From Cannon Rotunda, Washington, D.C. March 24, 2010

Remarks by Representative Tom McClintock on the government takeover of healthcare.  The legislation, HR 3590, was approved by Congress on March 21, 2010.  Representative McClintock voted no on the bill.

        "Under the provisions of this bill, Americans will be required by federal law to purchase health insurance policies that include every mandate imposed by the new federal health czar and will face federal fines and even imprisonment if they refuse.  And they will pay for them through a combination of higher taxes, higher premiums or lower wages.

        “The proposition that Congress has the power to order Americans to purchase insurance – or any other product – is contrary to the fundamental concept of individual liberty and antithetical to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.  If this precedent were to be upheld, the federal government will have assumed authority over every aspect of individual choice in the care of ourselves and our families and can logically be extended to what foods we choose or to what physical activities we engage in.  Nor is this brave new doctrine limited to health care.  Once the precedent is established that government may usurp individual decisions in the marketplace, what limitation remains on its power to order any other of our decisions as consumers?

        “Fortunately, the Constitution still protects our freedom from such usurpations.  It will fall to the Supreme Court to hold this act accountable to the Constitution and it will fall to “We the People” to hold those responsible for it accountable at the polls.”

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House Chamber, Washington, D.C., March 20, 2010.   M. Speaker:  In the introduction to his epic “Ten Commandments,” Cecil B. Demille asked the question: “Are men the property of the state, or are they free souls under God?”  Full Text.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.,
March 20, 2010.   

M. Speaker:  

In the introduction to his epic “Ten Commandments,” Cecil B. Demille asked the question: “Are men the property of the state, or are they free souls under God?”

Congress will fundamentally address that question tomorrow. 

Will the federal government order Americans to buy products that government thinks they should buy, and to fine or imprison them if they refuse? 

Will it empower a new health Czar to make decisions over the most minute details of every American’s health care? 

Will it set loose 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce its edicts?

 This vote transcends any questions of health care.  It introduces a proposition that will fundamentally alter the relationship between the government and the people for all time.

 I pray that my Democratic colleagues, drunk as they may be with power, consider carefully the implications of the action they are about to take.
 

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House Chamber, Washington, D.C.  March 17, 2010  M. Speaker:  I rise to express my great concern over recent statements by Administration officials regarding Israeli housing construction in that nation’s capital city.  Full Text.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.

March 17, 2010

M. Speaker:

I rise to express my great concern over recent statements by Administration officials regarding Israeli housing construction in that nation’s capital city.

 History warns us that appeasement of mutual enemies is the surest possible way to destroy alliances and to invite aggression, and yet the rhetoric of this administration is taking us down this very dangerous road.

 Israel has every right to allow construction its capital city and throughout the West Bank -- over which it exercises rightful sovereignty. 

The administration seems to have forgotten that Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 – not the other way around – and the result was the Israeli acquisition of this land.  

The Israelis haven’t forgotten that – nor have they forgotten the folly of unilaterally giving up the Gaza Strip, from which rockets are now routinely launched against Israeli civilians. 
Imagine the danger to Israel’s capital by repeating that mistake in East Jerusalem.
 
Appeasement all but guarantees the escalation of conflict.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. March 16, 2010 M. Speaker: I held two town hall meetings in my district on Saturday, and at both events my constituents raised this issue: how can Congress impose the most sweeping intrusion into personal health care decisions in the history of our country without a direct vote on the bill? Full Text

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Subcommittee on Water and Power held an oversight hearing today on the FY 2011 Administration Budget Request for the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation).   The attached remarks are by Representative Tom McClintock:

       I’d like to express my concern from the outset that the Bureau of Reclamation is quickly becoming the Bureau of Water Shortage and Dam Destruction.   The budget before us today is symbolic of that transformation.

       The Bureau of Reclamation was established to “make the desert bloom.”   Today, it provides water to 31 million consumers, irrigates 10 million acres of farmland and provides enough clean, cheap and abundant hydroelectricity to power 3.5 million homes.   It would take roughly 67 million barrels of heating oil or 21 million tons of coal to produce an equal amount of power.

