[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5666]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. McCotter) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Ah, the new civility.
  I would like to start, Mr. Speaker, by thanking my Democratic 
colleagues this morning for disabusing me of an affliction. When I woke 
up, I found that I had a hankering to listen to Led Zeppelin, and I 
couldn't figure out why. This has happened before, usually when I leave 
the TV on at night and they run one of those Rolling Stones '70s buy it 
now before it's more expensive or in the dustbin ads. So I was walking 
over here and I'm thinking, wow, is it because there's been a 
communication breakdown between the parties? It's possible. It's 
possible. I said, Is it because one of the nice Senators is wearing a 
cashmere sweater? It's possible. But, no, I was sitting here today when 
I realized why I wanted to listen to the melodious strains of Page, 
Plant, Jones, and John Bonham. It's because for the Democratic Party, 
the song remains the same.
  Once again, seniors and children wake to the hysterical, frightening 
visage of specters of gloom and doom--Democrats. Once again, we are 
regaled with the Democrats' entitlement reform plan. It is called do 
nothing, spend everything, go bankrupt, benefits bye-bye.
  We continue to see a party that does not understand you cannot lift 
an economy when it is crushed beneath the weight of Big Government. We 
continue to see a party ideologically zealous in spending your tax 
dollars on Planned Parenthood to the point where they would shut down 
the Federal Government to do it. And we continue to hear the 
fundamental crux of the issue of a potential government shutdown. The 
Democratic Party will shut down the government so they can spend more 
of your money. The Republican Party is committed to keeping the 
government open and spending less of your money.
  In fairness, it is not just Led Zeppelin they remind me of, because 
the reason we stand here today on the precipice of a government 
shutdown is because they did not do their work when they had total 
control of the United States Congress last year. They could not even 
pass a budget, let alone finish these appropriations which we are still 
dealing with well into April, let alone lay out a coherent strategy to 
do so when the parties changed power in this House.

                              {time}  1030

  The song remains the same, but the American people recognize the song 
and dance. They will not be fooled. They know that the major change 
that we see before us today in the fight over government spending is a 
very simple one, and a very simple choice. It is the difference between 
bankruptcy and solvency; and the Republican Party stands for solvency 
and for liberty.

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