Save American Workers Act 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. RANGEL. I yield myself, Mr. Speaker, such time as I may consume.

I think, Mr. Speaker, this is about the 52nd time that the Republican majority has attempted to either repeal or derail the Affordable Care Act. I don't know why they do it so often since constitutionally it is abundantly clear that they don't have the votes to pass it in the Senate, and clearly, if it ever reached the President's desk, it would be vetoed, and there are not enough votes to override the veto. So, clearly, this madness continues even after more than enough people have enrolled, far beyond those that were expected by some of the Republicans. And this struggle, this madness, goes on as though Democrats are the only people that are going to become sick and need health care.

So I don't know where we go from here. I assume that comes the next election, once again, the voters will speak out. And for those people that have had kids on their insurance policy, we will hear from them; for those who have had preconditions and couldn't get health insurance, we will hear from them; for those that thought that getting preventive health care was a luxury, we should hear from them; but, more importantly, the people who just could not afford insurance. I cannot conceive how these people are all Democrats, in that the Republicans have no people that are vulnerable to illnesses and the severe expenses that are involved.

But, clearly, it has been my opinion that if this bill doesn't work, if it fails, and if some of these tactics had been successful, that the Democrats would be embarrassed by its failure. But I also thought--and it makes a lot of sense to me--that if, indeed, the American people started to understand the complexities of the bill and thought they were in need of health insurance, as close to 10 million people feel, then the Republicans would have to defend their negative position as to why they fight so hard to deny people health insurance.

So I understand from Mr. Lynch that the bill is named after workers. So that brings me to include a letter for the Record from the AFL/CIO. Clearly, this is not a management outfit but really supports the workers, and they, of course, are opposed to this bill that is drafted to go nowhere.

In addition to that, I include for the Record, Mr. Speaker, a letter from the AFSCME into the Record, which represents county and municipal employees, and they strongly oppose the legislation that the Republican majority has brought to the floor.

Lastly, I include for the Record a letter from the National Education Association that opposes this legislation.

Before I reserve the balance of my time, I would like to join in with the majority that has complimented the work of Chairman David Camp. His announcement surprised most of us, but I don't think in his challenge that he has really proven his chairmanship to be all that we expected from him and then some. I regret the Republicans have passed over his opportunity to reform the tax law, but, then again, the chairman's tax reform law made too much sense for anybody to think that it would be picked up by the Republican majority. But it was a bill that would be great for discussion; it was hard hitting; it provided a lot of savings; and it reduced the rates.

So I don't know why before he leaves that we couldn't have this taken up, but it is my understanding that the gift that was given to him by his majority was just to allow him to present his draft. I think that is unfortunate because, if ever there was a time we need to reform the tax laws, it would be now. So I congratulate Chairman Camp for his attempt to introduce this to the House, and I regret that the Republican majority has, out of hand, rejected it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RANGEL. I just don't know what part of the Constitution the gentleman doesn't understand, but the truth of the matter is that this law passed the House of Representatives, passed the Senate, was signed into law, and verified by the United States Supreme Court, and still we hear people yelling at the darkness that we should repeal it.

Now, there are ways to do these things, but one thing is abundantly clear: the way we have been going about this, the 52 parliamentary opportunities that the House has had, this doesn't work. And so if you tried something 51 times, it would seem to me, unless somebody is putting something in the water on the other side of the aisle, that we will try something else like try to repair it, try to fix it, try in a bipartisan way to see where we agree that changes could be made to make it easier for employers and employees. But this barking at the Moon, to me, is just a waste of taxpayers' money and time.

How many speakers do we have, and how much time do we have remaining, Mr. Speaker?

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