to my parents. I know it would have been catastrophic in our family. But I wonder how it would have impacted the Rubio family if ObamaCare had been the law when Senator Rubio's parents came to this country seeking the American dream. Would it have benefited them or would it have harmed them?
(Mr. MANCHIN assumed the Chair.)
I thank the Senator from Florida for his answer on how the law would have impacted his family. I will say this: I have no doubt that at every gathering in every hotel where Senator Rubio speaks, there is not a bartender, there is not a waiter, there is not a dishwasher in the room who does not look over and think: I wonder if some day my daughter, my son, could be in the Senate.
What an extraordinary statement. Do you know what. If we were in almost any other country on earth you could not say that. In most countries on earth, if you are not born into a family of power and prestige and influence, you have no chance whatsoever of serving in a position of significant political leadership. Only in America. That is the opportunity this country is. I have no doubt of the inspiration it serves every day when Senator Rubio shares his story.
I have no doubt also that Senator Rubio is right that if ObamaCare had been the law when his parents came from Cuba, when they were immigrants, when they were looking for jobs, when they wanted to support their family and eventually their young family when they had kids, that if they had not been able to get those jobs or if they had had their hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week so they could not earn enough to provide for their children, to give them the food, to give them the education, to give them the housing that they needed, it could have had a dramatic impact.
If ObamaCare had been the law, it may very well have been the case that Senator Marco Rubio would not be in the Senate right now, because it may have been that his parents would have struggled so much to make ends meet that they would not have been able to provide for him as a young boy the way they did, to give him the opportunities they gave him. He might not be here and our country would be far the poorer.
I know for me and my family, if my dad had not had that opportunity to get a job washing dishes for 50 cents an hour, if my mom had not gotten the opportunity to get her first jobs, there is a very good possibility I would not have had the chance to represent Texas.
When you cut off opportunity for those who are struggling to climb the economic ladder, it impacts for decades. It does not just impact them, but their children and their children's children. That leads to a second rhetorical question that I want to ask the Chamber, but it would not surprise me if it prompts, in turn, a question from Senator Rubio.
That is, Senator Rubio and I both have the privilege of representing States in which there is a tremendous Hispanic community. We both come from the Hispanic community, were raised in the Hispanic community. We both have the great honor of representing a great many Hispanics, he in Florida, me in Texas.
Some of the discussion of the Hispanic community focuses on his parents, like my father, who were young immigrants struggling, who may not speak English and who are on the first or second rung of the economic ladder. That describes a great many in the Hispanic community but there are others who are not necessarily in that circumstance.
In the United States there are right now approximately 2.3 million Hispanic small business owners. The Hispanic community is tremendously entrepreneurial. There are roughly 50 million Hispanics in the United States. That means roughly 1 in 8 Hispanic households is a small business owner. So the question I would pose, rhetorically, to the Chamber, is, what is the impact of ObamaCare on the Hispanic community? What is the impact of the crippling impact on jobs, of the punitive taxes, of the 20,000 pages of regulations? What is the impact on those 2.3 million Hispanic small business owners? What is the impact on economic growth and achieving the American dream? What is the impact on the Hispanic community, because I am convinced there is no ideal that resonates more in the Hispanic community than the American dream, than the idea that any one of us, regardless of who our mother or father is, regardless of where we come from, any one of us through hard work and perseverance, through the content of our character can achieve the American dream.
The question I would pose: Has ObamaCare made it easier or harder to achieve the American dream? How has ObamaCare impacted the Hispanic community?
I would yield for a question without yielding the floor.
I thank the Senator from Florida for his passion, for his heartfelt commitment to opportunity and understanding.
This is not about the rich and powerful. We are rich and powerful. The rich and powerful are just fine with ObamaCare. Indeed, the rich and powerful are better than just fine with ObamaCare. The rich and powerful get special exemptions. The rich and powerful get treated better because they are buddies with the current administration. Big business and giant corporations get exemptions from ObamaCare. Members of Congress get exemptions from ObamaCare.
Mark my words, if Congress doesn't act to defund ObamaCare to stop this train wreck before the end of the President's administration, unions are going to end up getting an exemption from ObamaCare. It is going to be everyone who is a political friend of the administration, has juice and has power, will get extensions.
The people who are left, you have nothing to worry about unless you don't happen to have several high-paid Washington, DC, lobbyists on your staff, unless you happen just to be a Hispanic entrepreneur, a single mom or a hard-working American trying to provide for his or her family, then maybe you will have something to worry about. But you are not going to get the exemption because what the Senate has been saying to you is exemptions for everybody else but not for hard-working American families.
I believe if it doesn't apply to everyone, it should apply to no one. The Senate shouldn't be picking and choosing winners and losers and who are the favored political class.
The Senator from Florida talked about Cuba. Some, particularly in Hollywood, like to lionize Cuba as this workers' paradise, but I would note Cuba has socialized medicine. Majority leader Harry Reid has stated his intention that he believes ObamaCare will lead, inevitably, to socialized medicine, to single-payer, government-provided health care. Some in Hollywood have lionized Cuba as this workers' paradise. Yet I am reminded of a comment President Reagan said in the midst of the Cold War.
The funny thing he said is if you go to the Berlin Wall and look at the Berlin Wall, the machine guns all point in one direction.
The same thing is true about Cuba. People talk about, the workers' paradise. The funny thing about Cuba, the rafts all go in one direction.
In the decade since Fidel Castro seized control and began brutally oppressing the people of Cuba, destroying that once great Nation I am not aware of a single instance since the day of that revolution of one person getting on a raft in Florida and heading over to Cuba--ever. I am not aware of it ever happening. So if socialized medicine is this oasis, if we are to believe the Michael Moores of the world in Hollywood, one would expect Floridians to be jumping on rafts. You know, that 90 miles, it crosses both ways. In fact, Floridians can probably get a better boat than they can in Cuba, but nobody goes that way. They flee to freedom. They flee to America.
What gives freedom such vibrancy--you want to talk about what matters to the Hispanic community, you want to talk about what matters to the African-American community, you want to talk about what matters to single moms? It is the opportunity to work. It is the opportunity to get a job. When we talk about what matters to young people, it is the opportunity to start a career and to move toward advancing to providing for your family, to having the dignity and respect of working toward your dreams, toward your passions, toward your desires. ObamaCare is stifling that, and that is a tragedy. It is a tragedy. And the only way it will stop is if this body begins to listen to the American people. Together, we must make D.C. listen.
I thank the Senator from Kansas. And I will tell the Senator, I am doing fabulous. I am inspired and I am motivated by the American people.
I thank the Senator from Kansas for his very fine question, and I will make a couple of general points about the Senator from Kansas first, and then I will answer his important question.
I want to say that Senator Roberts is an old lion in the Senate. He was here last night, he was here this morning supporting us, and that is a big
deal. The Senator from Kansas is a respected leader of this body, a graybeard, and, I would note, a very well-liked Senator.
One point I will make about Senator Roberts is that, in my humble opinion, I think he is one of the two funniest Senators in the Republican conference. I would say Senator Roberts and Lindsey Graham both have a fantastic sense of humor.
I will be happy to yield for a question but not yield the floor.
I will note on that question that I can provide no response other than to say, as they say in mathematics, QED. That point is granted.
But I will note that for the Senator from Kansas, as a respected senior Senator, to come and support this effort and even more importantly for the Senator from Kansas to have the courage to disagree with party leadership and express a willingness to vote against cloture--because doing so would allow the majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, to fund ObamaCare on a straight party-line vote with no input from Republicans--takes courage.
I guarantee you, it is noticed that Senator Roberts is standing with us. It is noticed that Senator Sessions is standing with us. It is noticed that Senator Enzi is standing with us. It is one thing for the young Turks, it is one thing for those who have been dubbed the ``wacko birds'' to be willing to stand and fight, but when we see senior elder statesmen of the Senate standing side by side, I would suggest we are starting to see what I hope will happen this week, which is seeing Republicans unify.
I would like to see all 46 Republicans vote together on cloture on Friday or Saturday, whenever that vote occurs. I would like to see all of us stand together and vote against cloture because we say we can't, in good conscience, with the commitments we have made to our constituents, vote to allow the majority leader to fund ObamaCare on a straight 51 partisan party-line vote. I would like to see that happen, and I would note that Senator Roberts' presence here at night and in the morning is beneficial to making that happen. I hope it causes other respected leaders in our party to give a second thought that perhaps the division in the Republican conference is not benefiting the Nation or benefiting the Republican Party. Perhaps it is not serving the interests of our constituents.
Before I answer the question directly, that point is an important point to make--that the Senator's support is significant.
I also wish to acknowledge Senator Roberts' very kind compliment about the way I have endeavored to conduct myself.
Senator Mike Lee has always conducted himself with respect for the views of others, not speaking ill of any Member of this Senate-- Republican or Democrat. That is certainly what I have endeavored to do, and it is meaningful.
Senator Roberts comments that it is his judgment we have had some modicum of success achieved. I would note that characterization is at least mildly at odds with what one might think if one simply read the New York Times. If one read the New York Times, one would expect that perhaps I am leaning over, biting my colleagues with bare fangs. So I appreciate the observation of the Senator from Kansas that, in his judgment, we have not conducted ourselves that way. The reason is simple: The New York Times wants to spill gallons of ink on personalities, on people, on politics, and on anything except the substance.
I would have been perfectly happy if not a single story coming out of this ever mentioned my name. If every story just focused on: ObamaCare, is it working or not? Is it helping the American people or is it hurting? If every story simply said the Senate stayed in session all night because ObamaCare is a train wreck; because ObamaCare is a nightmare--in the words of James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters; because the American people are losing their jobs or being forced into part-time work or are facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums or are losing their health insurance, that is why the Senate was here. So I would be thrilled if all of the coverage focused on the substance instead of the distraction that is the silliness that is the back and forth.
Senator Roberts posed a very important question, and it went to process. It went to how this proceeding is moving forward.
There used to be a time when this body was described as the world's greatest deliberative body. I don't think anyone familiar with the modern Senate would describe it as that, because this body doesn't work anymore. This body is no longer a deliberative body. This body is now an instrument of political power used to enforce the wishes of the Democratic majority, both on the minority but more importantly on the American people, disregarding the American people's views and the American people's concerns.
So what are we told? In the Senate of days of old there were two cardinal principles that were the essence of what it meant to be in the Senate: one, the right to speak; and, two, the right to amend. For a couple of centuries any Senator could offer any amendment on just about anything. That is what made this process work, open amendments.
Did that make a few people take votes they didn't necessarily want to? Yes. But if we are being honest with our constituents, that shouldn't trouble you. If you are telling your constituents what you believe and if you are voting your principles, there shouldn't be a vote you are afraid of. Votes are only problematic if you are trying to tell your constituents one thing and trying to do something else in Washington.
What is the process that is supposed to play out here on this continuing resolution and this continuing resolution to defund ObamaCare--to fund all the Federal Government and defund ObamaCare?
We are told that, first, there is going to be a vote on cloture on the bill to shut off debate. If 60 Senators vote to do so, if Republicans cross the aisle and join Harry Reid and Senate Democrats in shutting off debate, we are told we will get one amendment--apparently drafted by the majority leader Harry Reid--and that amendment will fund ObamaCare in its entirety and will gut the House bill, will deliberately do it. That is the stated intent. We are also told that other amendments will not be allowed.
