Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I thank the Senator from Florida for his answer on how the law would have impacted his family. I will say this: I have no doubt that at every gathering in every hotel where Senator Rubio speaks, there is not a bartender, there is not a waiter, there is not a dishwasher in the room who does not look over and think: I wonder if some day my daughter, my son, could be in the Senate. What an extraordinary statement. Do you know what. If we were in almost any other country on earth you could not say that. In most countries on earth, if you are not born into a family of power and prestige and influence, you have no chance whatsoever of serving in a position of significant political leadership. Only in America. That is the opportunity this country is. I have no doubt of the inspiration it serves every day when Senator Rubio shares his story. I have no doubt also that Senator Rubio is right that if ObamaCare had been the law when his parents came from Cuba, when they were immigrants, when they were looking for jobs, when they wanted to support their family and eventually their young family when they had kids, that if they had not been able to get those jobs or if they had had their hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week so they could not earn enough to provide for their children, to give them the food, to give them the education, to give them the housing that they needed, it could have had a dramatic impact. If ObamaCare had been the law, it may very well have been the case that Senator Marco Rubio would not be in the Senate right now, because it may have been that his parents would have struggled so much to make ends meet that they would not have been able to provide for him as a young boy the way they did, to give him the opportunities they gave him. He might not be here and our country would be far the poorer. I know for me and my family, if my dad had not had that opportunity to get a job washing dishes for 50 cents an hour, if my mom had not gotten the opportunity to get her first jobs, there is a very good possibility I would not have had the chance to represent Texas. When you cut off opportunity for those who are struggling to climb the economic ladder, it impacts for decades. It does not just impact them, but their children and their children's children. That leads to a second rhetorical question that I want to ask the Chamber, but it would not surprise me if it prompts, in turn, a question from Senator Rubio. That is, Senator Rubio and I both have the privilege of representing States in which there is a tremendous Hispanic community. We both come from the Hispanic community, were raised in the Hispanic community. We both have the great honor of representing a great many Hispanics, he in Florida, me in Texas. Some of the discussion of the Hispanic community focuses on his parents, like my father, who were young immigrants struggling, who may not speak English and who are on the first or second rung of the economic ladder. That describes a great many in the Hispanic community but there are others who are not necessarily in that circumstance. In the United States there are right now approximately 2.3 million Hispanic small business owners. The Hispanic community is tremendously entrepreneurial. There are roughly 50 million Hispanics in the United States. That means roughly 1 in 8 Hispanic households is a small business owner. So the question I would pose, rhetorically, to the Chamber, is, what is the impact of ObamaCare on the Hispanic community? What is the impact of the crippling impact on jobs, of the punitive taxes, of the 20,000 pages of regulations? What is the impact on those 2.3 million Hispanic small business owners? What is the impact on economic growth and achieving the American dream? What is the impact on the Hispanic community, because I am convinced there is no ideal that resonates more in the Hispanic community than the American dream, than the idea that any one of us, regardless of who our mother or father is, regardless of where we come from, any one of us through hard work and perseverance, through the content of our character can achieve the American dream. The question I would pose: Has ObamaCare made it easier or harder to achieve the American dream? How has ObamaCare impacted the Hispanic community?

