[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 153 (Monday, September 23, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5619]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               SOCIALISM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on a related matter, while Senate 
Republicans continue to seek bipartisan solutions, the story on the 
other side of the Capitol has been a little bit different.
  Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic House continue to neglect 
opportunities to find compromises that might actually become law and 
instead churn out one leftwing messaging bill after another.
  Two weeks ago, just days before Iran's coordinated attack on the 
world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, House 
Democrats took it upon themselves to send us several pieces of 
legislation that would have reduced--reduced--American energy 
independence.
  Domestic energy is a driver of American prosperity and one of the big 
success stories of recent years, but the House Democrats want us to 
retreat. They send us go-nowhere legislation the Senate will not pass 
and the President will not sign.
  And then, lest a whole week go by without one of these exercises, 
here is what happened last week: House Democrats began unveiling 
Speaker Pelosi's handmade plan to have Washington, DC, bureaucrats 
start micromanaging America's prescription drugs. It is the same old 
one-size-fits-all, government-controlled philosophy we continue to see 
from our Democratic colleagues. Forget about choice. Forget about 
competition. Forget about free enterprise and finding ways to unleash 
more market forces to help consumers. Just give Washington bureaucrats 
more power to clumsily call the shots and manipulate markets from the 
top down.
  Predictably, what this plan amounts to is not an efficient, effective 
way to help American families but an efficient, effective way to bring 
even more of the economy under the bureaucracy's thumb and potentially 
set us on a track toward nationalizing a major industry.
  There are millions of Americans who benefit from our Nation's 
incredible innovations and the R&D breakthroughs on new drug treatments 
and cures. We really ought not to jeopardize that.
  American families deserve more choice, more competition, more 
affordability. The last thing we need is for the socialist delusions of 
the Green New Deal and Medicare for All to be copied and pasted into 
innovations and cures, putting them at risk.
  Fortunately, this Republican Senate won't let the Speaker's dangerous 
proposal hurt the country. We will stay focused on the American 
people's business, and we will keep hoping our friends across the 
building put aside the political performances and join us to work on 
real solutions with a real chance of becoming real laws.

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