In the course of this discussion we have discussed a number of other amendments, all of which I think would be terrific. One amendment the Senator from Kansas mentioned would be an amendment to repeal the medical device tax. I would note that is an amendment which we had a vote on in the budget process, and an overwhelming majority of Senators in this body voted for it. My recollection is nearly 80 Senators voted for it. Yet it didn't pass into law because of the peculiarities of the budget process. So that is an amendment presumably that, if it were allowed, would be adopted. I would suggest that is perhaps the reason why it won't be allowed: because it would be adopted.
Repealing the medical device tax would take one aspect of ObamaCare-- the punitive, crippling tax that is hammering the medical device industry, that is driving medical device companies out of business or near out of business, that is hammering jobs and that is restraining innovation--that is restraining medical device innovation. We know with certainty that if there is not innovation, if there is not research and development, if there is not investment in medical devices, there will be new medical devices that aren't discovered. There will be people whose pain is not alleviated, whose suffering is not alleviated, perhaps whose lives are not saved. So that would be one of them.
Another amendment I think we ought to have a vote on would be Senator Vitter's amendment to revoke the exemption that President Obama, contrary to law, unilaterally put in place for Members of Congress and their staff. Senator Vitter's amendment would subject every Member of Congress, every staff member, and the political appointees of the Obama administration to the exchanges just as millions of Americans are going to be.
Indeed, I supported an amendment that some Republican Senators have talked about that would expand Senator Vitter's amendment to all Federal employees because our friends the Democrats frequently tell the American people what a wonderful thing ObamaCare is: Look at this tremendous benefit we are bringing the American people. If it is so wonderful, then the majority leader and the Democratic Senators and the congressional staff should be eager to get it if it is such a tremendous improvement. If it is so wonderful, President Obama--after all, his name is on the bill, ObamaCare in the popular vernacular-- should be eager to get--his political appointees who are forcing it on us should be eager to get it and the Federal employees should be eager to get it. We all know they are not.
We all know this exemption came after a closed-door meeting in the Capitol with the majority leader Harry Reid and the Democratic Senators where, according to press reports, they asked: Please let us out from under this, because it will be so devastating, we don't want to lose our health care.
I understand that. Look, I would not be eager myself to be on the exchanges. I am certainly not eager for my staff to be on the exchanges. Many of them are very concerned about it. I may lose very good staff over it. But I think there is a broader principle, which is that different rules should not apply to Washington that apply to the American people.
If we are willing to subject millions of Americans to the exchanges, if we are willing to let people lose their health insurance, as is happening all over this country--take the UPS. UPS recently sent letters to 15,000 employees saying you are losing your spousal coverage. Your husbands and wives who were covered are losing their coverage.
President Obama promised: If you like your plan, you can keep it. That has proven categorically wrong.
A great many of those husbands and wives who had health insurance may be forced onto these new exchanges with no employer subsidy. That is a lousy place to be. It is exactly the lousy place to be that Members, Senators, and congressional staff are complaining, Don't put us in that briar patch. But if Congress is going to put the American people in that briar patch, then you had better believe we should be there with them. And if we don't like it, the answer isn't exempt us, the answer is exempt the American people. If it is intolerable for us to endure, it should be intolerable for the American people.
Another amendment I think we ought to vote on is an amendment stripping the IRS of enforcement authority on ObamaCare. We have seen the political abuses the IRS is capable of. I don't know anyone who is eager to have the IRS have the world's largest database of our health care information.
(Mr. DURBIN assumed the Chair.)
I thank the Senator from Kansas for that excellent question. I would like to make two points in response, and I want to give an opportunity to the Senators from Kentucky and Oklahoma who are both waiting, I believe, to ask questions, so I want to move expeditiously, allowing them to do so. Before that, it is important to address the very good point the Senator from Kansas raised.
I would say as the first observation, there are at least three more amendments that ought to be voted on in connection with the continuing resolution. One the Senator from Kansas suggested is an amendment defunding these navigators, defunding this slush fund that is being used to basically fund liberal special interest groups in the States, much like the stimulus, yet another plan that is used to write checks to groups that are little more than political action groups. That would be a vote we should have.
Another vote we should have is a vote to protect the privacy of our information. The IRS has created the largest database in history of our personal health care information, and there has been report after report that the protections and the privacy of cyber security are pitifully, woefully inadequate; that there are identity thieves, that there are unscrupulous characters getting ready to mine those databases.
The Senator from Kentucky, who shortly will ask a question, has been a leader on privacy. The idea of the Federal Government collecting personal information about all of our health care and then putting it in one place so, A, the Federal Government can have it; and, B, if it is poorly secured, anyone can break in and steal it. We ought to have an amendment to require real protections for our privacy before any of this goes online.
Yet another amendment we ought to have is--the President has unilaterally delayed the employer mandate. We ought to have a delay of the individual mandate. I note the House passed that and a substantial number of Democrats voted for it.
That went through 6 amendments and I am pretty sure we could come up with more. I note that earlier in the evening I had an exchange with Senator Kaine from the State of Virginia who asked a question. I forget the exact terms of it, but to paraphrase, he said: Can't we work together on improving ObamaCare, stopping it from being--he didn't say this, but this is me saying it--to stop it from being this
train wreck, the nightmare, the disaster that it is? My answer was: Absolutely. We should fix it, we should have amendments, and I listed some of these we discussed now. The problem is, I suggested to the Senator from Virginia, you should address your concern to majority leader Harry Reid, because he is the one who is shutting down the process, saying the Senate is not going to operate with open amendment, we are not going to have an opportunity to improve it.
Let me make a final point. In terms of the political theater that is Washington, why does this matter right now? There are lost Republicans who would like votes on everything I said, and there is some virtue to getting a vote. But to be honest, many Republicans are fighting to get that vote in some context where it is purely symbolic. They are real happy because every Republican can vote together and every Democrat can vote against it, and then it can become fodder for a campaign ad.
Let me suggest a far better approach is to have these amendments voted on in a context where they can be passed into law. The continuing resolution is that context. Everyone understands that at one stage or another. This is must-pass legislation. Everyone understands that we will fund the Federal Government. We have to fund the Federal Government. Nobody wants a government shutdown.
We may get one if Harry Reid and President Obama force one, but nobody wants it. So voting on it now in the context of this continuing resolution is different from a symbolic vote, a political vote, because it actually could fix these problems. It is not simply Washington symbolism. That is why I find it all the more striking that so many Senate Republicans are suggesting they may be willing to vote with majority leader Harry Reid and with the Senate Democrats to cut off debate, to allow one amendment drafted by the majority that would totally fund ObamaCare that would gut the House bill and shut off every other amendment.
If this were any other context, my colleagues on the Republican side would be up in arms. We would see the so-called old bulls of the Senate united in saying the process is being abused, and we would get 46 Republicans voting against cloture.
By the way, nobody, if there were any other context, would make the silly arguments that voting for cloture is really supporting the bill. The majority leader has indicated that once cloture is granted he is going to introduce an amendment to gut the bill and go the exact opposite way, allowing him to do so in a 51-vote partisan vote. That is not supporting the bill; it is undermining the bill.
The stakes of this fight right now are whether this body is willing to listen to the American people--whether Democrats are willing, whether Republicans are willing. I would say what has to happen to change how this body operates is that we must make DC listen.
I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I can tell him as I said at 2:30 in the afternoon yesterday that I intend to stand against ObamaCare as long as I am able to stand. At this point I feel confident that at 9 a.m., I will still be able to stand. There will come a point when that is no longer the case, but we have not yet reached that point.
I am happy to yield for a question of the Senator from Kentucky without yielding the floor.
I thank the Senator from Kentucky for his very fine question. The answer is absolutely yes, I believe there is an opening to do that. I believe we can address the train wreck and the nightmare the American people are facing that is ObamaCare. We can address the very real harms that are being visited upon Americans as a result.
I want to note that the Senator from Kentucky has been a clarion voice for liberty. That is one of the many things I appreciate about my friend Senator Rand Paul. I think my favorite phrase from his question is a phrase that occurred about midway through his question where he said something to the effect of: We need a rebellion against oppression. I like that phrase. That is a particularly excellent turn of a phrase. I will confess that it reminded me of a movie series that was in the theaters when the Senator from Kentucky and I were both kids--young adults--and that was the ``Star Wars'' franchise and the discussion of a rebellion against oppression. I think it captures a lot of what is going on here. We started this debate some 18 hours ago talking about the divide between the Washington establishment that is not listening to the American people, that is forcing its will on the American people, and the people of this country.
I will confess that phrase of rebellion against oppression conjured up to me the Rebel Alliance fighting against the Empire--the Empire being the Washington, DC, establishment. Indeed, immediately upon hearing that phrase, I wondered if at some point we would see a tall gentleman in a mechanical breathing apparatus come forward and say in a deep voice, ``Mike Lee, I am your father.''
This is a fight to restore freedom for the people. This is a fight to get the Washington establishment--the Empire--to listen to the people. And just like in the ``Star Wars'' movies, the Empire will strike back. But at the end of the day, I think the Rebel Alliance--the people--will prevail.
The Senator from Kentucky asked: Can we actually make real progress in this? Yes, if the people do it. To be perfectly honest, the Senator from Kentucky can't get it done; I can't get it done; Senator Mike Lee can't get it done. I don't think there is an elected official in this body who can get it done. Only the American people can speak with a loud enough volume that it forces, No. 1, all 46 Republicans to unite, as we should be uniting, against cloture and say: No, not a single Republican will vote to give Harry Reid and the Democrats the ability to force through a single amendment that guts the House continuing resolution, that funds ObamaCare, and has 51 partisan Democratic votes and shuts out all other amendments; and No. 2, if the people rise up in sufficient numbers.
I believe the Democrats have good faith. We will ultimately have no choice but to do the same thing--listen
to the people. During this debate we have read and we have discussed the letters from the roofers union, the letter from the Teamsters. Each of them used the same phrase: They ``could remain silent no more.'' Both of those letters began by saying they were Democrats who supported the President, who supported Democrats for the Senate, supported Democrats for the House, who had campaigned and worked for them, yet they ``could remain silent no longer'' because ObamaCare is hurting millions of Americans. In the words of James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, it is a nightmare.
If they can remain silent no longer, then I say to the Senator from Kentucky, I do have faith that there will be Democratic Senators who will feel the same pang of conscience to remain silent no longer but to actually speak up for the American people. But it will only happen when Republicans are united. If Republicans are divided and throwing rocks at each other, we cannot expect Democrats to cross their leadership. The Republicans have to unite first in order to get Democrats to come together and listen to the people. You want to know what this whole fight is about? Together we must make DC listen.
I am happy to yield for a question, but I will not yield the floor.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky and my answer is, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Indeed, if the Washington press corps would focus on the substance of this debate, on the issues that matter to the American people, the reporters would ask the question at every news conference the President conducts and at every opportunity they have: Mr. President, are you willing to be subject to ObamaCare, to be put on the exchange that millions of Americans are being forced to do? They would ask the majority leader of the Senate, and indeed every Democratic Senator who met with the President and who, according to press reports, at whose behest Members of Congress were exempted.
If the press were doing the job of a watchdog press holding leaders accountable, actually speaking truth to power, they would ask every Democratic Senator not once, not twice but over and over and over: Are you willing to be put on the exchanges without an employer subsidy, just like millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance because of ObamaCare? If not, why?
