[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14613]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    A COMMON COURSE FOR COMMON GOALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, a crisis is not a good time for 
inflammatory rhetoric or ad hominem attacks. I believe that my 
colleague from Connecticut just missed the mark a moment ago when he 
threw out terms such as ``dead-enders'' and ``extremists.'' I will 
simply say that, yesterday, the President missed an opportunity to 
bring both sides together. That responsibility now rests solely with 
us.
  Nobody on the Republican side of the aisle wants to see a government 
shutdown or a credit default--let's make that clear--and I am confident 
that nobody on the Democratic side wants to see millions of Americans 
lose the health plans they were told they could keep or see their 
health care costs skyrocket or lose their jobs or work hours because of 
the unintended consequences of ObamaCare, but these events that nobody 
wants to see are now unfolding. They will do great damage to our Nation 
that nobody wants to see happen.
  If we agree on these fundamental issues, our course should be clear, 
and it is only blocked by the kind of partisan division that we heard 
yesterday from the White House and a few moments ago. We can avert 
these calamities and redeem this institution if we can put aside the 
name-calling for a few days and get down to business.
  The good news is we have a process of government that has evolved 
over centuries that is very good at resolving differences of opinion 
between the two Houses of Congress and within the two Houses of 
Congress. In this case, there shouldn't even be much to resolve. All of 
us want to see the government stay open. All of us want to see the 
government's credit preserved. All of us want to see Americans 
protected from losing health plans that they want to keep or from being 
socked with crushing premium increases or from losing their jobs or 
from having their hours cut back.

                              {time}  1030

  If we're all agreed on these objectives, isn't the appropriate course 
self-evident? Senator Manchin seems to have laid it out very clearly 
the other day: a temporary continuing resolution to keep the government 
open, a temporary increase in the debt limit while we complete the 
normal appropriations process, and a temporary delay in ObamaCare until 
the unintended consequences of its mandates can be corrected.
  Is that so unreasonable?
  After all, this administration has already exempted big corporations 
and more than 1,000 politically connected groups from ObamaCare 
mandates. More revealingly, the administration has protected Members of 
Congress from its crushing costs. That ought to be the ultimate wake-up 
call. If Members of Congress can't afford to meet ObamaCare's costs, 
how do we expect the average American to do so? Why not give everybody 
the same relief by delaying these mandates until the law can be 
replaced with provisions that actually fulfill the promises made to the 
American people when it was enacted.
  I don't like continuing resolutions at all. The Congress has a 
responsibility to superintend the Nation's finances, and it's developed 
an appropriations process that requires painstaking review of every 
expenditure of this government. That review involves countless hours of 
committee work, scores of hours of floor debate, and hundreds of 
individual amendments. Continuing resolutions cast aside this work and 
abandon Congress' responsibility over the Nation's finances. They shift 
enormous authority to the executive branch that the Founders never 
intended. I had hoped to be done with continuing resolutions.
  Those who enacted ObamaCare no doubt hoped it would lower health care 
costs and help the economy. Sadly, events in this imperfect world can 
often disappoint and transfigure our fondest hopes. We've not completed 
the appropriations process. We need additional time to do so, and we 
need to correct the damage being done to existing health plan holders 
and employees of ObamaCare. If we could all agree on these objectives, 
then our course should be clear to all of us. We should fund the 
government long enough to complete the normal appropriations process, 
and we should delay ObamaCare long enough to preserve the jobs, working 
hours, and existing health care policies of the millions of Americans 
who are now losing them.
  So let's cool the rhetoric and do what this institution is designed 
to do: come together in support of the objectives upon which we all 
agree for the good of the Nation and the people who have entrusted us 
with its care.

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