The Senate is moving toward passage today of a massive omnibus measure that combines 160 separate bills in a 1,300+ page monstrosity. When it passes, and it will pass because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s petty tyranny hasn’t permitted even one Republican amendment in six months – hardly anybody who votes for it will have read it.
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, just delivered the following remarks that highlight everything that is wrong with Congress. This is a rush transcript:
“Mr. DeMint: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. The platform for the inauguration is almost complete. They’re putting the finishing touches on it. I think America, with good reason, is excited with new hope at the idea of change. This is something we need in our country. We’ve obviously gotten bogged down in many areas.
“But I’m afraid, as I walked in the senate chamber today; I smell the same stale air of good ‘ol boy, pork-laden, lobbyist-driven politics. Folks, we’re here on a Sunday voting about something in the middle of a recession, very difficult economic times, many critical issues, but the majority has asked us to come back today to vote on a conglomeration of bills which no one has read.
“You know the chairman said that it’s been — the committee has had it posted on the committee site for a few days. But as of Friday, in anyone in America wanted to go to the official senate web site or if the media wanted to find out what was in this bill, it was not available to them. Most members of the senate, I would suspect all but except maybe for Tom Coburn, maybe a few others, have not even read this bill.
“Last week all of us came in here and if we didn’t take the oath of office ourselves, we listened to others take it many times. That oath didn’t say that I was to be here and to defend and protect what’s right for South Carolina or get everything I could for Oklahoma or Utah or Alaska. But it asked us to defend and protect the constitution, which prescribes a very limited government, very limited function for the federal government. All of our freedoms are really dependent on that. Yet we’re about the old business today of how can we put together a bill that will almost force a majority of the senate to vote for it?
“I know that the different members know a section of this bill, the part that’s for that you are state, and that’s good. We need to look out for our states. But we need to look out for our country. And we’ve never been at a time in our country where we’ve had so much debt and so much spending and so much uncertainty.
“How can we come here today and say, I’ve got what I want; do you have what you want? let’s everybody get what they want and let’s ball it up and vote for a bill that we haven’t had hardly any debate, no amendments are allowed, 1,300 pages that no one has read, 160 bills put together, but none of us really know what’s in here, and Americans don’t know what’s in here.
“And we’ve been asked to leave our church, leave our families and come here a vote on this as we think about change in our country; I hope we can all think about how we can change this place. Because the senate seems to be that last obstacle for everything that we need to change, because we can’t continue to pass bills by putting together a little bit of what everybody wants and forgetting what’s good for our country. We’ve been doing this for years, and that’s how this country has gotten into so much debt and has put such pressure on our economy, taken so much money in taxes out of the private sector that the private sector no longer works.
“As Senator Coburn has said, I know there are many things in here that represent years of work and there are a lot of good things. But in these times when people are out of work and we’re looking around for how can we find the money we need to fix the problems, if we actually took the time to read what’s in this bill, the majority of Americans — I can say this with confidence — would say, this is not right.
“We should not have to pass all of these things that are not needed in order to get those things that are. We know we don’t need $5 million for botanical gardens in Hawaii or in Florida. That may be a wonderful thing to do but in these times when we’re asking Americans to sacrifice, when we’re mortgaging the future of our children by what we’re spending today, it doesn’t make any sense to put that in a bill so we can get somebody’s vote
“We don’t need $14 million for tropical research in Panama. Senator Coburn has mentioned it, there are may be other things, but we don’t need $12 million for the orchid museum in Maryland. These are all good things but this bill is full of these things. There’s nobody that’s going to be voting here today that knows all the things that are in here.
“If we continue to do business this way, the change that we’re hoping for that we’re going to be looking at an historical spectacle in a few weeks, the inauguration of a new president that I hope will represent a new generation, I know this is going to sail through here today. Everyone has come back to vote because there have been press releases on so many different items in this bill.
“But if we continue to go through this year where anyone who asks for an amendment or maybe a few moments of debate has made a spectacle of by saying we’re going to be here this weekend to vote if you don’t give me unanimous consent to do this vote when I want to, you can’t have an amendment. If my colleagues on my side continue to accept this, there’s going to be no such thing as a Republican party. Then this country that we love will continue to deteriorate. I encourage all of my colleagues to maybe think twice. You may have something that works for new this bill, but this bill does not work for America.”
