Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. INHOFE. I agree with my good friend from Alabama. He has done a great job on this subject.

I would like to say, one of the things I enjoyed about the presentation that was made by my good friend from Texas Senator Cruz was that we were in a position that is very rare in this body, where we could talk as long as we wanted to. In fact, we actually tried to talk longer. We were looking for different things to fill in. We may have forgotten some.

That is not where we are today. We are confined. But I have to share with my good friend in the chair that something I am going to say now is going to be very offensive to a lot of people, but I really don't care. At my age and being here, I think I know what this country is all about and I think I know that we have the obligation to express our true feelings.

I have written a speech and have put it off. I am not going to give it today. But I was rereading it this morning. I had no intention of coming down and talking because I talked long enough during the course of the Cruz talk. But I went back and reread the speech I was going to give. What it is is to answer the question one of my sons asked me, and everyone has been saying this over a period of time in Oklahoma. I don't think Oklahoma is that different from other States. But they ask me over and over again, they say: What happened? Why is it that we have an administration--people in government, not just the Obama administration but others--who are praising Islam and trashing Christianity, trashing the Judeo-Christian values and other things that are happening today?

We all know it is true. How do you answer that? It is a tough answer. So I am preparing and later on I will give you a little warning, I am going to make a little talk.

There is a guy named Paul Johnson who wrote a history of the American people. He talks about how we got to where we are today. This is going to tie into ObamaCare. He says that the Puritans were devoted and single-minded to their ambition of creating a colony that was built on the foundation and teachings of Jesus Christ. The Mayflower compact is evidence of that. Paul Johnson, the guy who wrote the book I told you about, is right to observe the document was not just a ``contract ..... between a servant and a master, or a people and a king, but between a group of like-minded individuals, with God as a witness and symbolic co-signatory.''

Why is this important? It is important because William Bradford and the other Puritans understood that while forming a civil government was fully within their rights, there were limitations to what they could and could not do. Not talking about government here. Those limitations were established by God and enumerated in the Bible.

I go on. When I make my talk on this, I quote the Apostle Paul in Romans, but there is not time for that. I go on to say it is within the foundation of Biblical authority that the Puritans crafted the Mayflower compact and their system of government at Plymouth Colony. Paul Johnson rightly observes that this line and model of thinking was critical to laying the foundation for a successful United States of America. Ultimately, it is a morality derived from God that had its strongest enduring influence over the Nation, and this is what has crafted our history as a strong nation.

I say all this as a predicate to the answer to the question people ask me: Why is it that we are trashing our Judeo-Christian values in favor of something that was not American to start with? Sadly, our Nation does not have the same belief today that we had during that time in our history. We have become arrogant, inward-focused individuals. Rather than submit to God's authority and definitions of truth, justice, and goodness, as we conduct our government's business, we have replaced them with our own ideals defined on what feels right at the time. As Americans, we now look inward to ourselves to define with fluidity the foundation of truth. We have allowed ourselves to become ultimate arbiters of what is right and wrong instead of the higher moral authority of God.

Lastly, what was going to be in this talk, this time getting back to the subject at hand, today, instead of having leaders who are protecting the church from government, we have leaders who believe it is government's job to impose on churches what should be universally upheld as truth. Instead of leaders who are protecting an American's freedom to practice his or her religion of their choice--here I am not talking about the choice you may be thinking about--they may instead be using government institutions and law to force them to do or buy things that are in very violation to their religious beliefs and conscience. That is the issue we are talking about now.

Government has become so strong and influential in our lives that we are losing our powers, and these are our ordained powers that we know are a part of this country. There is not a person in here who didn't study the Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and having that meeting in the captain's chamber and making these decisions and now we are where we are today.

I have an example. I have a friend in Oklahoma whose name is David Green. David Green started a company called Hobby Lobby. David Green and his wife started this company by making picture frames in their garage. They were able to open their first store, which was 300 square feet, with the profits they made in their little garage operation making picture frames.

Over the years their business has grown to 550 stores. It has an annual revenue of $2.5 billion, and David Green has had success despite running his business in a very countercultural way. For instance, all of the retail stores close at 8 p.m. each night and all day on Sunday so employees can spend time with their families. This is appreciated by the company's 16,000 employees--remember, it all started in a garage--who are paid at a minimum $12 an hour, even though they could be paying a much lower legal rate.