As I have noted multiple times during the course of this debate, I very much support what Senator Paul suggested about making every Federal employee subject to ObamaCare. Let me be clear. Doing that is a lousy thing to do to Federal employees. It is a lousy thing to do to Members of Congress. It is a lousy thing to do to congressional staff. None of them like it. As the Presiding Officer and I know well, it is hard to find an issue that causes more dismay, if not panic, among congressional staff than the idea that they might be thrown into the exchanges with no employer subsidies, as will millions of Americans; ironically enough, including, presumably, many of the staff who worked on drafting ObamaCare, and it is why the American people are so fed up with this. It is a manifestation good enough for thee but not for me.
Washington plays by separate rules. The rich and powerful, those who stroll through the corridors of power, they get exemptions, just not hard-working Americans. If you are at home and it happens to be the case that you have two or three high-paid Washington lobbyists on your payroll, you may be in good shape. You might get an exemption. But if you don't have the ability to walk into the West Wing, if you don't have the ability to pull the levers of power, then what President Obama, the majority leader, and the U.S. Senate are saying to you is you are out of luck. We answer to the friends of this administration but not to the American people. Listen, I think under no circumstances should Members of Congress be treated better than what we are doing under the law, forcing upon millions and millions of Americans.
I would note that during the course of this debate, I have been privileged to receive support from a great many Senators but two in particular I wish to mention right now: Senator Rubio and Senator Paul. I wish to mention them because on any measure of hipness or coolness, I will readily concede I can't hold a candle to them. Indeed, I remember in the debate over drones, Senator Rubio began quoting from rap lyrics, and I will confess to being clueless enough that I didn't even know what he was referencing. I was sure it was something far too hip for me to know. Although I will note I did read Toby Keith lyrics, but that is probably not quite the same genre, and I will note that Senator Paul has a following of, as he describes it, folks in Birkenstocks and beards and earrings, a different sort of cool that again I could not remotely hope to compete with. I am a lawyer from Texas.
But what I can try to do to keep up--because, after all, we all have a little bit of competitiveness in wanting to keep up--I would like to provide a little more detail about something I referenced earlier, which is the speech that Ashton Kutcher gave at the Teen Choice Awards. To be honest, referring to the Senator from Florida and the Senator from Kentucky as cool, as terrific human beings, as both of them are, it is almost oxymoronic, because I think I will take it as a given that there is no politician on the planet who would actually qualify as cool. Ashton Kutcher I don't know and I don't expect to ever meet. Yet at the Teen Choice Awards he gave a speech that I thought was remarkable. He was there to accept an award for playing Steve Jobs in the movie ``Jobs,'' and he did much more than accept a trophy. He talked about the importance of hard work.
His speech was so remarkable that I took the opportunity and tweeted out because, frankly, Ashton Kutcher can reach young people in a way that I
never can, that no Member of the Senate can, and I thought the message was important and it is important because of a principle that is imperiled by ObamaCare. Let me read from the relevant portions of Mr. Kutcher's speech. He said:
I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. I
have never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was
always just lucky to have a job. Every job I had was a
stepping stone to my next job, and I never quit my job until
I had my next job. So opportunities look a lot like work.
He went on:
The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart
and being thoughtful, and being generous. Everything else
is--
And he used a mild expletive for manure.
It's just ``manure'' that people try to sell to you to make
you feel like less. So don't buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful,
and be generous.
Then he ended his speech by saying:
Everything around us that we call life was made up by
people that are no smarter than you. You can build your own
things. You can build your own life that other people can
live in. So build a life. Don't live one, build one. Find
your opportunities, and always be sexy.
I salute that message. I think it is a message that I hope every young person in America hears. But it is also a message that embodies what is imperiled by ObamaCare.
What Mr. Kutcher talked about ``I was always just lucky to have a job. I never had a job in my life that I was better than,'' it makes me think about my father. When he came from Cuba, his first job was washing dishes making 50 cents an hour. He was lucky to have that job. He certainly was not better than that job. If he hadn't had that job-- the next sentence Mr. Kutcher said: ``And every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job.'' As we have discussed during this debate, if he hadn't had that first job, he wouldn't have gotten his next job as a cook. If he hadn't had that job, he wouldn't have gotten his next job as a teaching assistant. If he hadn't had that job, he wouldn't have gotten his next job as a computer programmer at IBM. If he hadn't had that job, he wouldn't have been able to start a small business and work toward the American dream.
We want to talk about the tragedy of ObamaCare. It is the millions of young people, the millions of single moms, the millions of Hispanics, of African Americans who are struggling, who want to achieve the American dream and who, because of ObamaCare, can't find a job. Because of ObamaCare small businesses are not hiring, they are not expanding. Small businesses create two-thirds of all new jobs.
That first job washing dishes, if ObamaCare were the law in 1957, I think there is a very good chance my father never would have gotten that job washing dishes. If he had gotten the job, if ObamaCare were the law, I think it is virtually certain his hours would have been forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week, and he couldn't have paid his way through college on 29 hours a week. So one of two things would have happened. He either would have had to drop out of college or he would have had to get a second job at 29 hours a week and juggle the balance between each of them.
That is what is so critical about this issue, is maintaining the opportunity for those struggling to achieve the American dream.
Secondly, I wish to share with my colleagues some more material. During the wee hours of the morning, we had the opportunity to consider some excerpts from Ayn Rand. I want to point to some more excerpts from Ayn Rand that I think are relevant to the battle before this body.
First, from ``Atlas Shrugged:''
We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. . . . We are on
strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the
creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on
strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness
is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is
guilt.
Another on the filibuster, on the effort of the American people to get Washington to listen to us, from ``The Fountainhead'':
Integrity is the ability to stand by an ideal.
Also from ``The Fountainhead'':
. . . no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker.
It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an
idea.
That particular quote I think more than anything is addressed to our friends in the media. I wish to read it again:
. . . no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker.
It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an
idea.
I, like every Member in this body, am a flawed human being, a man of many imperfections. If a reporter wants to write on those imperfections, there is no shortage of material. But as long as they are writing on those, they are not talking about the ideas. As long as they are writing about the personality, they are not talking about the American people who are suffering. As long as they are writing about the personalities, and the back-and-forth, the game playing and the insults and all of the nonsense, they are not talking about the millions of Americans who are desperate for greater opportunity, desperate for a job, desperate for work to provide for their families, desperate to hold on to their health insurance. We read letter after letter after letter of real live people who are losing their health insurance.
Another quote:
Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of
your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: For
his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty
and absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality
of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any
value, and grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever
existed on this earth.
Another from ``The Fountainhead'':
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first
steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.
Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that
the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and
the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the
thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood
alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought
was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The
first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was
considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious.
Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed
vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid.
But they won.
Let me suggest that quote speaks directly to the millions of Americans who are speaking up right now, who are saying Washington says we can't stop ObamaCare. Washington says we have to accept this train wreck, this nightmare. There is nothing we can do. Yet the message, as Rand says, is that if the American people stand together, if they believe in their vision, together we can make DC listen.
Indeed, also from ``Atlas Shrugged'' in terms of the divide we see in this body, as Rand observed:
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and
the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man
who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by
accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the
middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to
pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit
out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood
of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who
dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the
robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker
and the fool to meet each other halfway.
(The Acting President pro tempore assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I would suggest that comment speaks volumes to this dispute. As we observed during the middle of the debate, there are some Members of the Democratic Conference--indeed, one we discussed: Senator Sanders from Vermont--who openly embraces his ideas. Indeed, there was a time when he ran for public office not as a Democrat but as a Socialist.
Mr. Sanders and I agree on very little when it comes to public policy. But I will say this, I respect his fidelity to his principles. I respect the honesty with which he embraces them. And as I observed earlier in this proceeding, I would far rather a Senate with 10 Bernie Sanders and 10 Mike Lees to a Senate where the views, the actual commitments, are blurred by obfuscation.
When it comes to the Republican side of the aisle, there are some Senators who have been quite open in saying they do not think we can defund ObamaCare. I will respect any Republican Senator who says: I am convinced we cannot do this and, therefore, I am voting for cloture because we cannot do it, and so I am voting against it. I do not agree with that. I think that is a defeatist philosophy. But it is an honest philosophy.
I would suggest it is far different for a Republican to say: I am going to vote for cloture, I am going to vote for Harry Reid and 51 Democrats the ability to fund ObamaCare in its entirety with no amendments, no changes whatsoever, but at the same time I am going to go to my constituents and say: I fully, I enthusiastically support defunding ObamaCare. Indeed, I am leading the fight. That is not being honest with the American people.
If we are to listen to the people, part of listening to the people is being honest with the people. Part of listening to the people is embracing, quite candidly, the position we hold. If those Members of this conference want to disagree with this strategy and say we agree with Harry Reid, that ObamaCare should not be defunded on the continuing resolution, then let them say so openly, not cloaked in robes of procedural deception and obscurity. Let them say so openly to the American people. And let them make their case. That has the virtue of truth.
On ObamaCare, in ``Atlas Shrugged'' Ms. Rand wrote:
There's no way to rule an innocent man. The only power any
government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well,
when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One
declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes
impossible for me to live without breaking laws. . . . But
just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or
enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation
of law-breakers--and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's
the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you
understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.
That is a profound insight on the train wreck, on the nightmare that is ObamaCare.
One statement the Senator from Kentucky made that I would disagree with slightly--the Senator from Kentucky said President Obama is committed 100 percent to ObamaCare, to making no changes, no alterations, to defending it as is, not to improving it. Actually, I do not think that is accurate. I think what the President has done is far worse than that, actually, which is the President has opposed legislative changes to fix the tremendous failures in ObamaCare that are hurting the American people, but the President has over and over unilaterally--abusing executive power--disregarded the law.
When the President decided unilaterally that the employer mandate that was set to kick in on January 1 of next year would be delayed for a year for big businesses, there is no basis in law for him to do so. The statute says otherwise. But his decision was simply: L'etat c'est moi. I am the state; therefore, this is delayed.
Likewise, when the President made the decision that the eligibility verification for subsidies, written into the statute, would not be enforced, that is contrary to law. The President does not have the authority to disregard the statute. If he does not like it, he can come to Congress and ask for an amendment. But the statutes written in the law books are binding law, and he simply announced: No, they are not. I am not going to enforce it.
Of all the different unilateral changes, that may be the most consequential. It is one of the least discussed, but it is consequential because its effect is essentially to encourage liar loans. Whether you are eligible for subsidies or not, just say you are, and we are not going to check to find out.
Perhaps most egregious was the President's action exempting Members of Congress. The statute provides that Members of Congress shall be subject to ObamaCare, shall be put on the exchanges without employee subsidies, just like millions of Americans.
Mr. President, as you and I both know well, that had Members of Congress, that had congressional staff in a panic. So majority lead Harry Reid and Democratic Senators met with the President and, according to the public press accounts, asked for an exemption, said: Please exempt us--although the statute is clear. It was written that way, I would note, because of my friend, Senator Chuck Grassley, who added that amendment on the principle that if we are going to put a burden on the American people, we should feel it, we should have skin in the game.
According to the press reports, the President said he would take care of the problem. Shortly thereafter, his administration did so and said: We are going to disregard the law of the land. We are going to disregard the statute.
