Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. I would ask my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Texas, a series of questions with regard to this concept to make DC listen. It is interesting that we are having this discussion right now at a time in our history when never has it been easier for so many people throughout the country with so few resources to be heard by so many.

In the past, you had to own a newspaper or perhaps in more recent years you had to own a radio station or a television company or something like that to be heard by a lot of people. But these days pretty much anyone can gain access to a telephone or the Internet, they can send an e-mail, they can submit a post. It is one of the things that have made possible a groundswell of people--just a few minutes ago the Senator mentioned 1.6 million Americans just in the last few weeks signing a petition asking for Congress to make a decision to protect the American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare.

They want government funded, just as we want government funded. They want government to be able to continue to do the things government does. They want people to be able to rely on government to protect them, to protect our borders, to protect our sovereignty, protect our homeland against those who would harm us. They want government to be able to carry out its basic functions and its responsibility. They want their government funded. But they do not want that held hostage by something else. They do not want that funding tied to the funding of ObamaCare in the sense that they want to keep government funded but they want us to defund ObamaCare.

The House of Representatives shows that at least that side of DC, that side of the Capitol was listening. I applaud the Speaker of the House and the other leaders in the House of Representatives who did that. That suggests to me that they were listening on that side of the Capitol. They had many millions of Americans calling out on the telephone, through mail, e-mail, every conceivable medium for relief from this bill. They listened. They listened because they understand that the American people are being hurt by this. They ask the same questions the Senator from Texas and I and others have asked: How many more Americans will have to lose their jobs because of ObamaCare before Congress acts? How many more Americans will have to see their wages or their hours cut as a result of this ill-conceived law before we do something about this? How many more people will have to lose access to health coverage before Congress does something?

Just last Friday we saw Home Depot--one of America's great companies, one of America's great success stories, one of America's great employers--announce that 20,000 employees will be losing their health coverage. How many more stories like this will we have to hear before Congress does something to protect Americans from the harmful effects of this law--a law that was passed a few years ago without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives; a law that was passed a few years ago without a single Republican vote in the Senate; a law that was passed--all 2,700 pages as it was then constituted--without, as far as I know, many, if any, Members of this body or the other body in the Capitol having had the opportunity fully to read it. Since then, of course, it has expanded. We have had an additional 20,000 pages of regulations promulgated, increasing rather exponentially the impact of this law. The popularity of the law has not improved with time, just as the complexity of the law has not become less problematic in the intervening 3 1/2 -year period.

So as we look at this, we think about the fact that it is important for Congress to listen to the American people. Again, today it has never been so easy for so many Americans with so few resources at their disposal to make sure that they are, in fact, heard. So we have to ask ourselves the question--I have to ask the Senator the question: How long will it be before Congress acts?

I am pleased that the Senator referred to the opportunity crisis, the economic opportunity crisis in America. He referred to the economic ladder in this country. You know, I think it is an interesting fact and we need to consider that--according to one recent study published I believe just in the last few weeks--for the first time in American history, 40 percent of those born in America, into the bottom quintile of the American economy, the bottom 20 percent of income earners in this country--40 percent of the bottom 20 percent will remain in the bottom 20 percent throughout the duration of their lifetime. To my knowledge, that has never happened in this country. To my knowledge, this undercuts what has long been a very distinguishing, enviable characteristic of the United States. It is what has made this the greatest civilization the world has ever known--the fact that this is a country where regardless of where you were born on the economic ladder, regardless of the circumstances in which you came into this world or came into this country, you could make it. In fact, your chances of doing so were relatively strong. Yet 40 percent of those people, we now understand, will stay there throughout the duration of their lives.

Another study came out, also a few weeks ago, indicating that in 34 States and the District of Colombia, an individual or a family is actually likely to see a dip in their well-being, a dip in their standard of living if, instead of receiving welfare benefits, they decide instead to shed those benefits and go on to an entry level job. That is sad. That is sad because that suggests that our government--as well-intentioned as many of those programs might be, they will have set in place a series of conditions that trap people, especially parents, into a vulnerable, poor condition.

