[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 5, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2703-H2704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S WISDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, Congress is fundamentally a deliberative 
institution. Deliberations take time, and they are often messy. In 
fact, the bigger the issue, the messier the deliberations.
  The designers of our Constitution wanted a great, big, ugly debate 
every time a decision was being made. They wanted the subject held up 
to every conceivable light and every voice in the country to be heard.
  This is certainly true of the effort to replace the collapsing 
bureaucracy of ObamaCare with the patient-centered marketplace that we 
have long promised.
  These deliberations must continue until they bear fruit because there 
is no excuse for failure. ObamaCare is only getting worse.
  Last year's average 25 percent premium increase is likely to be 
followed by even bigger increases this year. The flight of healthcare 
providers from the system is only going to accelerate. The rapid 
expansion of Medicaid, which could exceed defense spending by next 
year, is not only fiscally unsustainable, it doesn't even guarantee 
care.
  Dwindling Medicaid providers and lengthening waiting lists means that 
many Medicaid patients have no recourse but to flood emergency rooms.
  The original Medicaid population, the elderly, the blind, the 
disabled, who were only reimbursed an average 57 cents on the dollar, 
are pushed to the back of every line by able-bodied ObamaCare expansion 
patients who are reimbursed at 90 percent.
  The American Health Care Act is far from perfect. I have argued 
vigorously for a comprehensive bill rather than the current piecemeal 
approach that we are following.
  Now, I lost that debate, but I haven't lost sight of the ultimate 
goal: to restore our healthcare system as the best in the world.
  I could list a lot of things that could be made better by the current 
bill, and perhaps they will be in our extended negotiations, but those 
who expect perfection in our legislation fundamentally misunderstand 
our system.
  Congress was never designed to make perfect law. It was designed to 
make the best law that is acceptable to the most people. And it is 
pretty good at that when we let it be.
  When the Constitutional Convention seemed hopelessly deadlocked, 
Benjamin Franklin declared that he didn't entirely approve of our 
Constitution, but he had learned, over the years, to doubt a little of 
his own infallibility and to recognize the limitations of making 
decisions with others.
  He noted that when you assemble a group of people to benefit from 
their collective wisdom, you also had to accept their collective 
shortcomings and realize that a perfect product is never possible from 
such a process.
  In another speech, he recalled being an apprentice tradesman trying 
to fit together two pieces of wood. It was often necessary, he said, to 
shave a little from one and then a little from the other until you had 
a joint that could hold together for centuries. In this same manner, he 
urged them to each join together in each part with some of our demands.
  Compromise is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. As long 
as that

[[Page H2704]]

end moves us forward toward better policy, more freedom, greater 
prosperity, whatever perfections the measure may include are often 
precisely what are required to bring it to fruition. I fear we are 
losing sight of these simple truths.
  Ironically, factions within the House who are the most adamant in 
opposing ObamaCare have become, as a practical matter, its most 
effective defenders. I know they don't intend this to be, but the 
reality is that ObamaCare survives today solely because of their 
actions in this House.
  Benjamin Franklin was right. In deliberations of this magnitude, it 
is essential that we each doubt a little of our own infallibility and 
that we each part with a few of our own demands, in order to join 
together and produce the reforms that our country depends on us to 
enact.
  A political minority doesn't need to compromise. It has the luxury of 
standing solely on principle. But the majority, entrusted with making 
the actual decisions to guide our country to better days, must 
compromise if it is to make law that will hold together for the 
centuries.
  Lincoln once reminded Congress that we can succeed only by concert. 
He said: It is not can any of us imagine better, but can we all do 
better. He urged us to rise to the occasion, to disenthrall ourselves, 
for only then could we save our country.
  I hope that some of our colleagues will consider this advice during 
the Easter recess.

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