Let me say, when the President of the United States begins picking and choosing which laws to follow and which laws not to follow, when the President of the United States looks at this mess that is ObamaCare and begins pulling out the eraser and saying: I am going to erase this part of the statute, I am going to erase this part of the statute, and I am going to pick that it applies to these people, but I am going to pick that it does not apply to these people, that is the height of arbitrary enforcement. It is also contrary to his constitutional obligation. Article II of the Constitution obliges the President to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. To deliberately, willfully, and openly refuse to enforce the law is the antithesis of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. Indeed, it is taking care to refuse to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.
That is the pattern we have seen. For any President to do so, Democrat or Republican--and I can tell you this: If there were a Republican President in office, and he were saying: I am going to disregard the laws of the United States, I can promise you I would be right here on the floor of the Senate decrying that Republican President, just as loudly as decrying President Obama for disregarding the law.
Look, I think ObamaCare is a disaster. I think it is a train wreck. I agree with James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters: It is a nightmare. But I do not think the President can just say: I am going to refuse to apply it to everyone. You have not heard me call on President Obama granting a lawless exemption to everyone. He did not have authority to grant an exemption to big business. He did not have authority to grant an exemption to Members of Congress. He does not have authority to grant an exemption to the American people. Only Congress does.
That is why Congress needs to act. That is why this body, why Democrats in this body, why Republicans in this body, need to listen to the American people. Together we must make DC listen.
I am happy to yield to the Senator from Oklahoma for a question but not yield the floor.
I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his learned insight for that very good question. The answer, in short, is yes. Yes, yes, absolutely, I think to use the same phrasing majority leader Harry Reid used when asked
if he supported single-payer government socialized health care.
I wish to make three comments in response to Senator Inhofe's question and his thoughts that he has shared with this body. First is simply a word of thanks to the Senator from Oklahoma. Senator Inhofe is an elder statesman of this body. He has served many years. He has earned the respect of his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle and on the Democratic side of the aisle.
From day one, when Senator Mike Lee began this fight, Senator Inhofe has been with us on saying ObamaCare is such a train wreck, such a nightmare, such a disaster that we should defund it.
I observed earlier, it is one thing for the young Turks, the so- called wacko birds, to stand in this spot. It is another thing altogether to see elder statesmen, Senator Inhofe, Senator Pat Roberts, Senator Jeff Sessions, and Senator Mike Enzi, standing with us.
That is significant, particularly when the leadership of our party is publicly urging Republicans to go the other way. I am grateful for the friendship. I am grateful for your steadfastness. I am grateful for the principled and courageous willingness of the Senator from Oklahoma to fight for the American people.
I will say it makes a real difference. If you trust what is written in the media, this battle is doomed. Indeed, I recall reading a day or two ago an article that purported to be an objective news story--not an editorial--by a reporter allegedly reporting on the news that began with something like: The fight to defund ObamaCare, which is doomed to fail.
That was reported as a fact. There was no editorializing, apparently. That is just an objective fact that it is doomed to fail.
I would say the momentum has been steadily with us. They said this fight was doomed to fail 2 months ago. We saw the American people unite, over 1.6 million Americans, signed a national petition saying defund ObamaCare now because it is a train wreck, it is a disaster, and it is hurting Americans.
They said it was doomed to fail, the House of Representatives would never pass a continuing resolution conditioned on defunding ObamaCare. It wouldn't happen.
Then last Friday the House of Representatives did exactly that because courageous House conservatives stuck their neck out and because House leadership, in an action for which I commend them, listened to the American people.
This week the press says it is doomed to fail that Republicans be united. Yet I would note seeing elder statesman after elder statesman come down and support us, it indicates the momentum that is with this movement. Listen, this is not a movement by any 1, 2, 3 or 100 Senators. This is a movement from the American people.
Why are we seeing momentum move in favor of defunding ObamaCare? Why are we seeing momentum for Republicans in favor of voting against cloture so as to deny Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare on a 51- partisan vote? Because the American people are rising up and their voices are being heard. That is the first point I wished to make in response to the Senator from Oklahoma.
I yield to the Senator for a question but not the floor.
I think the Senator from Oklahoma raises a very good question. The clear facts are everywhere in the world socialized medicine has been implemented, it hasn't worked. It produces results consistently. We can predict where socialized medicine leads. It leads to scarcity. It leads to waiting periods. It leads to poor quality health care. It leads to government rationing. It leads to government bureaucrats deciding what health care you can get and what health care I can get.
If you go in for a health treatment, a government bureaucrat may say, Mr. Inhofe, you can get that treatment in 6 months or maybe a year. On the other hand, perhaps your mom goes in for a treatment and the government bureaucrat may say: Ma'am, I am afraid you don't get that treatment. We have determined on our schedule we are not allowing it.
That is what happens with socialized medicine. If you want not to be able to pick your doctor, if you want a government bureaucrat making health care decisions for you instead of you and your doctor, then you should welcome what Majority Leader Reid says is the inevitable result of ObamaCare. That is single-payer government socialized medicine. That is where this law is headed.
I yield to the Senator for a question without yielding the floor.
I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for that excellent question, and I will make several points in response; first, is hearing that story of your wife and her courage. It reminds me, I will confess, I knew there were many reasons why the Senator and I had become friends, why I like and admire the Senator. I discovered yet another. It sounds as if the Senator and I married very similar women.
If it is anything like our marriage, at least in my marriage, I married way, way, way above myself.
I will tell you a story that your story reminded me of, which is my wife Heidi was taking a car to the airport. The car was hit. It was hit by another car, T-boned. The driver was very upset. Heidi called 911, and an ambulance came and took the driver to the hospital. Heidi proceeded to call a cab and take the cab to the airport, got on a plane and flew to a business meeting she had in New Mexico.
At the end of the meeting she noticed: Gosh, I am kind of hurting. My head hurts and my shoulder hurts. She went to the hospital that afternoon in New Mexico and discovered she had both a concussion and a broken collarbone.
Much like Senator Inhofe relayed, Heidi did not share this news with her husband until that evening. She didn't call me when the accident occurred. She didn't call me even when she got the diagnosis. She called me and was describing her injuries to me. She said: Sweetheart, I wanted to let you know I had a car accident. I am all right, but I do have a broken collarbone. I have a concussion.
Oh, my goodness. It is very disconcerting when your wife tells you that. She was describing where it happened. As she described the street in Houston, I am thinking: Wait, if it happened in Houston, what are you doing in New Mexico if you were in a car wreck in Houston?
She said: I got on a plane and flew, without going to the doctor, with a broken collarbone and concussion and went to the business meeting, completed the business meeting, before bothering to get treated.
Let me say to anyone watching this, I do not commend my wonderful, love of my life, wife's conduct to anyone who has had an accident. I would suggest getting medical treatment immediately. I would strongly suggest not following the path of the wife of the Senator from Oklahoma and my wife and not telling your husband.
I would strongly encourage, call your spouse and let them know. I certainly urge, should that happen again to my wife: Sweetheart, please let me know when it happens and not 12, 14 hours later.
But it is the virtue of marrying strong women who know what they want and are able to tackle the world. I, for one, am blessed and I have no doubt that you feel deeply blessed with 20 kids and grandkids. You know, the psalmist talks about my cup runneth over, bountiful blessings, and 20 kids and grandkids certainly qualifies as that.
Indeed, an additional point I wanted to make is I wanted to thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his very kind comments about my father. As the Senator knows, my father has been my hero my whole life. I have admired him for as long as I can remember.
I also want to note something particularly meaningful the Senator from Oklahoma did. Every week in the Senate there is a prayer breakfast. It is a bipartisan prayer breakfast, which is nice. There are not a lot of bipartisan things we do here in the Senate. There are a number of Senators who attend regularly, Republicans and Democrats, and they invite a different Senator each week to share his or her testimony, share some thoughts. Some weeks ago I was invited to do so, and I felt honored to have the opportunity. I had attended the prayer breakfast a number of times.
The way it typically works is another Senator is asked to introduce whoever is speaking that day. So at this particular prayer breakfast Senator Inhofe was asked to introduce me. It is really quite interesting to me. Almost anyone, when asked to introduce someone, would do so fairly easily. Maybe they would print out a bio to pick a little biographical fact or two. Most treat introductions as fairly routine efforts, but Senator Inhofe didn't treat it that way. He picked up the phone and he called my dad. He picked up the phone and he called my college roommate. He picked up the phone and called one of my dearest friends here in Washington, for whom Heidi and I are the Godparents of their kids.
The Senator made these calls totally out of the blue and said: Hi, this is Jim Inhofe. I have been asked to introduce Ted and I was wondering if you could share any particular stories, and they shared a few mildly embarrassing stories. Actually, I give them all credit for finding exactly the right balance of stories that were just embarrassing enough but not quite so scandalous that the blood drains from your face when they are told. I would say that showed a personal level of consideration that is unusual in this town and I appreciated that.
I thanked the Senator then, but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the Senator publicly for putting that degree of personal consideration in trying to tell not just that I went to so-and-so college and did this and this--not just the empty biographical facts-- but in trying to put a little color on who this individual is.
The final point I will make is a point that goes to the substance of some of the remarks the Senator from Oklahoma made in the process of asking his first question, which is he talked about the battle of HillaryCare. I think it is quite fitting to the battle we are having right now over defunding ObamaCare. When the battle over HillaryCare was occurring--I remember it well--I was in law school. I wasn't serving in the Senate. If you remember the context at that time, when HillaryCare was playing out, all of the media said this is unstoppable. All of the media said this is going to happen and there is nothing the hapless Republicans can do to stop it. Indeed, there were a number of Republicans who came forth and said: We can't stop this, so we propose, what I derisively referred to at the time as--perhaps due to being a law student--HillaryCare light.
I remember watching that. During the course of that debate, I almost put my boot through the television set. I remember yelling at the TV set a sentiment that perhaps maybe more than a few people watching us feel, where you feel you don't have a voice in the process. Certainly, as a law student I didn't have a voice in the process. But I remember yelling at the TV set: What on Earth do we believe? What are we doing? If we are going to accede to marching down the road to socialized health care, what the heck are we doing? I remember saying: All right. To heck with all of this. I am going to move to an island and fish all my life. Heck, I'm Cuban. I like to fish. That would be a great life.
And Senator Inhofe will remember, because he was part of this effort. At the time I was particularly focused on the Senator from my State of Texas, Senator Phil Gramm. Senator Gramm had been a hero of mine for a long time. Indeed, I am particularly honored that the desk at which I sit used to be Senator Phil Gramm's desk. His name is written on the side drawer.
This is one of the curious traditions of the Senate; that Senators, when they leave the Senate, scrawl their signatures on the drawer of the desk. You are actually encouraged to deface government property, and with some frequency. I hope the next individual fortunate to have this desk appreciates it. I find it an inspiration to sit at the desk that was Senator Phil Gramm's.
But I remember at the time, when it seemed the whole stampede in the Republican conference back then was listening to the media, which was saying:
You can't win. You must accede to this. HillaryCare is unstoppable. I remember Phil Gramm walking out to a microphone and saying, in his inimitable drawl: This will pass over my cold, dead political body.