If there is one thing that I think parents feel somewhat universally, it is a degree of risk aversion. People do not like to take risks that could jeopardize their ability to provide for their children. If we set up a set of conditions in which people, in order to maintain their level of certainty that they might have while surviving under a system of welfare benefits provided by the Federal Government--if they become locked into that, locked into poverty in perpetuity because of that, that is disconcerting because the risk is always too high to make that jump to an entry level job. Without the entry level job, there will never be the secondary job, there will never be the first raise or the second raise or the first, second, or third promotion. Without those things, there is no ladder. Without those things, there is an opportunity lost and people remain on the bottom rungs of that very ladder.

We see at the top rung a system of crony capitalism that sometimes has the impact of keeping some people and some big businesses artificially held in place at the top of the economic ladder at the expense of others, at the expense of would-be competitors who are driven out or held out from the beginning from the competitive marketplace through the oppressive intervention of the government, through the government's favoritism, and through the government's ability sometimes, regrettably, to choose winners and losers in the marketplace.

You see where most Americans are, right in the middle of the ladder. On the middle rungs you see people working, trying to get by from day to day. They are able to survive, able to provide for the basic needs of their families. But they would like to do better. They would like to be able to provide a more comfortable living for their families.

They find very often that no sooner do they find an increase in their income than that same increase has been gobbled up by a combination of oppressive taxes, oppressive regulations, and a devastating impact of inflation. When those things happen, we find people are unable to make their way up that economic ladder.

We find ourselves at a precipice of sorts. We find ourselves about to embark on a very bold experiment in which we rather dramatically expand the role of the Federal Government, injecting it more directly, more completely, more dangerously into one of the most personal aspects of most people's lives, into the health care industry. This is an industry that comprises a very significant portion of our Nation's economy in an area in which people feel strongly about their own right, about their own innate, inherent need and desire to maintain a degree of control that is not subject to the will and whim of government bureaucrats in Washington.

At the same time the government is doing that, the government will be consuming an increasingly large share of the resources moving through our economy, making it even harder for people who are trying to get by to do so and to do so without undue interference from the government.

This is an issue that is important to so many people. This is an issue that reminds people of the fact that whenever government acts, it does so at the expense of our own individual liberty. It does so at the expense of our ability to live our lives as we would live them. It does so very often at the expense of the American economy. It does so very often at the expense of economic opportunity for Americans, you see, because when we expand government, we expand its cost. We make ourselves as a country less free. We leave ourselves with fewer alternatives.

Is there a role for government to play in health care? Absolutely. Of course there is. No one disputes that. Are there improvements that can be made to our health care system? Certainly there are.

But a 2,700-page law that was passed after Members of Congress were told they had to pass it in order to find out what is in it, that has expanded since then to include within its penumbra 20,000 pages of regulatory text, a law that has become less and less popular as time has gone on--this has become very difficult. We find this becomes less and less something that the American people support.

I would ask if Senator Cruz feels that the American people have every right to speak out on this. Specifically does the Senator feel the American people have every right to expect that those of us serving in the Senate will do everything we possibly can, even casting difficult votes, even casting procedural votes that might be difficult to cast or difficult to explain? Do they have every right to do that even if it causes great inconvenience for them and for us in the process of complying with their wishes?

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Mr. LEE. I wish to ask the Senator from Texas whether he has received comments similar to those I have received from my constituents and from other concerned citizens from around the country in recent months. I wish to highlight a few and ask whether these are similar to comments the Senator from Texas has heard, concerns he has heard expressed.

Let me start by sharing one expressed by Shawn from Utah, who says:

I do not like the fact that the President is picking winners and picking and choosing which parts of the law he will enforce. We need the three branches of government to keep freedom alive.

