[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 106 (Tuesday, July 23, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H4862-H4863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DEFENDING FREEDOM WITH PURSE STRINGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, this has been a summer of alarming 
revelations that suggest that our government is drifting far from the 
principles of individual liberty and constitutionally limited 
government that defined the American founding and that produced the 
most free and prosperous Republic in the history of mankind.
  These developments include:
  The use of the IRS and other government agencies to single out 
ordinary Americans because of their political beliefs, with the 
apparent intent to discourage and intimidate them out of participating 
in the public policy debate;

[[Page H4863]]

  The use of the Department of Justice to target reporters who were 
asking embarrassing questions of the administration, in one case, with 
the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act;
  The warrantless seizure of the private records of millions of 
Americans by the National Security Agency;
  The increasingly menacing militarization of domestic police agencies;
  The shakedown of health care providers to fund advocacy and promotion 
of ObamaCare;
  Frequent assertions by the President of authority to nullify laws 
that he deems objectionable or inconvenient, despite his clear 
constitutional mandate to see that the laws are faithfully executed;
  The executive's usurpation of the legislative powers of Congress by 
using the regulatory bureaucracies to impose laws that the elected 
Congress has specifically refused to enact;
  Continued suggestions that the executive may order military 
operations against other governments without provocation and without 
congressional authorization.
  This week, we are beginning to learn details of the so-called Federal 
Data Hub, including an excellent article by John Fund of the National 
Review. According to Fund:

       The Department of Health and Human Services is about to 
     hire an army of ``patient navigators'' to inform Americans 
     about the subsidized insurance promised by ObamaCare and 
     assist them in enrolling. These organizers will be guided by 
     the new Federal Data Hub, which will give them access to 
     reams of personal information compiled by Federal agencies, 
     ranging from the IRS to the Department of Defense and the 
     Veterans Administration.

  Mr. Speaker, the American people are slowly beginning to realize the 
threat to individual freedom, personal privacy, and fundamental 
constitutional principles that these developments pose. Some very 
bright constitutional lines have been crossed. And my constituents keep 
asking: What is Congress going to do?
  The House has taken the first steps to restore our constitutional 
checks and balances by focusing its investigatory attention on the 
unfolding IRS scandal. It is of critical importance that the facts of 
the case be fully laid out, those responsible identified and removed 
from positions of trust or authority, and safeguards enacted to ensure 
that this sort of abuse never happens again.
  The House Rules Committee took an important step yesterday by 
allowing amendments to the Defense Appropriations Act to stop the 
warrantless seizure of Americans' phone and Internet records by the NSA 
and to reassert the essential principle with respect to Syria that 
Congress alone has the prerogative to declare war.
  The House is in a position to resist many of these abuses and 
usurpations through its power to appropriate, but it has often been 
reluctant to fully assert that authority. The conventional wisdom is 
that the appropriations process will shortly stall and a continuing 
resolution will be agreed to. That would be a tragic mistake if it 
leads to the continued funding of these increasingly unconstitutional 
and authoritarian measures.
  All appropriations must start in the House, which means that a simple 
majority of this body by itself could arrest many of these disturbing 
developments simply by marshalling the courage and determination to 
just say ``no'' by pulling the purse strings shut. If we fail to do so, 
I believe that we are allowing our Nation to drift dangerously toward a 
constitutional crisis with grave implications to the rule of law and to 
the survival of American liberty.

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