I have to tell you, when Phil Gramm said that, it was fairly lonely. He didn't have a whole lot of allies when he marched out and did that. Senator Inhofe knows, because he was part of that fight and he bears the scars from that fight. But because of that leadership and standing and fighting--it was very interesting that it ended up where we saw Republicans looking all around, and Gramm was standing there and he didn't get killed. They all essentially ran behind him saying: Yeah, yeah, what he said. But I am convinced if we hadn't had a handful of leaders back then who had the courage to not read the papers and believe all those who were saying: Oh, we have to concede, the papers say they have already won, we are going to HillaryCare, if we hadn't had a handful of leaders willing to buck the conventional wisdom and saying we can win, when they are being told no you can't, ObamaCare would have passed 19 years earlier and it would have been called HillaryCare instead. That is the power of leadership.
So everyone in this body who said 2 months ago and who are saying this morning that we can't win this fight, I point out that history is replete with example after example after example of those who stood up and listened to the American people and fought for the principles, for the values the American people share, fought for the interests of the American people, and who, with the support of the American people, won those fights.
That is what we are fighting for. Listen, it is my hope that by the end of this process we will see all 46 Republicans unite in opposing cloture and saying: No, we are not going to allow Harry Reid and a bare majority of Democrats on a partisan political vote to fund ObamaCare. It is my hope over time, once that happens, we start to get one Democrat after another, after another to come with us.
Now, will that happen now? Probably not. As long as Republicans are publicly divided, no Democrat is going to join us. But if we unite as Republicans, and if particularly those Democrats running for reelection in red States where their citizens passionately oppose ObamaCare and the damage it is doing to the economy, and the damage it is doing to jobs, and the damage it is doing to all of the people who are being hurt--if they hear from more and more and more of their citizens, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000--that starts to change the count.
People have asked over and over: What is the end game? How can you possibly win? I can't win. There is no way I can win, nor can any elected official win. The only way we can win is with the American people. That is it. When people ask: What is your end game, it is very simple. I have faith in the American people. And ultimately I have faith, or at least hope, in the 100 Members of the Senate.
I share the frustrations of Americans across this country that politicians on both sides of the aisle don't listen to people, that instead the political establishment in Washington protects itself, maintains its power, entrenches its power and does things like exempt itself from ObamaCare while letting the American people suffer under this train wreck of a disaster--this nightmare. But I also know at the end of the day, if enough people speak up, that every Member of this body at some point is compelled to listen to the constituents he or she represents. It is why I am so encouraged by the outpouring we have seen over the last 19\1/2\ hours, with all of the people engaged, all of the people tweeting the hashtag ``MakeDCListen.''
The citizen activists are transforming this debate. Listen, all of Washington wants to tell you, the citizen, it can't be done. You cannot win. Your view will not be listened to. The disaster, the train wreck, the nightmare--and I have used the word nightmare over and over. Let me be clear, for those who are just tuning in, where nightmare comes from. Nightmare is not my term. Nightmare is the language that James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, used to describe ObamaCare because it is hurting millions of Americans. So at some point I believe, I hope, Republicans will unite and that Democratic Senators will start listening to their people.
It is striking if we listen to the letter from Mr. Hoffa. With permission I want to share that letter again, because I think it is powerful, it is potent. It is something, frankly, I think every Democrat in this body who is supporting ObamaCare, who is opposing defunding ObamaCare, who is going to vote with the majority leader, should be asked about by reporters. I think the President should be asked about this letter.
Let me just read it. These are not my words, these are the words of the president of the Teamsters.
Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi: When you and the
President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (the
ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have
now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat.
Right now, unless you and the Obama administration enact an
equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned
health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour
work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Now, that is not a Republican saying that. That is not a politician saying that. That is the head of the Teamsters, who supported ObamaCare. The letter continues:
Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-
line workers in the American economy. We have been strong
supporters of the notion that all Americans should have
access to quality affordable health care. We have also been
strong supporters of you.
I remind you, this letter is addressed to Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi.
In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground,
gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and
raised money to secure this vision.
So it is worth emphasizing the Teamsters are not fair-weather friends. They have been active, aggressive, full-throated members of the Democratic coalition and played a significant part in helping to elect this Democratic majority in the Senate and helping elect this President.
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
What vision is that? The vision of electing Democrats as a majority in the Senate, electing the President. Why? Because ObamaCare is the law of the land and they are discovering it isn't working. What does Mr. Hoffa say next?
Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep
concerns to the Administration, seeking reasonable regulatory
interpretations to the statute that would help prevent the
destruction of non-profit health plans. As you both know
first- hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded
and met with a stone wall by the White House and the
pertinent agencies.
Now, let me stop at this point and make a comment. For all of you at home who are not leaders of powerful unions and who have been major supporters of the President of the United States, major supporters of the Democratic majority in the Senate, my guess is you may not have the same access to the west wing, to the Oval Office, to the office of the majority leader of the Senate as James Hoffa, head of the teamsters does. Yet James Hoffa, head of the teamsters says in writing that he was met with a stone wall by the White House and pertinent agencies.
Listen, if a major union--that in its own words had boots on the ground, went door-to-door to get out the vote, ran phone banks and raised money to secure a democratic vision--was met with a stone wall, what do you think we the citizens will be met with? Do you think this administration listens to a single mom working at a diner who is saying ObamaCare is slamming her and making her life harder? Do you think this administration listens to you even if the politically powerful are lamenting what is happening with them?
Mr. Hoffa continues:
This is especially stinging because other stakeholders have
repeatedly received successful interpretations for their
respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last
week's huge accommodation for the employer community--
extending the statutorily mandated ``December 31, 2013''
deadline for the employer mandate and penalties.
Notably, two things are included there. One, Mr. Hoffa on behalf of the Teamsters said that deadline for the employer mandate is statutorily mandated; that the law requires it. What he is saying there is that the President is
ignoring the law because it is statutorily mandated. No. 2, it is a gift for big business that is not being given to others.
Mr. Hoffa continues:
Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for
you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended
consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are
already creating nightmare scenarios:
First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep
employees' work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous
employers have begun to cut workers' hours to avoid this
obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact
is two-fold: Fewer hours means less pay while also losing our
current health benefits.
This is the president of the Teamsters saying ObamaCare is causing workers to have their hours forcibly reduced. That means less pay, and they are losing their current health insurance. Anytime the majority leader of the Senate goes on television and says that ObamaCare is working terrifically, this letter stands in stark contrast to that assertion.
Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit
health insurance plans like the one in which most of our
Members participate. Those non-profit plans are governed
jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Our health plans have been built over decades by working men
and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the
administration, our employees will be treated differently and
not eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such,
many employees will be relegated to second-class status and
shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance
plans.
And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won't
receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they'll be
taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these
restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours
unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of
viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.
This next paragraph is critical:
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we
represent--
Let me note, that is not hundreds, that is not thousands, that is millions of working men and women we represent:
--and the families they support--
So millions more
--we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of
the Affordable Care Act that will destroy--
not weaken, not undermine, not slightly impair but destroy
--the very health and wellbeing of our members along with
millions of other hard-working Americans.
We believe that there are commonsense corrections that can
be made within the existing statute that will allow our
members to keep their current health plans and benefits just
as you and the President pledged. Unless changes are made,
however, that promise is hollow.
We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but
the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans
including members of our respective unions.
We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.
James P. Hoffa, General President, International
Brotherhood of Teamsters.
When you have the Teamsters coming out and saying this is hurting millions of working men and women and their families, it begs the question: If Mr. Hoffa can no longer remain silent, if the Teamsters can no longer remain silent, how long can the Democratic Members of the Senate remain silent?
I have no doubt Mr. Hoffa and the Teamsters received harsh criticism for this letter, because politically this letter was inconvenient for the party they have supported with time, blood, and treasure. Yet Mr. Hoffa said: We can no longer remain silent because of the devastation being inflicted on the working men and women of America.
If that is true, I am hopeful that among the 54 Democrats in this body we will see first one and then maybe two and then maybe three and then maybe a dozen Democrats with the same courage that James Hoffa shows, the courage to say, Listen, I am willing to make a statement that is contrary to the political leadership of the party I belong to and have fought for.
To any Democrats who are contemplating doing so, let me note that bucking your party's leadership inevitably provokes a reaction, inevitably provokes expressions--and often strong expressions--of displeasure. But let me also encourage any Democrats, there are worse things in life than a few harsh words being tossed your way. To be honest, that pales compared to the suffering of the working men and women of this country who are losing their jobs, who are losing their health care, who are being forced into part-time work. Any politician who whines ``Someone has said something mean about me'' has totally lost perspective compared to the hurt the American people are feeling. So I am hopeful.
I want to appeal to the better angels of our Democratic Senators that they show the same courage Mr. Hoffa showed to be willing to buck party leadership and speak out for the men and women who are your constituents.
I make that same plea to the Republicans, that you show the courage to buck party leadership and stand up to the men and women who are your constituents who are suffering under ObamaCare. Any Republican who votes for cloture, who votes to give Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare on a 51-vote partisan vote is directly participating in and responsible for funding ObamaCare.
If a Republican wants to say openly, I don't think we can defund ObamaCare; I don't agree with this fight, so I am siding with Harry Reid because on principle I think it is right, I don't agree with that, but I respect that view. You are entitled to that view. You are entitled to articulate that view. But I will tell you this, I don't think you are entitled to vote with Harry Reid and the Democrats, give Harry Reid and the Democrats the ability to fund ObamaCare, and then go to your constituents and say, I agree with defunding ObamaCare. You don't get it both ways.
If we are going to listen to the people, we need to be honest with the people and tell them what we are doing. That is what this fight is about, whether Democratic Senators and Republican Senators will listen to the people. We need to make DC listen.
I am happy to yield to my friend from Louisiana for a question without yielding the floor.
I thank the Senator from Louisiana for that very good question. I thank him also for his support of this effort, his vocal support, his support from day one. I thank him for appearing with us last night, appearing with us today, standing together to defund ObamaCare, standing together to oppose cloture because it would empower Harry Reid and the Democrats to fund ObamaCare with a partisan 51-vote, party-line vote. It would shut out amendments to address and ameliorate the harms that are coming from ObamaCare that are hurting hard-working Americans.
As to the question the Senator from Louisiana asked, I certainly do not want to put words in Mr. Hoffa's mouth. He is quite capable of speaking for himself. But I cannot imagine, given the language of his letter, that the exemption for Congress would be in any way different from the exemption for big business. They are both exemptions for political friends of the administration. According to the language of his letter, he expressed dismay that they and other political friends of the administration did not get an exemption.
I will note part of that letter is asking: Give us a special exemption too. But that did not happen. But I will make a prediction. If the Senate doesn't act now, doesn't defund ObamaCare, if it doesn't stand and stop this, before President Obama leaves the White House he will grant an exemption to those union bosses. It is the trifecta of the privileged classes being excepted. I understand politically it was an inopportune time to grant that now. It would be lawless, it would be contrary to law to grant an exemption to the union bosses but it is also contrary to law to grant an exemption to big business and Members of Congress and that hasn't slowed the President down. If he is willing to disregard the law for them, there is no reason to think he would not be willing to disregard the law for his union boss friends except for the fact right in the middle of the defund debate it is not rocket science that that would not be ideal politics.
The courage of the Senator from Louisiana in introducing his amendment--he has endured vilification that has been beyond the pale and I appreciate his courage standing for the basic principle that Congress should be bound by the same rules as everyone
else. The American people, millions of Americans, should not be put onto exchanges subject to pain that Members of Congress are not. We should not operate under the principle one rule for thee, a different one for me.
For all of you who say this fight is not winnable, I would like to share a letter talking about fighting and winning unwinnable fights, because none of us can win this fight but the American people can.