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield for a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his inspired comments and for his question. He is absolutely right. This fight is about whether hard-working Americans get the same exemptions and the same benefit President Obama has given big corporations and Members of Congress. I wish to respond to the inspirational remarks of Senator Rubio by making five comments, the last two of which I think may well be likened to Senator Rubio who will be inspired to ask a question in response to it. The first point is a very brief one, which is to simply thank the Senator from Florida for telling that story about the flag. I will confess as we stand here a few minutes before 7 a.m., I am a little bit tired. Senator Lee is probably a little bit tired. I will tell my colleagues, the image of the dust clearing, the smoke clearing, seeing the Star-Spangled Banner waving under the rockets' red glare, that vision is inspiring and I appreciate it. It was very kind of the Senator to tell that story and it is very meaningful, so I thank him. Secondly, Senator Rubio talked about how the political reporters have been focusing predominantly on the game, on the political process. He is right, I haven't seen any of the news coverage; we have been here on the Senate floor so I don't know what the coverage is. But what he reports doesn't surprise me because that is the nature of political reporting in Washington. So I am going to make a request directly to those reporters who are covering this proceeding--those reporters who are reporting this proceeding--to endeavor to have at least half of what they say be focused on the actual substance of this debate, on the fact that ObamaCare is a train wreck that is killing jobs, that is forcing more and more Americans to part-time work, that is driving up their health insurance premiums, that is causing more and more Americans who are struggling to lose their health insurance. My real request would make all of the coverage to be on that, but I know that is too much to ask. But I am going to suggest if all of the coverage or most of the coverage is on the political process, on this personality or that personality, or who is up or who is down, or how this impacts the 2042 Presidential election, I am going to suggest two things. No. 1, that is not doing the job you have stepped forward to serve and do. All of us have a job. Those of us in this body elected to serve have a job to listen to the people and to fight for the men and women of America, but those of you who serve in the media have a job to report to the men and women of America what is happening, and not just on the political game. Secondly, I want to say, if you just report on the personalities and political gains, you are taking sides on this issue. Why is that? Because those who want to keep ObamaCare funded, those who want, on Friday or Saturday when cloture comes up for a vote, for Members of this body to vote for cloture, to give Harry Reid the ability to defund ObamaCare with 51 partisan Democrat votes, they want all the coverage to be about the personality, about the politics--about anything, anything, anything other than the substance. So if you choose to cover just the personalities and the politics, you are doing exactly what some partisans in this body would like, and that is, I am going to suggest, not responsible reporting. I know each one wants to be a responsible steward of informing the public, and it would strike me that the debate we have had here impacts people's lives in a way that nobody gives a flip about the politicians involved. A third observation about Senator Rubio's question, when he compared ObamaCare to a horror film, I enjoyed that comparison. In fact, in my mind, I heard the music from ``The Shining''--not ``The Shining,'' from ``Psycho'' in the shower scene. And it occurred to me that perhaps one of the great philosophical conundrums with which we must all wrestle is whether ObamaCare is more like Jason or Freddy. That, indeed, is a difficult question. You can put forth a powerful argument for Jason because ObamaCare is the biggest job killer in this country and when Jason put on his hockey mask and swung that machete, there was carnage like nothing else. On the other hand, we could make a powerful argument for Freddy, because as James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters said, ObamaCare is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for the men and women of America. While the Senate slept, the men and women of America didn't get a respite from the nightmare that is causing them to lose their jobs, never getting hired, causing them to be forced to be reduced to 29 hours a week, driving up their health insurance premiums, and jeopardizing their health care. The only way they get a respite from that nightmare, the only way we stop--there was a movie ``Freddy Vs. Jason.'' I forget. They fought each other. I forget even what happened in that movie. But the only way we stop Jason and/or Freddy is if the American people rise up in such overwhelming numbers that the Members of this Senate listen to the people and we step forward and avert this train wreck, we step forward and avert this nightmare. Those are three observations I wanted to make at the outset. Then I want to make two more. I would note, Mr. President, as you know well, the rules of the Senate are curious at times. While I am speaking, I am not allowed to pose a question to another. I am allowed to answer questions, but not to pose a question to another Senator. But there is no prohibition in my asking a rhetorical question to the body, which may, in turn, prompt Senator Rubio to ask a question of his own and to comment perhaps on the rhetorical question I might raise. The rhetorical question I would raise to the body--and I have two I want to ask--but I want to start the body thinking about Senator Rubio's family story. And listen, I am inspired by Senator Rubio's story every time I hear it. I am inspired. Part of it is because his family, like mine--we share many things in common. His parents, like my father, fled Cuba. His father was a bartender. My dad washed dishes. His mother, I believe, cleaned hotel rooms, if I remember correctly. My mother was a sales clerk at Foley's Department Store. The question I would ask the Chamber is: What would have happened if when Senator Rubio's parents came from Cuba, when they arrived here, if ObamaCare had been the law of the land? What would have happened to his father and mother as they sought that job as a bartender, cleaning hotel rooms, if we had an economy with stagnant growth, where jobs were not available, and they were not able to get hired? What would have happened if they had been lucky enough to get that job and their hours had been reduced forcibly to 29 hours a week against their wishes? What would have happened if they had faced the economic calamity for working men and women--for those struggling--that is ObamaCare? I wonder--I have thought many times about what would have happened to my parents. I know it would have been catastrophic in our family. But I wonder how it would have impacted the Rubio family if ObamaCare had been the law when Senator Rubio's parents came to this country seeking the American dream. Would it have benefited them or would it have harmed them? (Mr. MANCHIN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield for another question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Florida for that question. I had a delightful night. I had a chance to read Bastiat, Rand, and read some tweets. There are few things more enjoyable than reading tweets. And I hope that the Senator and I and Senator Lee and many other Senators who participated in this--I hope we have had some positive impact on moving this debate forward and making clear to the American people both the train wreck, the nightmare that is ObamaCare, in the words of James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, but also that right now too many members of this body are not listening to the American people, and the only remedy for that is this week the American people demanding that we make DC listen.