       Despite these successes, the agency’s mission is being undermined by constant environmental litigation, a shift toward outrageously expensive urban water recycling programs and what can only be described as “analysis paralysis” when it comes to meeting the next generation’s water needs through new dams, aqueducts and reservoirs.  

       In my home state of California we have watched as the San Joaquin Valley has been transformed back into desert by the diversion of over 200 billion gallons of water for the enjoyment of the delta smelt. 

      The Northern Sierra snowpack is now at 124 percent of normal, and yet the Administration has announced that it will guarantee only five percent of the west valley’s water entitlement, with promises to increase it to all of 40 percent – maybe – in the future.

      Farmers in the Klamath Valley in California and Oregon are now threatened with another complete shut-off of water for the amusement of the sucker fish.

      While additional hydroelectric dams and reservoirs have been placed on a slow-track to nowhere, the fast-track has been reserved for dam destruction.

       At a time when Californians pay the highest electricity prices in the continental United States, and officials can’t guarantee enough electricity to keep our air conditioners running this summer, the administration is moving to fast-track the willful destruction of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River that are producing enough electricity for more than 150,000 homes.

       The agency has asked for $5 million to begin the process to remove the dams, but continues to drag its feet on studying new water storage or hydroelectric generation. 

       I fear that this agency is becoming a pawn of the environmental Left and its crusade to crush the economy of rural America through the Endangered Species Act. 

      To make matters worse, we are told that ESA reform is not on the table despite the economic devastation that it is producing throughout rural America. 

      When we propose a new generation of fish hatcheries to assure abundant populations of salmon, for example, we’re simply ignored.  So we impose billions of dollars of new costs on our economy in the name of protecting a few hundred thousand salmon – when, for the cost of just $13 million we could produce 170 million salmon each year – which is the inflation-adjusted cost and production output of the single Macaulay Fish Hatchery in Juneau.

       This ideological fixation of the Left on creating and rationing shortages has to stop.  We have it fully within our power to produce abundance in every field overseen by this sub-committee: abundant fish populations, cheap and abundant water; cheap, clean and abundant electricity; which in turn guarantees a thriving economy.  That we fail to do so is a matter of choice and not of fate.

       We need to put people back into the equation.  

        I hope that the testimony today will look beyond the same failed policy of managing shortages and instead lay out a bold vision of a new generation of hydroelectric dams, aqueducts, hatcheries and transmission lines to provide a brighter and more prosperous future for the next generation.

       I have become accustomed to such hopes being dashed in this sub-committee, but as they say, hope springs eternal, and elections spring up every two years.  These now chronic electricity and water shortages are not due to acts of God, but rather to acts of Government, and we have this consolation: that acts of government are always within our power to change.

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 March 11, 2010

The attack of September 11th, 2001 was our generation’s Pearl Harbor.  The Al Qaeda terrorists received succor, protection and encouragement from the Taliban government and accordingly acted as an agency of that government just as surely as the Japanese naval air forces that attacked Pearl Harbor acted as an agency of the government of Japan.

 In 1941, President Roosevelt asked for, and received, a declaration of war from Congress as provided in the Constitution.  He then put the entire might and fury of the nation into the war and within 3 ½ years we had utterly vanquished the two most powerful armies on the planet.  Only then did we establish military governments that ordered Japanese and German society to our liking, and only after we were satisfied that the new governments would endure did we relinquish control.  Japan and Germany have since been among our closest allies. 

 How different was our response in 2001.  Then, President Bush came before Congress, promised to bring the individuals responsible for the attack to justice and then invited the nation to go shopping.  He sought an ambiguous resolution authorizing the use of force at his discretion and deployed armed forces that were wholly inadequate to subdue and control the population of that nation.  Two years later he invaded a nation that had nothing to do with the attack.

 For eight years now, the valiant men and women of our armed forces have fought with constraints never before imposed on American soldiers because of a strategy compromised by irresolution, and political correctness.  The current administration has inherited an untenable situation.  But it continues and amplifies the folly of its predecessor in three critical areas.

 First, the administration has defined victory not as destroying the ability and will of the enemy to make war, but rather as “winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.”  This is a mistake.  One nation cannot win the hearts and minds of another nation while waging war against it.  The civilian populations of Germany and Japan despised the American occupation but were so exhausted and decimated that they could no longer resist it.  It was then and only then – under military government and authority – that we began to shape those societies in a manner acceptable to civilized nations.

