[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15483-15484]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THREE CRISES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, this October fiscal crisis is punctuated 
by three developments that are becoming increasingly obvious and 
disturbing. The first is the refusal of the Senate and the President to 
resolve their differences with the House through negotiation and 
compromise on the bill that would actually fund the government and end 
this shutdown. In recent days, senior administration officials have 
said they don't care how long the shutdown lasts because they are 
winning politically and the President would rather the Nation default 
than negotiate with the House.
  Our form of government cannot operate in such a manner. Congress is a 
bicameral legislature. That means two Houses that are specifically 
designed to have a different perspective on issues. The two Houses of 
Congress were designed to disagree. The only way a bicameral 
legislature can possibly function is through each House exercising its 
own best judgment on a given issue and then coming together and meeting 
to isolate their differences and resolve them through negotiation and 
compromise.
  The conference process of Congress has evolved over centuries. It is 
very effective at resolving the differences between the two Houses; but 
it takes two Houses to operate it, and the Senate is refusing to do so. 
This malfunction is at the very heart of our stalemate.
  The second development is the deliberate decision by the 
administration to amplify the public's suffering and inconvenience 
during this stalemate. This government has gone through 18 shutdowns 
now in the past 37 years, but never has a President barricaded open-air 
venues like national memorials. In fact, he has gone so far as to 
forbid the use of turnouts on public roads that offer passersby distant 
views of Mt. Rushmore and Yosemite. He has ordered people out of their 
own homes and ordered businesses to close just because they lease land 
from the Federal Government. He has even tried to close the Atlantic 
Ocean to Florida fishermen.
  In the past, Presidents have done everything they could to minimize 
the impacts of shutdowns. This President is going to ridiculous 
extremes to maximize the suffering that people must endure. One park 
ranger told a reporter, ``We've been told to make life as difficult for 
people as we can.'' And then he added, ``It's disgusting.'' And when 
this House has passed stopgap measures to minimize these impacts, the 
President and the Senate have summarily rejected them.
  The third development is the rapid unraveling of ObamaCare. As it has 
rolled out, millions of Americans have discovered that their health 
insurance rates have skyrocketed or they are losing their health plans 
entirely or that they are having their hours cut back at work. It is 
very clear that the public isn't buying these new government-brokered 
policies. One hundred and seventy thousand people visited the Maryland 
exchange looking for affordable insurance since it opened more than a 
week ago, but only 326 have actually bought these plans, less than 0.2 
percent.
  Now, imagine, you have got the biggest store in town. People are 
required by law to purchase your product. You open for business, and 
99.8 percent of the customers who walk into your store walk out again 
without buying your product. Do you think you have a problem? We can't 
pretend this isn't happening. Millions of Americans right now are 
losing their health plans and not finding affordable replacements. This 
matter must be resolved, and it must be resolved now.
  This government only exists with the consent of the governed. When it 
deliberately goes out of its way to maximize the pain and suffering of 
the American people in this crisis, it jeopardizes that consent. This 
matter must be resolved, and it must be resolved now. And this 
government is simply not designed to function with one party refusing 
to talk to the other, with one House refusing to resolve the 
differences that divide it from the other. This simple failure is at 
the heart of our Nation's distress, and it, too, must be resolved, and 
it must be resolved now.
  We are now 5 years into this administration. They have not been happy 
ones for our Nation. But now we have arrived at a crisis--or more 
precisely, at three crises: one that is costing millions of Americans 
the health plans they liked and were told they could keep, a second in 
the relationship of this government to the people, and a

[[Page 15484]]

third in the basic function of our fundamental institutions.
  Happily, the Constitution's Framers gave us all of the tools that are 
necessary to resolve these crises except for one, and that one is what 
Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Only we can appeal to 
those angels, and we must do so before more harm befalls our country.

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