Fans of Rush Limbaugh know that every year he reads something that his father wrote about the true story of the price paid by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I think it is fitting to read this morning. It is called ``The Americans Who Risked Everything.''
``Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor''
It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind
was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony,
redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new
thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen
shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who
was ill at home.
Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The
temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren't
nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large,
with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable.
Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they
would not be used today.
The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept
locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut,
so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by
passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight
stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson
records that ``the horseflies were dexterous in finding
necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them.'' All
discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.
On the wall at the back, facing the president's desk, was a
panoply--consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized
from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and
Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they
were taking it ``in the name of the Great Jehovah and the
Continental Congress!''
Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency
measure about which there was discussion but no dissension.
``Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of
Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops
at New York.''
Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the
whole. The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once
more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best
writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress
hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-
side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows.
They cut the phrase ``by a self-assumed power.'' ``Climb''
was replaced by ``must read,'' then ``must'' was eliminated,
then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was
cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called
``their depredations.'' ``Inherent and inalienable rights''
came out ``certain unalienable rights,'' and to this day no
one knows who suggested the elegant change.
A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were
eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of
wrangling, the document was put to a vote. Here in this hall
Patrick Henry had once thundered: ``I am no longer a
Virginian, sir, but an American.'' But today the loud,
sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the
vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the
custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence
was adopted.
There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and
cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought
of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its
hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems
before adjourning for the day.
Much To Lose
What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the
Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing,
committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of
you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are
almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however,
know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What
happened to them?
I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the
names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton,
Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.
Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were
under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half--
24--were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, nine were
landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors,
ministers, and politicians. With only a few exceptions, such
as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of
substantial property. All but two had families. The vast
majority were men of education and standing in their
communities. They had economic security as few men had in the
18th Century. Each had more to lose from revolution than he
had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in
America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He
signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could now read
his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben
Franklin wryly noted: ``Indeed we must all hang together,
otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately.'' Fat
Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts: ``With me it will all be over in a minute, but
you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.''
These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason
was death by hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was
already at anchor in New York Harbor.
They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed
intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from
hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion. They simply
asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was
equality with the mother country they desired. It was
taxation with representation they sought. They were all
conservatives, yet they rebelled. It was principle, not
property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of
them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them
became state governors. One died in office as vice president
of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S.
Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from
Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and
philosopher of the signers. (It was he, Francis Hopkinson not
Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag.)
Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced
the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in
June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks:
``Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate?
Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let
her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish
the reign of peace and law. ``The eyes of Europe are fixed
upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that
may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the
ever-increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores.
She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may
find solace, and the persecuted repost.
``If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of
the American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity
at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever
will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.''
Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was
not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their
delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the
signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to
the Declaration.
William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to
see the signers' faces as they committed this supreme act of
personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, ``but in no
face was he able to discern real fear.'' Stephan Hopkins,
Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As
he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: ``My hand
trembles, but my heart does not.''
``Most Glorious Service''
Even before the list was published, the British marked down
every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to
treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts.
Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes.
All who had property or families near British strongholds
suffered.
Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered--and his estates in what is now Harlem--completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.
William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to
escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to
Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for
seven years. When they came home they found a devastated
ruin.
Philips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York
confiscated and his family driven out of their home.
Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the
cause.
Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his
timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was
barred from his home and family.
John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return
home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him,
and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her
deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his
homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was
hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated
by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had
already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never
saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever
finding his family.
Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College
of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied
the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college.
They trampled and burned the finest college library in the
country.
Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer,
had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his
wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but
a Tory sympathizer betrayed
them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and
brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a
common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally
arranged for Stockton's parole, but his health was ruined.
The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer
harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate
looted and did not live to see the triumph of the Revolution.
His family was forced to live off charity.
Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate
and signer, met Washington's appeals and pleas for money year
after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made
it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton.
In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own
fortune and credit almost dry.
George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family
from their home, but their property was completely destroyed
by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.
Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to
flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had
several narrow escapes.
John Martin, a Tory in his views previous to the debate,
lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he
came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even
some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and
troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When
he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were:
``Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they
shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most
glorious service that I have ever rendered to my country.''
William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and
home burned to the ground.
Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health
broken from privation and exposures while serving as a
company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to
seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage, he and his
young bride were drowned at sea.
Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr.,
the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the
British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as
prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were
singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end
of the war, the British in the meantime having completely
devastated their large landholdings and estates.
Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in
command of the Virginia military forces. With British General
Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American
guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord
Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into
Nelson's palatial home. While American cannonballs were
making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson
remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American
gunners and asked, ``Why do you spare my home?'' They
replied, ``Sir, out of respect to you.'' Nelson cried, ``Give
me the cannon!'' and fired on his magnificent home himself,
smashing it to bits. But Nelson's sacrifice was not quite
over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by
pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer
peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson's
property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died,
impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.
Lives, Fortunes, Honor
Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence,
nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were
captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment.
Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13
children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one
time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their
homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned.
Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or
went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation
they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.
And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham
Clark.
He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary
Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British
prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship
Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The
younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because
of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food.
With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one
could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British
request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would
recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter
despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul,
must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with
his answer: ``No.''
The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by
their every deed that they made no idle boast when they
composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. ``And
for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on
the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.''
My friends, I know you have a copy of the Declaration of
Independence somewhere around the house--in an old history
book (newer ones may well omit it), an encyclopedia, or one
of those artificially aged ``parchments'' we all got in
school years ago. I suggest that each of you take the time
this month to read through the text of the Declaration, one
of the most noble and beautiful political documents in human
history.
There is no more profound sentence than this: ``We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of Happiness . . . ''
These are far more than mere poetic words. The underlying
ideas that infuse every sentence of this treatise have
sustained this nation for more than two centuries. They were
forged in the crucible of great sacrifice. They are living
words that spring from and satisfy the deepest cries for
liberty in the human spirit. ``Sacred honor'' isn't a phrase
we use much these days, but every American life is touched by
the bounty of this, the Founders' legacy. It is freedom,
tested by blood, and watered with tears.
That is the story of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is the story of our shared legacy.
I will make this note to my friends on the Republican side of the aisle and the Democratic side of the aisle, as Benjamin Franklin wryly noted: Indeed, we must all hang together, otherwise we should most assuredly hang separately.
That is the message all of us should think about. Are we going to hang separately because we disregarded the will and the view of our constituents and have given in to the Washington establishment or are we going to stand together and say: Let's break the broken pattern of Washington, of empty showboats, of fixed procedures, and ignoring the will of the people? Instead, let's come together--much like James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, has--and say: We will remain silent no longer. We cannot ignore the suffering of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs, cannot find jobs, have had their hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week, facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and are losing or are at risk of losing their health insurance.
Our constituents, the American people, are hurting and suffering, and it is the role of Congress to answer their call. All of us must listen to the people. Together we must make DC listen.
I thank the junior Senator from Florida, and I would note that is precisely what this is about. This is a fight for the millions of men and women who are facing a stagnant economy, who are facing jobs that are drying up or disappearing altogether, who are finding themselves being forcibly put in part-time work, being forced to work 29 hours a week or less, who are finding their health insurance premiums skyrocketing, and who are being threatened or facing already their health insurance being taken away. All of these are the very real consequences of ObamaCare right now for millions of Americans.
Listen, there are people in this body who in good faith 3\1/2\ years ago could have believed this was a good idea, it might work. I did not think it at the time, but I understand that people in this body did.
At this point, with all the evidence, I would suggest that case can no longer be made, that the evidence is abundantly clear. It is why the unions are jumping ship. It is why Members of Congress have asked for an exemption. It is why it is now abundantly clear that this train wreck, this nightmare, is hurting Americans all over this country.
I will note a couple of things. First of all, I note that my assistant majority leader is on the floor, and I would make a request that either--I do not know if the assistant majority leader is in a position to speak for the majority leader or, if he is not, I would make a request, if the majority leader is monitoring this proceeding, that he come to the floor because I would like to promulgate a series of unanimous consent requests. I do not want to surprise the majority leader or the assistant majority leader, so I would like the opportunity to explain those requests before promulgating them, to give Democratic Party leadership an opportunity to think about it, to spend a little bit of time contemplating it, to make a decision whether they would consent.
So I would make a request, unless the assistant majority leader is prepared to speak for the majority leader, that I would ask that the majority leader, if he can--I know his schedule is certainly very busy--but I would ask if he can come to the floor so I may lay out the unanimous consent requests that I would like to promulgate.
I would also note that for some time Senator Grassley from Iowa has been waiting, and he has requested time to raise a question. So if Senator Grassley at this point would like to ask a question----
On the condition that it does not jeopardize in any way my full control of the floor, I am amenable to that request.
I thank the Senator from Illinois for that question, and I would respond threefold.
No. 1, for Judy, as the Senator describes her circumstances, I would certainly support health care reform that increases competition and increases free market alternatives that lower the rate of health insurance that is available to people by allowing interstate competition, creating a national marketplace. But, in my view, any health care reform should empower individuals and patients to make health care decisions in consultation with their physicians--not having a government bureaucrat get in between them and their doctor.
If I may finish the remainder of my points, concomitantly, the Senator has told the story of Judy, and I do think we should have reforms to address her circumstance, but over the course of the last many hours we have read scores, if not hundreds, of stories that are a small representation of the thousands or millions of people who are losing or are in jeopardy of losing their health insurance right now. They have to be balanced in this equation as well.
ObamaCare is causing people all over this country to lose their health insurance or be at risk of losing their health insurance, and I am sure if I were to promulgate the question to the Senator from Illinois: Do you want all of these people who are losing their health insurance to lose their health insurance--all of the names I read--I am sure the Senator would say no. But to date, no one on the Democratic side of the aisle has proposed any way to fix that.
Let me make a second point, and then I am going to have a third point. Then, if the Senator would care for another question, I am happy to do my best to respond.
The second point: The Senator from Illinois made a reference to Judy not needing to be in first class but being content to be in coach. I think that analogy is a powerful one, but what it highlights is the special exemption that has been put in place for Members of Congress. Because President Obama has put an exemption in place for Members of Congress that says: Members of Congress will fly first class, to use the Senator's airline analogy, but average Americans who are being forced onto exchanges, where their employers cannot subsidize their premiums, are not even flying coach. They are being put in the baggage department.
I will say I agree with the intent and the spirit of Senator Grassley's amendment to ObamaCare that was adopted, that is part of the law that the President is disregarding, which is that if we are going to force millions of people to lose their health insurance, be forced into these exchanges, then we should have skin in the game. Congress should not be treated any better than the millions of Americans we are forcing onto the exchanges.
Let me make my third point, and then I am happy to yield at that point for a question.
The third point is twice I have read in the course of this debate the letter from Mr. Hoffa, the head of the Teamsters.
I assume the Senator from Illinois has read that letter. In fact, I expect the Senator from Illinois has had direct conversations with the author of that letter. I do not know that.
I would ask the Senator from Illinois, No. 1, has he read that letter; No. 2, does he think Mr. Hoffa is telling the truth; and No. 3, in particular, does he agree with the following paragraph?
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we
represent and the families they support, we can no longer
stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care
Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our
members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.
