Speeches

Congress is fundamentally a deliberative institution. Deliberations take time and they’re often messy – in fact, the bigger the issue, the messier the deliberations. The designers of our Constitution wanted a great, big, ugly debate whenever a decision was being made. They wanted the subject to be held up to every conceivable light and for every voice in the country to be heard.

Any discussion of the American Health Care Act needs first to consider where we will be without it. Obamacare is collapsing. More people are paying the steep tax penalty or claiming hardship exemptions than are choosing to buy Obamacare policies. In a third of the counties across America, there is only one provider to choose and soon we will see counties where there are no providers at all.

In the last eight years, our nation’s debt has doubled. That means the Obama administration has borrowed as much money in eight years as our government borrowed in the 220 years between the first day of the George Washington administration until the last day of the George W. Bush administration.

I support the REINS act, but want to underscore the point raised by Mr. Barr. The REINS Act says that any regulation – that is, an act with the force of law – that’s adopted by the executive branch and costs more than $100 million, must then be approved by Congress in order to take effect. As necessary as this bill is in the current environment, I’m afraid we have it backwards. Under the Constitution just read on this floor again today, it is not the role of the executive branch to make laws and for the legislative branch to approve or veto them.

House Joint Resolution 3 by Congressman Roe of Tennessee authorizes the National Desert Storm War Memorial Association to consider sites, along or near the National Mall, for a memorial to honor the members of the Armed Forces who served on active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

WRDA Conference Report: Water for California; Fire Protection for Tahoe. The conference report on the Water Resources Development Act is the product of many, many hours of good-faith negotiations between the House and Senate and between Republicans and Democrats.