[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18429]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. The question settling over this Capitol as we face the 
fiscal cliff is: How can this be happening? It's hyperpartisanship 
meets Citizens United. America's politics are so saturated with money 
and so politically polarized that the system cannot function to meet 
its obligations to keep the government running. But make no mistake 
about it--government does work. It's working for Pentagon contractors, 
for arms manufacturers, for oil companies, for coal companies. It's 
working for those who want to hold down wages and suppress the rights 
of workers. It's working for drug companies whose sweetheart deal on 
prescription drugs blew a hole in the Medicare budget.
  The apparent dysfunctionality of government masks the reality that 
the tax resources of government increasingly are going to the highest 
bidders in a $4 billion national election. The debris at the bottom of 
the fiscal cliff will be the wrecked hopes of doctors and Medicare 
patients, unemployed workers who can't protect their families, and 
middle class taxpayers who just can't pay any more. Our Nation's pose 
at the fiscal cliff is proof of the necessity of a constitutional 
amendment, H.J. Res. 100, to rid this Nation of the corrupting 
influence of special interest money with public financing, which 
recreates a true government of the people.

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