Well, Shawn from Utah, I share your concern. I would add to that, to Shawn from Utah, the fact that this is really what started this effort. In other words, during the first week of July 2013, when the President announced there were several provisions in the law he simply would not be implementing, he simply would not be enforcing, along the lines of what Congress enacted with the Affordable Care Act in 2010, it was at that point that I and several others put our heads together and realized that if the President is saying this law is not ready to implement, if the law objectively is not ready to implement; if, as we now understand it, the law is going to make health care less affordable rather than more affordable for so many Americans, perhaps Congress shouldn't be funding its implementation and enforcement. Perhaps that ought to be telling us something.

So it is important to remember, as Shawn from Utah points out to us, that we do have three branches of government. This is the legislative branch. Our job is to make the laws. The President does not have law-making authority. The President can seek changes in the law just as other citizens can seek them from Congress, but Congress does have to act.

Although the President wields the veto pen, the veto pen is not the legislation pen. He doesn't have the power to legislate on his own without the assistance of Congress. It is one of the reasons we are in this debacle today. It is one of the reasons we have, along with so many millions of Americans, expressed this position that we would like to fund government while defunding ObamaCare. This is something the American people are calling out for. It is something they are requesting. It is something the House of Representatives acted boldly and bravely in doing, in standing behind the American people. This really is what we are doing. This is the whole reason we are concerned about this, because we want to stand with the American people and with the House leadership, Speaker Boehner and the other leaders in the other body in Congress, who bravely put forward this legislation to keep government funded while defunding ObamaCare.

One of the things we have been concerned about today and one of the things I think we need to focus on over the next few days is the fact that with the House of Representatives acting last week, passing this legislation, this continuing resolution to keep government funded while defunding ObamaCare, in order for us to stand behind them, we have to monitor the manner in which that legislation is reviewed over here.

Now that the House-passed continuing resolution has reached the Senate, we have a few options. There are a few acceptable ways of treating this legislation now that it has been passed by the House. One very acceptable approach would be for us to say: OK, let's bring up the House-passed continuing resolution--the resolution that funds government but defunds ObamaCare--and let's have an up-or-down vote. Let's vote for it as is, the same way it was crafted in the House of Representatives. That would be an acceptable approach. I would be comfortable with that.

Another acceptable approach would be to say: Instead of just taking it up and passing it or not passing it as is, let's have an amendment process. Let's allow Democrats and Republicans as they may deem fit to offer amendments. Let's debate those amendments, discuss their relative merits, the pros and the cons. Let's put those before the American people in the few days we have left before the existing continuing resolution expires, let's vote on all of those, and then at the end of it we will get to the bill itself as it may have been amended by that point. That would be acceptable as well.

What is not acceptable is what many have suggested will occur. Many have suggested that the majority leader will bring up this bill and instead of saying ``let's vote on it as is'' or instead of saying ``let's have an amendment process,'' he apparently wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to have it both ways. He wants to bring it up and subject it to one and only one amendment--an amendment that would strip out a very critical part of the legislation, a part of the legislation that probably is the ``without which not'' element for many of the House Members who voted for it: the provision defunding ObamaCare. He wants that amendment and no other. That is not acceptable, and under that circumstance, in my opinion and in the opinions of several of my colleagues, some of whom we have heard from today, the appropriate way to register that concern is to vote against cloture on the bill if, in fact, that is what the majority leader chooses to do.

That is why we are fighting this particular battle today. That is much of what we are discussing today, is why it is that we should not be facilitating the effort of Senate leadership to, in effect, gut the House-passed continuing resolution of an extraordinarily critical element, an element without which it could never have passed in the House of Representatives and an element which, frankly, the American people expect us to take up and discuss and debate. So either way--an open amendment process,

fine; an up-or-down vote on the bill as is, fine. What is not fine is an effort to try to have it both ways.

