Make it in America

Floor Speech

Mr. POLIS. It's particularly ironic that this session of Congress opened with a recital of the United States Constitution which really just, in the vote yesterday, has been debased. And our democratic Republic has been debased to an extent that I certainly have not seen in this body prior under either party.

Let's talk about exactly what was attempted yesterday in this constitutional amendment that would have essentially passed as part of a resolution. It's one thing to say that we want to eliminate Medicare. The House worked its will through the Ryan budget, phasing out Medicare for those who are under 55 years of age. The people of this country will have the opportunity to change that. We saw an election in upstate New York where I think and most people think that the people of this country soundly rejected the effort to eliminate Medicare.

But regardless, that's what elections are about. I know that in the last election, Democrats didn't fare too well. A majority of this House was elected that wanted to phase out Medicare for people under the age of 55. Likewise, in the next election, if people run on that, a majority might arise in this body that supports keeping Medicare solvent for the next generation.

What was attempted yesterday was circumventing the public will by inserting into the United States Constitution exact fiscal policy that essentially wouldn't allow Medicare to exist in any form similar to what it is today. It would actually specify an exact percentage of the gross national product that the public sector can contain in our governing document.

This is unprecedented. Who hears of putting numbers, 19.7 percent, 19.5 percent, 20, 21 percent--we're talking about the percentage of the economy that can be public sector versus private sector. Who knows what the ideal percentage is? That's what elections are about. That's what we fight off every day here on the floor of the House. Some will say we should have it a little bigger; others will say we should have it a little smaller. The people of the country have their say. To somehow take that out of the realm of public discourse and insert that into our governing document is unprecedented. It castrates the United States Congress. It castrates and eliminates our ability to make public policy, for better or worse.

I had an exchange with one of my colleagues on the Rules Committee as we were bringing this to the floor the other day. I said, This is such an absurd concept. Imagine for a minute that there was a Democratic majority and we were saying, You know what, we want to put in our Constitution that public expenditures have to be at least 22 percent of GNP or--but it never even crossed our minds. There is no Democratic proposal like that because it just doesn't make any sense. That's what elections are about.

And yet here the Republican majority is trying to insert into our governing document--the one that they say that they have great respect for, the one that they began this session of the House by reading--inserting exact formulated fiscal policy regarding the exact size of the public sector, taking that ability away from the voters of this country, taking the discussion away from the deliberative bodies of the House and the Senate, taking it out of the hands of an election for President of the United States, removing the fundamental issue of what role government should play from political debates.

That is grossly undemocratic. It should be an insult to all of us who value our democratic Republic, who value our democratic institutions.

However flawed, our representational system of democracy is the most effective in the world. The people's voice will be heard. By taking away the people's voice and castrating the United States Congress to specific policies prescribed in the Constitution, we remove the ability of present and future voters of the country to have their voices heard. Regardless of where anyone comes down on the policies, regardless of what percentage of the GNP you think it should be, I hope that most Americans believe that it's a fundamental value to have a say in our system of governance and to have these debates and to have them be part of the public discourse, and that was proposed to be taken away completely by a bill that passed yesterday in this body by a majority vote from the Republican side.

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