 Second, the administration has placed absurd restrictions on our forces that have greatly complicated their mission, and endangered their security. War is mankind’s most terrible scourge; it is barbaric and cruel and destroys many innocent lives.  Most of the casualties of World War II were civilians.  If we are to put our soldiers into combat, it must be with the freedom to wage war whether or not civilians happen to be present.   

 Third, MacArthur was correct: in war there is no substitute for victory.  By committing inadequate force to win the war and simultaneously announcing our timetable for withdrawal, I fear that President Obama has assured continued stalemate and given the enemy its most valuable ally: time.  This policy further undermines the administration’s own civilian-centric strategy by relying on the cooperation of civilians who can reasonably anticipate a return of the Taliban within weeks of the already-announced American withdrawal in the summer of 2011. 

However, the precipitous withdrawal of American troops has grave implications that will follow us many years into the future and requires a belief beyond a reasonable doubt that greater harm will come to America by continuing the war than by ending it. 

If America immediately withdraws its troops as ordered by H.Con.Res. 248, we can reasonably predict on the one hand that we will prevent American casualties and conserve American wealth.  But the cost will almost certainly be the immediate collapse of Afghanistan, the return of the Taliban, the re-establishment of Al Qaeda sanctuaries, the execution of Afghans who assisted the American forces, and the recognition by hostile governments around the world that America is incapable of defending her interests.  The last outcome is the most dangerous because it will figure into countless calculations in unfriendly capitals around the world that could well cost many thousands of American lives in the future. 

We can be far more confident in predicting the immediate harm from withdrawal than we can predict conditions a year from now for two reasons. 

The first is the unpredictability of war.  The President has recently altered the strategy by ordering a troop surge.  For all the reasons discussed above, I doubt that it will succeed but I also must concede that it might.  Skepticism that the administration will succeed is not the same as certainty that it will fail.

The second reason is that policy can change.  The administration has already hedged considerably on its withdrawal announcement.  At any time it could restore common sense to its rules of engagement and provide ample force to produce victory.  If the strategy is changed then the outcome is changed, but that possibility is foreclosed if the resolution is adopted.      

 In short, the immediate and irremediable harm from a sudden troop withdrawal far outweighs my skepticism of our current strategy and tactics.   For that reason, I oppose House Concurrent Resolution 248.

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March 10, 2010

Washington, DC – Representative Tom McClintock (CA - 04) today made the following remarks at a press conference held to introduce a Spending Limitation Constitutional Amendment.  Representative McClintock is co-author of the legislation.

        During the 1980’s, California enjoyed a Constitutional spending limit that produced a decade of balanced budgets, prudent reserves, no tax increases and steady economic growth.  You can measure California’s fiscal collapse from that day in 1990 when Californians foolishly threw that limit away.

       History offers us not a single example of a nation that spent and borrowed and taxed its way to economic prosperity, but it offers us many examples of nations that spent and borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy. 

       Let that not be the epitaph of the American Republic.  Let it be said that just when it appeared that America’s credit, currency and prosperity were about to be destroyed by reckless spending, this generation restored sound principles of fiscal management and insisted that its government do what its people do every day: work hard, waste not, and live within your means. 

Congressman McClintock speaks at a press conference in Washington, DC, held to introduce a Spending Limitation Constitutional Amendment.  Congressman McClintock is co-author of the legislation.  March 3, 2010.
 

I was extremely disappointed that on the same day we learned that the Northern Sierra snowpack is at 125% percent of normal, peeling away rhetoric that could only be best described as self-serving and deceptive, the administration has only actually committed to releasing 5% percent of water deliveries owed to the Central Valley, with the remaining 25% contingent on remaining precipitation.
  
The Administration has acknowledged that in a similar weather year, the allocation would be as much as 20 percent higher, or enough water to grow food for 145,000 families for a year, if it were not for two biological opinions on smelt, salmon and killer whales that restrict delta water deliveries. 

Republicans on the Water and Power Subcommittee will continue efforts to bring about relief to the tens of thousands of unemployed in California’s Central Valley.

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 Date:  March 1, 2010