At one point, the company was challenged by a competitor who said they would bury Hobby Lobby with their money, so their firm opened their doors on Sunday, ultimately earning the company $150 million in revenue each week. Eventually, David Green said he was challenged by God to trust in him with his business, to go back to his policy of closing on Sundays and he did and his business has prospered. It is one of the largest businesses in America today.

David's Christian faith runs deeper than his desire to have a profitable, successful company. When he was faced with a decision to make more money or obey God, he chose to obey God, whatever the consequences.

Keep all of that in mind and listen to this. This is what I am getting at. Recently, he was faced with a new test. It didn't come from a competitor. It came from the U.S. Government. Part of the ObamaCare law requires employers not only to provide health care insurance to their employees but also to provide free access to the pills that terminate pregnancies.

David, as I do, and many others believe--and some don't believe that we believe--that life begins at conception, and offering an option to end that life would be in violation, in his case, of his moral compass as defined by his faith in Jesus Christ.

As a result, he said he would rather pay the $1.3 million a day in daily fines from the Obama administration than comply with the law. Here is a guy who feels so strongly in his beliefs--that I think are consistent with the beliefs that made this country great, but that is just my belief--that he would pay $1.3 million a day in fines from the Obama administration rather than comply with this law.

Today the Obama administration is vigorously opposing Hobby Lobby's legal challenge to the mandate, claiming that this privately owned business is waging a war on women for not agreeing to provide these treatments for its employees free of charge. That is just one example of what is happening. By the way, I don't think my State of Oklahoma is that different from most other States.

Last week, four universities in my great State of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government over the ObamaCare mandate to provide certain types of contraception to their employees. These are four universities which are joining with this one great American named David Green. So we have the faith of an individual and what he is willing to do for his faith. He is willing to stand up to this abusive government that we have today and to this ObamaCare law and is willing to pay $1.3 million a day. My feelings are just as strong as his on this issue, but that is a subject for another day.

My wife and I have 20 kids and grandkids. Back in the old days, when we were having our kids, there was kind of a rule where you couldn't go into the hospital, I say to my good friend who is occupying the chair. Back then we couldn't see this and we had to wait outside and we didn't have notice of what the baby was going to be and all that.

But in the case of my first grandchild, my daughter called me up and said: All right, Daddy. Come on over. It is time. I went over to the hospital delivery room. What a great experience that was. I never dreamed that would ever happen. We are talking about a number of years ago--17 years ago. So I watched this take place, and I honestly--a tear did come out from my eye.

At that time we were talking about partial birth abortions and the fact that they could have taken little baby Jase and jammed scissors into his skull and sucked his brains out. That could have happened, but it didn't happen.

I feel just as strongly as David Green does. I can make all the arguments I want about this, and I made arguments on the floor during the Cruz debate.

I remember Hillary health care, which was about 19 years ago and it was the same thing. It was government taking over the health care system, and I had my friends in Parliament and Great Britain who would call and say: What is wrong with you guys over there? Don't you realize we are just getting away from this thing that hasn't worked? Don't kid yourself and think this is not a road to socialized medicine if we end up not doing something about ObamaCare. It is.

I have a great deal of respect for the leader of the Senate, Harry Reid. Senator Reid himself said: Yes, I believe this is leading to--and I endorse it--the single-payer system. So we are talking about socialized medicine.

They called and said: What is wrong with you guys? It hasn't worked in Great Britain, it hasn't worked in Denmark, and it hasn't worked in Canada. Yet you think it is somehow going to work there.

That is the big issue. We have an abusive government, and this is probably the greatest single step we have witnessed in the last 4 1/2 years as to the abuse that has taken place. We need to look at the big picture and do something about this. They say it can't be done now. It is too late. They are probably right, but they said the same thing about Hillary health care 19 years ago, and I will never forget it because I was on a plane going back to my State of Oklahoma and had a stop in Chicago.

I thought we finally drove the final nail in the coffin and killed Hillary health care. Yet I picked up the Wall Street Journal, and there was a full-page ad by the AMA endorsing Hillary health care. They had given up, and that was the day before they gave them that story.

Anyway, it is never too late. This is something that needs to be stopped. I have faith in the American people that somehow we are going to win this thing.

I thank the Chair. I know my time has expired.

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