Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, everyone knows that the vote we are about to take--cloture on the House-passed continuing resolution--is essentially a vote to allow the Democrats to gut the House bill. That is why the Senate majority leader, the Senator from Nevada Mr. Reid and every other Senate Democrat are supporting it.

Twenty-one House Members know this is a vote to gut the bill that they passed, that they worked so hard to pass out of the House of Representatives. That is why they signed a letter yesterday asking the Senate Republicans to stand united and vote against cloture on this bill.

You see, what happened was the House of Representatives, acting boldly and nobly and in response to a growing cry from the American people--a cry for help--acted to keep the government funded, to fund government while defunding ObamaCare, protecting the American people from a law they are becoming increasingly aware of; a law that was passed 3 1/2 years ago without Members of Congress having read it and all of its 2,700 pages; a law that has since led to the promulgation of 20,000 pages of implementing regulatory text; a law that has since been rewritten not just once but twice by the Supreme Court of the United States, which, having concluded that the law as written was constitutionally deficient in two respects, became convinced that it was its duty, its prerogative, and within its power to rewrite the law in order to shoehorn it within the provisions of the U.S. Constitution; a law that has since then been rewritten three or four times by the President of the United States without any statutory or constitutional authorization to do so--a President who has acknowledged that the legislation, this law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is not ready to be implemented.

If the President of the United States is convinced this law is not ready to be implemented, if the President of the United States, who pushed this law through Congress 3 1/2 years ago and counts this as his signature legislative accomplishment--if this same President is unwilling to follow the law and is convinced it is not ready to be implemented, Congress should not fund it, and Congress should keep the government funded while protecting the people from ObamaCare.

Millions of Americans are concerned about what this law will do for them. We have seen millions of Americans worried about keeping their jobs, noticing that jobs are becoming harder and harder to find. Many are losing their jobs. Others are seeing their wages cut. Others still are seeing their hours cut. Many, including those 20,000 Americans who work for Home Depot who were informed last week--like many other Americans, they will be losing their health coverage.

This is why the House of Representatives acted. This is why what the House of Representatives did by passing this continuing resolution is such a good thing. It keeps the government funded, and it protects the American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare.

Now we get over to the Senate. When it came to the Senate, we saw that the Senate really had a couple of options--a couple of very legitimate options--upon receiving this legislation from the House.

The Senate could take up this legislation and subject the legislation to an open amendment process, allowing Democrats and Republicans to submit amendments as they deemed fit, to debate those amendments, discuss their relative merits, their pros and their cons, and ultimately vote on them, making compromises and adjustments along the way, in the forum that has long been honored and revered in this institution, which heralds itself as the world's greatest deliberative body. Another option, of course, would be to bring it up for a vote as is, an up-or-down vote based on what the House passed. You can vote on it as it was passed by the House or you can subject it to an open amendment process.

Either one of those would be fine. If that is what we were looking at, I would be voting yes on this cloture vote on this resolution. That, however, is not the option majority leader Harry Reid selected. Instead, what he chose was a different procedure whereby he would select a single amendment--one that guts the House-passed bill of its most important provisions--without allowing anyone else the opportunity even to present an amendment and have that considered for a vote.

The American people are tired of the games that hide the true meaning of this kind of tactic, of this kind of vote. So it is incumbent upon us to try to explain them as best we can. The people who elect us do expect us to do what we say we are going to do--not sometimes, not just when it is convenient. In fact, they expect us to do what we say we are going to do especially when it is inconvenient. That is really what this first vote is about. Cloture on this resolution is about showing the American people that we will do what we say we are going to do even when--especially when--it is inconvenient.

We have the ability to prevent the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, from unfairly gutting the House continuing resolution. If we all vote no, that is what we will achieve. It is what many of us have told--have promised--the American people we will do.

I, along with several of my colleagues, including Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and several others, have promised to do everything in my power to bring the message that we have received--received overwhelmingly and repeatedly--from the American people, to bring that message inside this Chamber, inside these halls. That is what this effort has been all about. We promised to do everything we can to improve the procedure and improve the outcome for the American people, taking their message to Washington, incorporating their message into our legislative strategy.

Across this great country, Americans stayed up with us this week. They stayed up with us even overnight, choosing to forgo sleep, just to show they were supportive in this effort, and we greatly appreciate that.

I want you all who have participated in this effort in one way or another to reflect on how you feel at this very moment. It has been said that opportunity looks a lot like hard work, how change is hard work, especially here in Washington. This is what it feels like to take on Washington. This is what it feels like to take on the immense and intimidating inertia of big government. This is what it feels like to do what the American people ask and expect and demand. Those of you who have been involved in this effort should be proud, should feel energized and motivated to take on the next big challenge. The American people, of course, expect more and deserve better than what they frequently get from Washington.

I wish I could say that the fight that has ensued over the last few days was just about ObamaCare and nothing more. Sadly, ObamaCare is just one symptom of a much larger problem. It all stems from the syndrome of self-importance that the political ruling class in Washington tends to feel. The bigger problem in Washington is that the bigger the problem the American people face, the more people in Washington tend to think Washington has all the answers. ObamaCare, like the fiscal cliff, like our $17 trillion debt, like our almost $1 trillion annual deficit, like our $2 trillion annual regulatory compliance costs in this country, all are the natural, inevitable results of a Federal Government that is simply too big and too expensive, that delves far too deeply into the lives of the American people, delves far too deeply into everything from our communications to our health care decisions, into everything from what kind of light bulbs we use, to how much water our toilets flush.

These are deep and personal decisions that are getting deeper and more personal every single day. The American people understand that they are the sovereigns in this country. They are not subjects. We the people are citizens. The government works for us, even though it has started to feel as though it is the other way around.

All these things show what happens when the political elite, not we the people, pretend to be in control. This is not about any one person or even any one policy or even one political party. This is about this town and it is about the American people, what they deserve, what they demand, what they expect, and what they have a right to, which is the right to live free of undue interference from their national government.

This vote is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is simply the end of the beginning. Washington may appear to have the upper hand at this moment, but it is essential that we remember that the American people will always have the final word.

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