Let me share with the Senator from Texas another comment I received from a man named Michael who is also from Utah:

We are getting a bigger and bigger government. They're telling us what we should have, what we are entitled to instead of protecting a free people paving our own path. Government gets bigger while the job market is getting crushed. I work for a company in the middle of layoffs and more are to follow. We can't continue like this.

This is an acknowledgment that so many people across our great country are making as they discover the impact of this bill--passed into law some 3 1/2 years ago--that has not increased in popularity over the last 3 years.

Time might not have increased its popularity--in fact, it has had quite the opposite effect--but time has had the effect of expanding its volume. It has gone from 2,700 pages when it was passed to more than 20,000 pages now when we add the implementing regulations. That is quite stunning. The length of it is quite stunning. It reminds me of something James Madison wrote--I believe it was in Federalist No. 62. He said, if I may paraphrase him, it will be of little benefit to the American people that their laws may be written by individuals of their own choosing if those laws are so voluminous and complex that they can't reasonably be read and understood by the American people. Well, 2,700 pages is a little too long. It is a lot too long. And I certainly know that 20,000 pages is much, much, much too long.

That brings to mind a comment I received from Marcia, also from Utah, who writes this:

However well intentioned Obama care may be, I do not feel this is the best solution. I think something ``less wordy'' and more succinct would be a much better plan. If you can't say it in 5 pages or less, it may be best unsaid! The changes already enacted have made it more difficult for me to get medical care. Not a big help!

Well said, Marcia, very well said.

When we vote on legislation people haven't read, the American people tend to suffer. When we perpetuate a mistake once made embodied in a 2,700-page bill, things go from bad to worse to much, much worse.

What we have right now is an opportunity for us to debate and discuss the merits of something that perhaps was not adequately debated and discussed 3 1/2 years ago when this law was passed, when Members of Congress were told to pass this law to find out what is in it. Well, we know a lot more about what is in it now. The American people have concerns.

It is appropriate to have the discussion now in connection with spending legislation because, after all, Congress does have the power of the purse. Congress is given this power, this responsibility of making decisions regarding taxing and spending. It was for this reason the founding generation wisely put it in the hands of the House of Representatives--the power of the purse--giving the House of Representatives the responsibility to initiate or originate bills relating to this power. It is the House of Representatives that is, after all, the branch of a government and of Congress that is most directly responsive to the needs of the people.

It is appropriate that we have this discussion regarding funding or not funding a piece of legislation that is going to require a lot of money and is going to be proven costly to the American people in many, many ways in the coming years--I say ``costly in many ways'' to reflect the fact that it is not just the cost of government money; it costs the American people a lot of things as well. It is costing them jobs. It is costing them wages. It is costing them access to health care in many circumstances.

Let me read something I received from Randy. Randy is from my neighboring State of Idaho. Randy writes:

My wife and I have a small business with about 20 employees. We struggle to stay in business. We feel that if and when Obamacare is implemented, we will not be able to continue to be in business.

Randy, I can't tell you how many people I have heard make very similar comments from one end of my State of Utah to the other and from people across America. You are not alone, Randy. A lot of people out there are concerned as well.

That is one thing people lose in addition to wages or jobs or access to health care--some of them lose the opportunity they have to stay in business. We are not talking about millionaires and billionaires; we are talking about hard-working Americans who put a lot on the line in order to make a decent living, in order to provide jobs for their few employees. This is something we need to look out for. This is something we may not, we must not lightly brush aside.

Here is something else some Americans will sometimes lose--something they were promised they would not lose--access to a doctor they like, access to a doctor they have come to trust over the years.

This one comes from Jack from the State of Texas. Jack says:

My family doctor of 25 years is talking about an early retirement because of policies Obamacare is going to require him to follow that will compromise the oath he took when he became an M.D.

This is sad, Jack. This is something we were promised would not happen, and it is something that should not happen. This is something that we are told is happening from time to time.