So my question is, does the Senator believe Mr. Hoffa is telling the truth when he says that? If so, does the Democratic majority in this body have any plans, any proposals, any amendments to fix that problem for what Mr. Hoffa describes as ``millions of working men and women'' whose health care will be--the word he uses--destroyed.
I am happy to hear the Senator from Illinois.
I appreciate the Senator's question, but I will answer the Senator's question when the Senator first answers the three questions I asked him, none of which the Senator has chosen to answer, namely: Have you read Mr. Hoffa's letter? Do you agree with that paragraph? Do you think he is telling the truth? What, if anything, does the Democratic majority purport to do about millions of working men and women whose health care, according to Mr. Hoffa, is being destroyed?
I would note that the Senator from Illinois made an allegation impugning my motive, saying that I wanted 50 million people to be denied health care. Let me be very clear. That statement is categorically false. I want a competitive marketplace where health care is accessible, it is affordable, where it is purchased across States lines, where it is personal, where it is portable, and where people have jobs so they can get health insurance. ObamaCare is what is denying health insurance to millions of Americans. If you do not take my word for it, I assume you do not contend that Mr. Hoffa is being less than truthful?
I will answer that question. Since I have not yielded the floor, I would like to make a broader point after that and have a colloquy. I will point out why, which is that we are operating under some time constraints. So I want to do what the Senator asked of detailing the unanimous consent requests that I want to promulgate so he and the majority leader may consider them. I also want to be respectful of Senator Grassley and Senator Sessions, who have been waiting to speak. The Senator and I have engaged in multiple exchanges, both now and earlier, and so I want to be respectful of the other Senators on the floor.
But let me answer the question. I believe we should repeal every word of ObamaCare. I think it has failed. I agree with James Hoffa that on behalf of millions of working men and women and the families they support, that ``the Affordable Care Act will destroy the very health and well being of our members, along with millions of other hard- working Americans.'' So I think we should repeal it. I think we should defund it in the interim. This is not a fight over repealing, it is a fight over defunding it. Then I think we should adopt free market plans to lower prices, make health care more affordable, make it portable, and allow it to go with individuals.
I am happy to tell the Senator. I am eligible for it. I am not currently covered under it.
Let me note that the Senator from Illinois embraced the analogy and said: Yes, we in Congress have first-class health care. Under his analogy, he wants to stick Judy in coach class. What Senator Grassley's amendment was all about is, you know what, if you stick Judy in coach class, guess what. Members of Congress are going back in coach class. The Senator and I may disagree. I do not think Judy is in coach class, I think she is down in the baggage claim.
Regardless, in his hypothetical the Senator is conceding that the congressional health care plan right now is better than Judy's under ObamaCare, and he is saying that he supports a special exemption for Members of Congress that Judy does not get.
I agree with Senator Grassley's amendment that we should not be forcing millions of Americans into coverage we are not willing to experience. I recognize the passion of the Senator, but I would note that I have not yielded the floor.
I would like to describe the unanimous consent requests that I would like to promulgate. I would ask the assistant majority leader and the majority leader to confer with my staff and simply let me know if these requests would be amenable. I am not promulgating them at this time because I do not want to surprise leadership staff without giving you time to consider them.
The first unanimous consent request that I would propose to promulgate is a request that we vitiate the cloture on the motion to proceed that is scheduled this afternoon and agree by unanimous consent to proceed to this bill. To my knowledge, I am not aware of any Senator in this body who opposes proceeding to this bill. I think all of us agree that we should proceed to this bill, we should keep the government open. Some of us think we should keep the government open and defund ObamaCare, others think we should fund it, but to the best of my knowledge, no one disagrees. So if the majority is amenable, I would propose vitiating the cloture motion and simply agreeing to the motion to proceed. That would be the first unanimous consent request I would promulgate if it is agreeable to the majority.
The second unanimous consent request that I would promulgate is, if it is agreeable to the majority, as I understand in the timing, all of the delays are put in place. Cloture on the bill would be scheduled to occur on Saturday. In my view, in order to defeat cloture on the bill-- you know I want to defeat cloture on the bill. That is no secret. I think the best chance to defeat cloture on the bill is for this bill to be visible to the American people--highly visible. So accordingly, I would be amenable to shortening the time for postcloture debate such that that vote on cloture on the bill occurs on Friday afternoon rather than Saturday. Why is that? Because I think that on a Friday afternoon, a lot more American people are going to pay attention to what we are doing than a vote on Saturday during football games and when people are paying attention to other things. That may or may not be amenable to the majority, but if it is, we can shorten this time by a period because I think we have a better chance in prevailing in this fight if that vote--I note the majority leader is here. I do not know if he heard the initial unanimous consent, which, if it is amenable to the majority leader, we would negotiate the language with him and promulgate.
So the first one I offered, Mr. Leader--and I have not yielded the floor, but I am describing during my time on the floor the unanimous consent requests I would promulgate if the majority would be amenable. The first would be to vitiate the cloture request and simply agree on the motion to proceed because to my knowledge everyone in this body agrees we should proceed to this bill, although we have sharp disagreements on what we should do.
The second unanimous consent request, if it is amenable to the majority, that I would suggest--and I think the majority leader heard this as he was walking in--is to agree to shorten the time of postcloture debate such that cloture on the bill would occur Friday afternoon rather than Saturday. The reason is--I am being very transparent about my reasoning. I think it is better for this country if this vote is at a time that is visible for the whole country so that the American people have a voice in it. I think sticking it in Saturday in the middle of football games disserves that objective.
Then the third request--if the majority leader would be amenable--I would put forward is, as I understand it, under the rules of the Senate, in some 35 minutes, my time will be automatically cut off as the new legislative day begins and it begins with a prayer. When I started this filibuster yesterday afternoon, I told the American people that I intended to stand until I could stand no more. I will observe to the majority leader that although I am weary, there is still at least strength in my legs to stand a little longer. So the third thing I would simply ask is if the majority would consent to allow me to speak until the conclusion of my remarks and then begin the next legislative day and have the prayer at the conclusion of those remarks. If the majority says no, then my time will end at noon under the rules of the Senate. So it is entirely up to the majority whether to let me continue to speak. But given that I began by saying I will speak until I can stand no more, I believe I should at least ask if those consents are amenable.
I would note that under the rules of the Senate, if the majority leader cares to ask a question, I can yield for a question in which he might share his views or, if the majority leader wants to think about it, to discuss it with his staff, then I would note that the majority leader could simply convey to my staff if any or none of those unanimous
consent requests are amenable. If none of them are, that is fine and we will conclude at noon.
I want to clarify. I have the floor. I have not yielded the floor to anyone. Neither the majority leader nor any other Member has the right of recognition right now. If the majority leader wishes, he may ask me to yield for a question. I might yield for that limited purpose. But other than that, no one has the floor, if I understand the rules of this body correctly.
So I make that note. If the majority would care to ask a question, I would be amenable to yielding for a question. If the majority leader would not, that is certainly his prerogative, and I am happy to continue talking about the issues this debate has focused the country on because they are issues of vital importance.
Mr. President, I would simply note to the majority leader that if those unanimous consent requests are amenable, I would ask that his staff convey that to my staff. If they are not, I would ask that his staff convey that to my staff simply so we know which way to proceed. Regardless, I want to make sure before we wrap up because I assume now in 31 minutes we will be concluded. I want to yield to Senator Grassley in just a moment because I do not want to miss--I apologize to Senator Grassley, but I do not want to miss the opportunity within the limited time to do something that is imperative that I do, which is to thank the men and women who have endured this Bataan Death March. I want to take a little bit of time to thank them by name.
I would like to start by thanking the Republican floor staff and cloakroom. I thank Laura Dove for her fairness, for her dealing with crises and passion on all sides, and for her effectiveness in the job. This is an interesting occurrence to occur so early in her job. I thank her for her service.
I wish to thank Robert Duncan, Patrick Kilcur, Chris Tuck, Megan Mercer, Mary-Elizabeth Taylor, and Amanda Faulkner.
I wish to thank Democratic floor staff and cloakroom: Gary Myrick, Tim Mitchell, Trish Engle, Meredith Mellody, Dan Tinsley, Tequia Delgado, Brad Watt, and Stephanie Paone. I wish to thank the clerks and Parliamentarians. I wish to thank the Capitol Police, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Secretary of Senate employees.
The Parliamentarians are Elizabeth MacDonough, Leigh Hildebrand, Mike Beaver; the Legislative Clerk, Kathie Alvarez; the Journal Clerk, Scott Sanborn; the Bill Clerk, Mary Anne Clarkson; the Daily Digest, Elizabeth Tratos; the Enrolling Clerk, Cassie Byrd; the chief reporter, Jerry Linnell; Congressional Record, Sylvia Oliver, Val Mihalache, Pam Garland, Desi Jura, Joel Breitner, Doreen Chendorain, Julie Bryan, Patrick Renzi, Mark Stewart, Wendy Caswell, Ann Riley, Patrice Boyd, Mary Carpenter, Octavio Colominas; captioning, JoEllen Dicken, Jim Hall, Sandy Schumm; Sergeant at Arms and Secretary of the Senate employees; the Senate pages, many of whom I caused to miss school. I appreciate you all for enduring this, and all those who work in the Capitol complex.
I wish to thank my entire staff, many of whom have been here all night.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a note of sincere gratitude to my staff, who worked tirelessly to help me prepare and sustain extended floor remarks. I especially appreciate their appearance in the Chamber throughout the night, which was a great source of encouragement. I extend my appreciation to each of the following individuals:
Chip Roy, Chief of Staff; Sean Rushton, Communications
Director; Amanda Carpenter, Speechwriter & Senior
Communications Advisor; Catherine Frazier, Press Secretary;
Josh Perry, Digital Director; Brooke Bacak, Legislative
Director; Jeff Murray, Deputy Legislative Director; Scott
Keller, Chief Counsel; John Ellis, Senior Counsel; Bernie
McNamee, Senior Domestic Policy Advisor and Counsel; Kenny
Stein, Legislative Counsel; Alec Aramanda, Legislative
Assistant; Max Pappas, Director of Outreach & Senior
Economist; Victoria Coates, Senior Advisor of National
Security.
Jeremy Hayes, Military Legislative Assistant; David
Milstein, Research Assistant; Dougie Simmons, Director of
Scheduling; Christine Shafer, Deputy Director of Scheduling;
Kimberly Henderson, Administrative Director; Dan Soto, IT
Director; Amy Herod, Scheduling Assistant & Assistant to the
Chief of Staff; Hunter Rome, Legislative Correspondent;
Samantha Leahy, Legislative Correspondent; Martin Martinez,
Legal Assistant; Melanie Schwartz, Legislative Correspondent;
Caitlin Thompson, Legislative Correspondent; Ben Murrey,
Legislative Correspondent; Brittany Baldwin, Press Assistant;
Nico Rios, Staff Assistant; John Landes, Staff Assistant.
I wish to thank Democratic Senators who have presided: Senator Baldwin, Senator Manchin, Senator Warren, Senator Donnelly, Senator Kaine, Senator Murphy, Senator Schatz, Senator Baldwin again, Senator Donnelly, Senator Durbin, Senator Heitkamp, and Senator Markey.
I wish to thank the Republican Senators who have spoken in support of our efforts: Senator Sessions, Senator Rubio, Senator Paul, Senator Inhofe, Senator Enzi, Senator Roberts, Senator Vitter, and very soon, Senator Grassley.
