[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 161 (Monday, October 2, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H4936-H4937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SELF-INFLICTED CALAMITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, Benjamin Franklin described the 
limitations of any deliberative body in his closing speech to the 
Constitutional Convention. He said: ``When you assemble a number of men 
to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble 
with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of 
opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an 
assembly can a perfect production be expected?''
  We have certainly approached these limits in our deliberations in 
recent days, and I pause for a moment to assess where we are and where 
we are going. The Roman Empire fell for many reasons, but the two most 
prominent were that it destroyed its economy by overspending and failed 
to secure its borders.
  Clearly, these two self-inflicted calamities are converging right now 
upon our country, and we are fast running out of time to avert them. 
For this reason, House Republicans have sought, with the most slender 
of majorities, to reverse these policies, albeit imperfectly.
  A few weeks ago, we passed H.R. 2, the strongest border security bill 
in a

[[Page H4937]]

century. Over the past months, our majority on the Appropriations 
Committee has drafted the 12 appropriations bills, which bend 
discretionary spending down and enact important reforms.
  I admit that we are inexcusably late in that process. The approach of 
the fiscal year, though, provided us impetus to complete this work. 
Last week, we began taking up and adopting appropriations bills that 
now comprise 70 percent of Federal discretionary spending on the eve of 
an impending shutdown.

                              {time}  1215

  We have learned from experience that a government shutdown can be 
administered in a manner that does enormous damage to the economy and 
to the lives of millions of Americans.
  The President, if he wishes, can destroy every small business on 
Federal land and those adjacent to Federal land. Obama went so far as 
to barricade every monument and memorial, chain the gates of every acre 
of Federal land, and even barricade the turnouts overlooking Yosemite 
Valley so that people couldn't even pull over to catch a glimpse of it.
  Mr. Biden had made it very clear that he had intended to follow that 
strategy, specifically designed to create a panic and to force an 
immediate resolution in favor of the status quo.
  Accordingly, our Conference put forward a 30-day continuing 
resolution to avert a shutdown, while reducing nondefense discretionary 
spending by 8 percent and enacting the border security bill that we had 
previously passed.
  Unfortunately, 21 Republicans joined House Democrats to defeat this 
resolution. Now, out of time and faced with an imminent shutdown, our 
Conference directed the Speaker to put a 45-day continuing resolution 
on the floor without the previous reforms as the only way to avert a 
shutdown and to continue our work to complete the appropriations 
process. We canceled the October recess to complete this work.
  Yet now we are faced with the threat that a Republican will move to 
vacate the Republican Speaker of the House. It will only require four 
other Republican Members to join the Democrats to achieve this result. 
The immediate effect will be to paralyze the House indefinitely because 
no other business can be taken up until a replacement is elected, just 
when we are on the verge of completing the appropriations process that, 
in turn, will finally initiate discussions with the Senate that are 
vital to change the dangerous path that our country is on. I cannot 
conceive of a more counterproductive and self-destructive course than 
that.
  The supreme irony is that this is being initiated by self-described 
conservatives. Do they honestly believe that when the Democrats side 
with them to remove a Republican Speaker that they will then side with 
them to name a more conservative replacement? Of course, not.
  The Democrats will certainly recruit the most liberal Republicans to 
establish a left-of-center coalition to run the House. This is exactly 
what happened in California in 1994. A coalition Speaker will move the 
administration of the House sharply to the left and effectively end the 
Republican House majority that the people elected in 2022.
  I implore my Republican colleagues to look past their prejudices, 
their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and 
their selfish views, and to make a wise decision when it is needed most 
at this critical moment in the life of our country.

                          ____________________