Ryan, also from Texas, writes:

My mother is a middle-class mortician whose health care coverage is going up by 68 percent for this poorly envisioned law with no other changes. She simply cannot afford to maintain health care coverage without significant changes to her lifestyle, and for what?

Sometimes we have to ask that question: And for what?

Sometimes we have to ask the question, the same question that physicians are required to ask themselves: Are we doing harm? It is my understanding that when a physician becomes licensed, he or she must take an oath, an oath that involves an obligation to first do no harm. We as lawmakers have to ask ourselves that question from time to time. We as lawmakers have to view ourselves as subject to a similar obligation to first do no harm.

(Mr. DONNELLY assumed the chair.)

Some have said that when you are carrying around a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. I wonder whether that is sometimes true of Congress and the law-making power. Because of the law-making power we wield, sometimes, when we view problems, we assume we automatically, necessarily, inevitably have the right solutions. Well, in some cases that may be true. In other cases, it might be true in part. But that power might be used incorrectly. Sometimes when legislation is hastily drafted, thrown together in a hurry, rather than for purposes of making sure it is part of a cohesive whole--something that will be a coherent mechanism that can be implemented in a commonsense fashion--sometimes if it is thrown together too hastily and these cautions are ignored, we can end up doing a lot of harm, we can find ourselves first doing harm above all else, and that is not OK.

When we look at this law, and we look at the fact that the American people are funding its implementation, we discover it is much deeper than something that deals with an individual mandate or an employer mandate or a set of regulations governing the insurance industry. It is much more than that. It is much more than what people will have to do with regard to the reporting of some fairly personal details about their lives to the IRS, an agency that Americans have come to trust substantially less than they already did, as if that were possible.

It is about the fact that the American people--in addition to being made less free by this law, and in addition to being made less prosperous by this law--are also required to fund its implementation and its enforcement against them. That is where the power of the purse must come into play. That is what makes it so appropriate, so essential, so vital that we have this discussion right here and right now as we consider spending legislation, spending legislation that may well represent our last best hope of achieving a degree of delay or defunding of this legislation before its primary operative provisions take full effect. That is why it is important for us to have this discussion right now.

Let me emphasize again the importance of the cloture vote and the position we are taking on that. It is grounded fundamentally in the understanding that the House of Representatives acted in a manner consistent with what the American people have been asking. I cannot emphasize enough the fact that House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team in the House--the House Republicans have supported him in this effort. They did great work. They stood valiantly with the American people who were calling out overwhelmingly for them to take this step, to keep government funded but defund ObamaCare. And that is what they did.

Now that they have acted, there are two approaches we could take to this that are perfectly appropriate. We could vote on that legislation as is, up or down, or we could subject it to an amendment process, allow Democrats and Republicans alike to present amendments to make the House-passed resolution better, as they might deem fit. We can debate and discuss and vote on each of those. Sure, it can be time-consuming. Sure, it can be grueling. But that is our job. We took an oath to do that job. We do this all the time--maybe not as much as we should. But a few months ago in connection with the budget resolution, we as Senators stood and sat--a little of both--here all night long. We voted all night long, until 5 o'clock in the morning. People got a little cranky at times, but that is what we are here to do--not to be cranky, but we are here to vote, to cast votes on amendments. That is what we had to do that day because there were a lot of amendments. That is what we should be doing with this if, in fact, we decide we want amendments to the House-passed resolution.

So vote on it up or down as is; fine. Subject it to an open amendment process; fine. Trying to have it both ways, the majority leader telling us this will be subject to one amendment, one amendment only--an amendment that would gut and render nugatory the operative provision that was so important to so many House Members--that is not OK. That is why those who agree with us on this point, those who feel that way, those who feel the American people need us to stand up for them, should vote no on cloture when we get to the cloture vote on the bill later in this week.
I would ask my colleague from Texas, as to these concerns I have expressed, these statements that have been made from people around the country--some of them my constituents in Utah, some of them from other parts of the country, including a couple from Texas--what similarities does the Senator see between these statements I have read today and comments the Senator has heard from his constituents as he has traveled through his great State, a State of great expanse and a State of close to 30 million people? What similarities does the Senator see between these statements and those he has heard around his State?