I wish to thank the House Members who have come over. Representative Amash, Representative Broun, Representative Hudson. I wish to make a special note of Representative Gohmert who was here the entire night enduring this.
I wish to make a point, particularly to the floor staff and to everyone: You all didn't choose this. I appreciate the hard work and diligence going through the night. That is not part of your typical job responsibility. I would not have imposed on your time and energy if I did not believe this was an issue of vital importance to the American people. I wish to thank you for your hard work, diligence, and cheerfulness through what has been a very long night.
I wish to thank, second to last, Senator Mike Lee. Senator Mike Lee began this fight. Senator Mike Lee has been here throughout the course of this battle. Senator Mike Lee has been always cheerful, always focused, always ready to march into battle and always ready to focus on the ultimate objective, which is serving the American people by standing and fighting to stop the train wreck, the nightmare, the disaster that is ObamaCare.
We wouldn't be here if it weren't for Senator Lee's principle, for his courage, for his bravery under fire. I feel particularly honored to serve as his colleague and consider him a friend.
Last, I wish to thank the American people. I want to thank people all across the country who watched on C-SPAN, tweeted, engaged, and have been involved in this process. This is ultimately about the American people. What this whole fight is about is whether this body, the Democratic Senators and the Republican Senators, will change the broken ways of Washington and start listening to the people. That is what this fight is all about.
With those thank yous, I apologize, but I felt obliged to conclude before 12 o'clock when my time will be cut off by force. I will note at this point Senator Grassley had wished to ask a question.
I am prepared to yield for a question if Senator Grassley wishes to ask me a question.
With the reservation that I do not lose the right to the floor, I am pleased to engage in a colloquy with the majority leader.
I have decided to not yield my right to the floor. I was amenable to a colloquy. The majority leader is giving a speech.
Given that, as I understand, the majority leader is not going to consent to extend the time, I have 24 minutes, I am going to reassert my time on the floor since I have not yielded my time on the floor.
There is objection. I am sorry. I cannot be asked to consent to an unnamed consent agreement.
Given that the majority leader, as I understand, is not going to consent to extend my time, then let me say quite simply to the majority leader that I will yield time to him for a question when the majority leader is prepared to yield to the American people. But I am not prepared to yield prior to that because Senator Grassley, Senator Sessions, and Senator Inhofe are waiting to speak. I believe they are endeavoring to listen to the American people. If the majority is going to cut off and muzzle us in another 24 minutes, then at this point I don't feel it is appropriate to allow the majority leader to consume that time.
I will note to any Senators who were here--if anyone would care, I know a number of Senators are waiting to ask questions, I am prepared to yield to a question from any of them.
That question is asked, but it will not prove necessary, absent the consent that I promulgated. I am assuming it would not be acceptable to the majority because my time will end at noon. There is nothing left to yield because, as I understand it under the Senate rules, when the new legislative day begins and the prayer begins, my time yields.
It is my understanding my time expires at noon. Absent a consent to extend it, I will honor the Senate rules and allow my time to expire at noon, so there is nothing to yield.
I will note Senator Sessions is standing.
Given the majority leader has cut off our time in 20 minutes, no, I am sorry, I do not. The majority leader was welcome to come down any time in the last 20 hours and ask parliamentary inquiries or questions. I would note Senator Durbin did so, Senator Kaine did so, others Senators did so.
At this point, our time is expiring and I wish to allow other Republican Senators who appeared and asked to ask questions to have the opportunity to do so.
I yield for one more question without yielding the floor.
It is my intention, if the consent request that I asked is not agreed to, to accept the end of this at noon under the Senate rules.
Let me briefly clarify, I asked nothing in exchange for that. None of those were contingent on each other. Those were three independent unanimous consent requests--which the majority leader wanted consent to any of those. It wasn't an offer of horse trade, it was simply--I think all three of those make sense. I think any one of the three of them makes sense. If he chooses to reject them all, that is his prerogative and that is fine. I was only suggesting we not waste this body's time by doing so.
I thank my friend from Alabama.
I would note that unfortunately I am not surprised that none of the consents were taken. I note the first two consents, one would think, would be quite amenable. Yet, look, throughout this debate, the problem has been the majority does not wish to listen to the American people and doesn't want a debate in front of the American people, particularly about the merits of ObamaCare. They don't want to talk about how ObamaCare is failing millions of Americans. They don't want to talk about how millions of Americans are losing their jobs and how they are not being hired. They don't want to talk about how millions of Americans are facing being pushed into part-time work. They don't want to talk about how millions of Americans are either losing their health insurance or are at risk of losing their health insurance.
This process is all about, sadly, the Democratic majority not listening to the American people. The whole purpose of this filibuster was to do everything we could to draw this issue to the attention of the American people so the American people could be heard.
If the American people speak with sufficient volume, I continue to have confidence that this body, that the Senators on both sides of the aisle, will have no choice but to listen.
Given that we have 16 minutes remaining, I inadvertently omitted in my thank yous the doorkeepers by accident.
The doorkeepers were: Tucker Eagleson, Dawn Gazunis, Elizabeth Garcia, Rocketa Gillis, Marc O'Connor, Laverne Allen, Daniel Benedix, Cindy Kesler, Scott Muschette, Tony Goldsmith, Jim Jordan, Megan Sheffield, David West, Denis Houlihan, and Bob Shelton.
Let me say for any of the floor staff or others, if I inadvertently omitted someone, please accept my apology. It was my intention to endeavor to thank anyone. If I have made an inadvertent omission, that is my fault and I take responsibility for it.
I wish to note also that an additional Member of Congress, Congressman Steve King, has joined us. I wish to thank Congressman King for joining us.
I would note, as we are in the last 15 minutes, that if my friend and colleague Senator Mike Lee wished to ask a question, I would be prepared to yield as we are wrapping up.
I thank my friend Senator Lee from Utah, and I think that is exactly right. At the end of the day it is the United States of America--``we the people''--who are sovereign. Ultimately every Member of this body works for ``we the people.'' The reason there is such profound frustration across this country, the reason this body is held in such abysmally low esteem is that for too long Washington has not listened to the American people. Every survey of the American people, no matter what State, no matter whether you are talking Republicans, Democrats, Independents or Libertarians, the answer is always the same: The top priority for the American people is jobs and the economy.
The Presiding Officer and I both began serving 9 months ago as freshmen in this body. I will tell you my greatest frustration in this body during those 9 months is that we have spent virtually zero time talking about jobs and the economy. We spent 6 weeks talking about guns and taking away people's Second Amendment rights. But when it comes to jobs and the economy in this Senate, it doesn't even make the agenda.
We spend no time talking about fundamental tax reform. We spend no time or virtually no time talking about regulatory reform. When it comes to defunding ObamaCare, the single biggest thing we could do to restore jobs in the economy, the Democratic majority is not interested in that conversation. Indeed, for the bulk of this conversation, with a couple of exceptions, the Democratic majority chose not to engage in the debate. Why? I would submit it is because on the merits, on the substance, the defense of ObamaCare is now indefensible.
There may have been some, even many, who 3\1/2\ years ago, when ObamaCare was adopted, believed in good faith it was going to work. But at this point the facts are evident that it is not. At this point we have seen small businesses all over this country who are losing the ability to compete, who are not expanding, who are staying under 50 employees, who are not hiring, and who are forcing employees to move to part-time work.
According to the Chamber of Commerce survey of small businesses, half of small businesses eligible for the employee mandate are either moving to part-time workers or forcing full-time workers to go part time. This is not a small problem. This is not a marginal problem. This is a problem all over the country. We are talking to millions of small businesses. Another 24 percent, I believe is the number, are simply not growing, are staying under 50 employees, which means they are not hiring people.
So anyone in America right now who is struggling to find a job--and small businesses provide two-thirds of all new jobs--small businesses are crying out that ObamaCare is killing them. Unfortunately, the Senate is not hearing their cries. For the millions of Americans who are facing the threat of being forced into part-time work, unfortunately, the Senate is not hearing their cries. For the millions of Americans who are facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums and facing the reality or the risk of losing their health insurance, the Senate is not hearing their cries.
The people who are facing this are not the wealthy, they are not the powerful, they are not, as the President likes to say, the millionaires and billionaires. They are the most vulnerable among us. They are young people who are being absolutely decimated by ObamaCare. They are single moms who are working in diners, struggling and suddenly finding their hours reduced to 29 hours a week. The problem is 29 hours a week is not enough to feed your kids. Single moms are crying out to the Senate to fix this train wreck, to fix this disaster. And for the struggling single moms, for young people, unfortunately, the Senate is closed for business.
I am happy to yield for a question without yielding the floor, although I would note we have all of 6\1/2\ minutes until the time will expire.
I thank the Senator from Idaho for his question and for his steadfast leadership and willingness to
stand and fight for the American people to stop this train wreck that is ObamaCare. And the answer to my friend's question is: Of course not. Small businesses all over this country are getting hammered by ObamaCare, and the real loses are not even to the small business owners. The real losers are the people, the teenaged kids who would get hired, the single moms who would get hired, the African Americans, the Hispanics who are suddenly finding themselves without a job or are being forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week and denied the opportunity to get to that first rung of the economic ladder, which would then get them to the second, the third, and the fourth.
Millions of Americans are hurting under ObamaCare. It is my plea to this body, to the Democrats, that they listen to the unions that are asking on behalf of millions of Americans who are struggling to repeal ObamaCare, that we not have a system where the rich and powerful or big corporations and Members of Congress are treated to a different set of rules than hardworking Americans. President Obama has granted illegal exemptions to big businesses and Members of Congress. I don't think the American people should be subject to harsher rules.
So my plea to this body is that we listen to the American people, because if we listen to our constituents, the answer is: Defund this bill that isn't working, that is hurting the American people, that is killing jobs and forcing people into part-time work, that is driving up health insurance premiums and that is causing millions to lose or to fear they will lose their health insurance.
As the time is wrapping up, I will close by noting that at noon we will have a prayer. I think it is fitting this debate conclude with prayer, because I would ask that everyone in this body ask for the Lord's guidance on how we best listen to our constituents, listen to the pleas for help that are coming from our constituents.
The final thing I will do is to make two unanimous consent requests I mentioned, and the majority leader may or may not agree to them. The first is:
I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote at 1 p.m. be vitiated and that at the conclusion of my remarks the motion to proceed to the resolution be agreed to.
Mr. President, my second request is:
I ask unanimous consent that if a cloture motion is filed on the underlying measure, that cloture vote occur during Friday's session of the Senate, notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII.
Well then, it appears I have the floor for another 90 seconds or so, and so I simply will note for the American people who have been so engaged that this debate is in their hands. Ultimately, all 100 Senators--all 46 Republicans, all 54 Democrats--work for you. The pleas from the American people--certainly those in Texas--are deafening. The frustration that the United States Senate doesn't listen to the people is deafening. So I call on all 46 Republicans to unite, to stand together and to vote against cloture on the bill on Friday or Saturday; otherwise, if we vote with the majority leader and with the Senate Democrats, we will be voting to allow the majority leader to fund ObamaCare on a straight party-line vote of 51 partisan votes.
The American people will understand that. Voting to give that power to the majority leader, I would suggest, is not consistent with, I believe, the heartfelt commitment of all 46 members of this conference who oppose ObamaCare. The only path, if we are to oppose ObamaCare, is to stand together and oppose cloture. I ask my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle to listen to this plea.
