[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 131 (Saturday, September 28, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5927-H5928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               COMPROMISE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Himes) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HIMES. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be able to follow the rank, 
partisan remarks of Mrs. Blackburn's, because I wanted to speak this 
morning on the subject of compromise.
  Compromise is not an easy subject to speak on because, of course, we 
all have it in our minds here that the right thing to do is to lead 
great ideological battles--to stand unbending by your principles, to 
stand up for what you think is right--and it is the right thing to do 
to stand up for what you think is right.
  Compromise is a hard thing to discuss because, of course, those on 
the

[[Page H5928]]

fringes, those on the extreme--those who are unbending--will accuse us 
of not standing by our ideals if we compromise; but the fact is that 
most, if not all, of the accomplishments in the history of this country 
that have been achieved by the United States Congress have been 
achieved through compromise.
  Let's talk for a moment about one of the reasons I am happy to 
represent the State of Connecticut.
  The Congress in which Mrs. Blackburn and I serve--the very structure 
and architecture of that Congress--was formed by something known as the 
Connecticut Compromise of 1787, when Roger Sherman and a group of 
people who disagreed on stunning issues of the day--and some of the 
people who were disagreeing were inviting foreign powers in to stand 
with them--came together and said, Do you know what? We will have a 
bicameral legislature--a Senate and a House--that will balance the big 
States and the small States.
  And Roger Sherman's statue is here in the Capitol.
  By the way, the capital is here because Madison and Jefferson and 
others of our Founding Fathers made a compromise in which they said the 
Federal Government will assume the remaining Revolutionary debt of the 
States in exchange for putting the capital in the Southern States. 
Compromise is how we get things done around here.
  For those who might challenge my own credentials on compromise, I 
will point out that I was one of 38 Members of this body--less than 10 
percent of the House of Representatives--who voted for the Simpson-
Bowles' budget. Everyone else said, No, I am not going to compromise 
because that's too difficult.
  So what about the crossroads at which we find ourselves today--the 
possibility of a government shutdown that would hurt our economy and 
certainly hurt an awful lot of Americans and the even more egregious 
possibility that we would not honor the full faith and credit of the 
United States Government for the very first time in our 240-year 
history?
  Is this a great national battle between North and South? between 
Republicans and Democrats?
  No, it is not. It is something far more unnecessary and uninspiring.
  On one side of this debate, we have got, actually, the majority of 
Republicans and the majority of Democrats who say, Let's come together. 
Let's not bring an unnecessary crisis to our country--a manufactured, 
artificial crisis. Let's compromise. On the other side, you've got a 
handful of, maybe, three or four Senators and of maybe 30 or 40 Members 
of the House of Representatives who are so possessed of the Lord's 
wisdom--they so embody the tradition of our Founding Fathers--that they 
will listen to no one, and they will refuse to compromise.
  But who are these people?
  These are people who believe that the best way today to spur economic 
growth is to put in place savage cuts that will fire teachers and 
firefighters and nurses, because that will help--despite all evidence 
to the contrary. These are people who believe that the storms and the 
tornadoes that have ravaged just about every State in this country have 
absolutely nothing to do with climate change--despite all evidence to 
the contrary. These are people who believe that ObamaCare today is 
doing great damage to this Nation--despite all evidence to the 
contrary. These are people who don't believe that the President of the 
United States was born in this country--despite all evidence to the 
contrary.
  So much could get done--comprehensive immigration reform, a budget 
that looks a little something like the Simpson-Bowles' budget for which 
I voted. So many things could get done, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman 
from Ohio would set aside this small rump group of dead-enders and say, 
We will govern. We will govern this Nation in the tradition of Roger 
Sherman, of James Madison, of Thomas Jefferson by listening to the 
other side, by shutting down the extremes and by thinking about the 
long-term interests of this great country.

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