Ocean, Coastal, And Watershed Education Act
Floor Speech
Ocean, Coastal, And Watershed Education Act
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding.
And it is very interesting that those of us who came here to clean up this process are watching as the liberals that are running this Congress try to ram through a 2,407-page government takeover of health care without even allowing a vote here on the House floor. And maybe they really think that the American people will be fooled, but the American people will not be fooled.
And isn't it interesting that we are here right now debating this bill, H.R. 3644. It is a 15-page bill. We have a debate here on the House floor, and in a little while we are going to have a vote here on the House floor on this 15-page bill; yet Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants want to hide a vote on this 2,407-page bill.
They are running around this building; they are running all around town saying how great this bill is. They are talking about all the wonderful things in this bill. Well, if it is so wonderful, why are they actually trying to hide a vote on the bill?
What they are trying to hide, maybe, is all the sweetheart deals that are in this bill and the other subsequent language that they just filed a little while ago that people are still combing through and finding more sweetheart deals.
Maybe another thing they are trying to hide in this bill are all the budget gimmicks, the fact that there is 10 years of taxes in this bill with only 6 years of spending, and yet they want to say that it is going to reduce the deficits.
Anybody who thinks that this bill, this $1 trillion fiasco is going to reduce the deficit, obviously they didn't follow the Cash for Clunkers program that was supposed to last 6 months and ran out of money after about 2 weeks.
So here we are debating this 15-page bill and we are going to have a vote on this 15-page bill, and American people across the country are wondering right now what they are hiding in this 2,407-page bill that they are trying to avoid a vote on.
Again, maybe it is the $500 billion in new taxes in this bill that they are trying to hide, most of which would fall of the backs of middle class families and the job creators in this country.
I will tell you one bill that the American people would like us to be debating; not this 2,407-page bill, not this 15-page bill. The American people would like us to be debating a bill to create jobs in this country to actually get our economy back on track. And those of us on the Republican side have put many ideas on the table that would actually create jobs in this country, and they have all been pushed to the side because they want to try to sneak this bill through without a vote on the House floor.
So what other things are in here that they are trying to hide? What about the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, including the virtual elimination of the Medicare Advantage program?
And I guess that leads us to something else they are trying to hide is all the broken promises that are in this bill, because the President said on multiple occasions, If you like what you have, you can keep it. The problem is, as the American people are finding out, there are multiple places in this bill that they take away the health care you like, including Medicare Advantage, which hundreds of thousands of seniors in Louisiana and all across the Nation like that plan, and yet it is taken away from them. And many small businesses will tell you the good health care that they provide to their employees, that their employees like, will be taken away.
And, even more importantly, doctors--and ask your family doctor. Many doctors across this country have said they are shutting down their practice if this 2,407-page monstrosity becomes law because they are not going to let a government bureaucrat interfere between the relationship of a doctor and patient.
So what else are they trying to hide? Let's talk about the broken promises again. You know, the President said multiple times all of this is going to be on C-SPAN. Now, if you are watching C-SPAN today, you are watching the debate on this 15-page bill. It is a good debate we are having on the 15-page bill, but you are not allowed a debate on the 2,407-page bill because it is not on C-SPAN.
In fact, right now while we are here on this House floor, Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants have been dispatched all throughout town to continue cutting sweetheart deals. Yes, they are actually still meeting right now cutting sweetheart deals. And what about that C-SPAN promise? Not one of those meetings is on C-SPAN, and yet it is going on right now and we don't see any of that.
And so the American people are watching this, and the American people are sick of this process; yet all I hear on the other side is, Oh, George Bush and those Republicans.
They are running everything now. President Obama is in the White House. They have got a 59-vote majority in the Senate. They have got over 250 votes here on this House floor and they only need 216, and yet they still think that they can get away with saying, Oh, it is those Republicans that are doing all of this. And yet they are trying to sneak through this 2,407-page bill while saying, Okay, it is okay to have a vote on 15 pages and it is okay to have a debate on 15 pages, but they want to hide a debate and hide a vote on 2,407 pages.
The American people are not going to stand for this process, and they are watching.
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