October 16, 2013
House
Republicans have fought to protect the American people from the
negative effects that Obamacare is already having on the accessibility,
affordability and quality of American health care.
Senate
Democrats, backed by the President, refused to resolve the differences
between the two houses through the process of negotiation and compromise
that is essential to any bicameral legislative system. As a result,
the system seized up and produced a prolonged stalemate, a partial
government shutdown and a looming debt crisis. Worse, unlike previous
presidents who acted to minimize the damage caused by such an impasse,
this President cynically acted to maximize public suffering and
threatened to default on the nation’s sovereign debt.
I
believe the measure presented to the House tonight trades short-term
relief for long-term suffering. It relieves the immediate economic
damage of the shutdown that has fallen particularly hard on the gateway
communities surrounding our national forests and parks, and it will calm
credit markets roiled by the dysfunction that caused this impasse.
This relief is much to be desired, and could have been achieved by the
conference process sought by the House on September 30th.
I
fear adoption of this bill will establish a precedent that will produce
long-term harm that will far exceed any immediate relief. As a
practical matter, the power of the purse will have shifted from the
representatives of the people to the executive. The executive
bureaucracies will be freed to churn out ever more outlandish
regulations with no effective congressional review or check through the
purse. The executive branch will set spending levels and whenever a
fiscal deadline approaches, the Senate can simply refuse to negotiate
with the House on any measure that does not meet its demands until
Congress is faced with the Hobson’s choice of another shut-down or a
default.
The
debt will continue to mount, the restraints on government waste will
continue to weaken, and the economic prosperity of the nation will
continue to slowly bleed away.
As
much as I share and respect the desire of those supporting this measure
to end an immediate crisis, I fear it sets in motion a much bigger
fiscal and healthcare crisis in the years ahead. For that reason, I
have voted NO on HR 2775.