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Mr. LEE. I say to Senator Cruz I have come with some updates from the outside world, updates based on what I am hearing from my constituents at home. You may be interested in learning, I say to Senator Cruz, that just today in the last 12 hours or so my office has received nearly 1,100 e-mails, 1,093 to be precise. Almost every single one of those is asking us to do whatever we can, do whatever it takes, to defund ObamaCare. People are asking us to fund government, keep government functioning, but to defund ObamaCare.

I also have some news from a local paper in the State of Utah. This is from the Box Elder News Journal in the northern part of my State. In an article written by Mike Nelson, an associated editor with the Box Elder News Journal, we read about Brigham City moving to adjust its pay, to cut its payroll, in order to avoid certain ObamaCare provisions. I am going to quote just from part of it here. It says:

Changes are coming for paid on-call employees at Brigham City Emergency Services Department in an effort by the department and the city to avoid employee eligibility for health care under the Affordable Care Act. ``Back in February it became apparent the ACA--

Or for those of you who see the newspapers, ObamaCare--

was going to dramatically impact the way we manage our fire and ambulance crews,'' said emergency services director Jim Buchanan, while addressing the issue at an August 1 city council meeting.

This is one of many examples of not just businesses but also local governments that are having to make cuts in their payroll in order to adjust for this law. This is having a real impact on real people.

It is having an impact also on students. I received a message from a student in Utah named Sarah. Sarah, today, a college student, writes:

I am a student facing a shrinking job market with fewer options. Now it seems ObamaCare is going to force me as a healthy young person to pay more to keep the President's health plan functioning. How is that fair?

She asks rhetorically. Sarah, it is not fair. Sarah, I would add to that, we have this health care law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The idea of it is it is supposed to make health care more affordable. What we have found in recent months is that it is going to make health care less affordable, with premium hikes expected around the country. What we are seeing is that this law will make health care not only less affordable, it is also fundamentally unfair. It is unfair in that it is forcing a lot of people to have cuts made to their wages, cuts made to their hours. In many cases, people are losing access to health care plans that they have enjoyed for years. In some cases, they are even seeing that they will no longer have access to the same physician or other health care provider that they have enjoyed for years.

This is a law that while touted as making health care somehow more affordable is actually making it less affordable. It is also being implemented in a manner that will make our health care system fundamentally unfair. Within my State, the State of Utah, we have no fewer than five school districts and three universities that have been announcing cuts in their hours, cuts in their number of employees, all in response to this law. It is interesting that what we are discussing, much of what we have been discussing, has been on the upcoming cloture vote. There have been those who have argued that if you want to support the continuing resolution passed by the House of Representatives--remember, this is the continuing resolution that will keep our Federal Government funded while defunding ObamaCare--that if you want to support that, that you must vote yes on the cloture vote on the bill.

That is an interesting take on it because not withstanding the fact that some in my party have been making that suggestion, it is anticipated that Mr. Harry Reid--the Senator from Nevada who is currently serving as the Senate majority leader--that Harry Reid and 53 Democratic allies will, as I understand it, all be voting for cloture on that bill. That begs the question, are those same people who are suggesting that if you support the House-passed continuing resolution, the one that funds government, keeps government funded while defunding ObamaCare, that you have to vote yes on cloture on the bill, does that mean that Harry Reid and the 53 Democrats who are likely to follow him are also supporting the House-passed continuing resolution, the one that keeps government funded while defunding ObamaCare?

I find that a little strange. I find that a little counterintuitive. I think it is important that we remember, and we continually remind ourselves, what this is about. When this continuing resolution passed by the House last week--heroically in my opinion. It showed a real strong sense of leadership by Speaker John Boehner and by the other Republican leaders in the House of Representatives and by the rank-and-file Members of the House who voted for this legislation. When they voted for this legislation to keep government funded while defunding ObamaCare they stood with the American people who asked them for relief from this bill.

American people had been telling them: Look, we need help. They have been asking: How many of us will have to see our hours cut? How many of us will have to experience wage cuts? How many of us will have to lose access to the health care we have enjoyed for many years before Congress acts?

The House of Representatives did act. The body within our government, the branch within Congress that is most responsive to the American people, acted to protect the American people from this harmful law while simultaneously keeping the Federal Government operating.

Now that that has happened and that bill is moving over to the Senate, the ball is in our court, we have a couple of possible responses to that. The first would be we could take it up and we could vote on it as is. We could vote on it just as it was passed by the House. We could vote on it, up or down, as is without any amendment. That would be fine. I would be fine with that. If that is what we were doing, I would be voting yes on the cloture vote. Of course I would. I suspect my friend, the junior Senator from Texas, would as well.

There is another option. We could say rather than vote on it as is, let's make adjustments to it. Let's invite amendments. Let's have an open amendment process whereby Senators, whether Democrats or Republicans or the couple of Independents we have, could submit amendments as they deem fit, have those amendments not just proposed but debated, discussed, and ultimately voted upon. That would be an acceptable alternative.

People around here often call this, the Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body. They call it that because this is a place where, in theory, we are supposed to have access to an open amendment process; theoretically unlimited debate. Is it time consuming? Yes. Is it cumbersome? Absolutely. Can it be frustrating? Without question. But it is one of the things that distinguishes this body. It is one of the things that makes this the Senate.

So if we were to have an open amendment process, it would take a lot of time and it might even require another all-night session just like we had a few months ago in connection with the budget resolution, but it would be worth it. It would be entirely acceptable, and I would be voting yes on cloture on the bill if that is what we were faced with. But what we are faced with, what we are told is going to happen, what we are told is being prepared to accept is neither of those options; not being given the opportunity to vote yes or no, up or down on the resolution passed by the House of Representatives nor would we be given the opportunity to have an open amendment process, one that allows individual Senators to propose amendments and have those amendment considered, voted on in this body.

What we are being told instead is that what we will have is a single amendment brought forward by the Senate majority leader, one amendment and one amendment only, and that amendment, by the way, would strip out the defunding language, it would gut the House-passed continuing resolution of a provision that many would consider the ``without which not'' part of the House-passed bill, meaning the part without which the House of Representatives could not and would not have gotten the necessary 218 votes to pass a continuing resolution. That is a problem. That is a problem indeed because that suggests that by voting for cloture in that posture, where Senator Reid is contemplating allowing neither an open amendment process nor an up-or-down vote on the House-passed resolution in as-is condition--in either of those circumstances, we would be fine. But we are not getting that. We are getting stuck with something else. He wants to gut the House-passed continuing resolution with the defunding language without any open amendment process and without the opportunity for an up-or-down vote.

So in that circumstance, I don't understand why it would be the case that Republicans would feel that voting yes would be supporting the House of Representatives and voting no would be voting against the House of Representatives. In fact, it seems to me, I say to Senator Cruz, that would be quite the opposite of that. It seems to me that if, in fact, one wanted to stand behind the House of Representatives and stand behind their willingness to defend the American people and protect them from this harmful law, at the end of the day that would entail that anyone who wanted to stand with the House of Representatives on that point would necessarily need to vote no if, in fact, Senator Reid does what we expect him to do later this week.

Would the Senator agree that is what one could expect in that circumstance? And would the Senator also agree that Senator Reid is likely to have 53 Democrats going along with him, and if Senator Reid has 53 Democrats going along with him, doesn't that rather undercut the argument that in order to support the House-passed bill one must vote yes on the cloture vote on cloture on the bill?

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