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield to my friend from Florida for a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Utah for that very fine question, and I wish to thank the American people for doing exactly what Senator Lee just asked--for over 1.6 million Americans signing a national petition to defund ObamaCare. You want to know why the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Friday to defund ObamaCare? The answer is simple: Because the American people rose and demanded it. At the end of the day, the House of Representatives is the people's House. I salute the House conservatives who fought and fought hard to get this done. I salute the House leadership. I salute Speaker Boehner for listening to the people. It is not surprising the House of Representatives would do that first. For one thing, the House is designed to be the people's House. In our constitutional structure, the House has a different role than the Senate. The House of Representatives is up for election every 2 years like clockwork. In the House, you run, you get elected, you may get a little bit of a breather, enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas with your family, and then you promptly turn around and start getting ready for the next election 2 years hence. Given that, the House is, by its nature, more responsive to the people because the risks are higher in the House to not being so. The House has shown over and over, when the elected representatives stop listening to the American people, the American people are very good, to use an old phrase, at throwing the bums out. The Senate, on the other hand, is similar to a battleship. It turns slowly. Part of that is by constitutional design. Part of that was the wisdom of the Framers. In any given 2-year cycle only one-third of this body is up for election. It is one of the things that is interesting. If you look at those Republicans who have publicly said they intend to vote for cloture, they intend to vote to give Harry Reid the power to fund ObamaCare with 51 Democratic votes, they intend to give Harry Reid the power to gut the Republican continuing resolution, most of those Republicans who have said that are not up for election in 2014. It is amazing how it can focus the mind if you have to actually stand before the citizens. I suppose some of the Republicans who are up in 2016 and 2018 might think: There will be time. There will be time. The voters will forget. The only way to move the battleship of the Senate is for the American people to make it politically more risky to do the wrong thing than it is to do the right thing. When we were reading Bastiat's ``The Law,'' he talked about how do you prevent plunder. You make it more risky to engage in plunder than in hard work. The same is true of politics. You make it more risky not to listen to the voices of the people. How do you do that? The only way that has ever worked is a tidal wave of outpouring. It is what we saw with drones, it is what we saw with guns, and it is what we saw with Syria. But here it has to be bigger. It has to be bigger than any of those three. Why? Because the resistance is more settled in. The Democratic side of the aisle, the party loyalty is deeply entrenched. I hope by the end of this week we see some brave Democrats who show the courage James Hoffa of the Teamsters showed. We haven't yet. I hope that changes. I hope by the end of this week we see a lot more Republicans, even Republicans who are not up in 2014 but who may have some chance by the next election cycle the voters will have forgotten. I am not convinced of that, but it is easy for politicians to convince themselves of that. I hope we see Republicans saying: Listen, this is a conscience vote. This is a vote to do the right thing. I have to say that in my time in the Senate this is the first time I have seen Republican leadership actively whipping the Republican conference to support Harry Reid and give him the power to enact his agenda. I have never seen that before. I am quite confident it is not what Texans expect of me. I am quite confident, when each Republican goes back to his or her home State, it is not what their constituents expect of them. I am also quite confident, if and when we return home and stand in front of our constituents and are asked: Senator, why did you vote yes on cloture to give Harry Reid the power to fund ObamaCare, to gut the House continuing resolution, I am quite confident if the answer was: Our party leadership asked me to do that; I am expected to be a good soldier, to salute and to march into battle--you know what, none of us were elected by party leadership. That is true on the Democratic and Republican side. Listen, if we see Democratic Senators showing courage on this issue to break, I have no doubt the Democratic leadership will be very unhappy with them. I don't want to sugarcoat what the reaction would be. On the Republican side, none of us were elected by our party leadership. We have a different boss. Our boss is the American people. Our boss consists of the constituents who elected us. I am going to submit, if you strip away all the procedural mumbo jumbo, all the smoke and mirrors, our constituents would be horrified to know the games we play, to know this is all set up to be a giant kabuki dance--theater-- where a lot of Republicans vote to give Harry Reid the authority to gut the House continuing resolution to fund ObamaCare and they go home and tell their constituents: Hey, I was voting in support of the House. Boy, with support like that, it is akin to saying you are supporting someone by handing a gun to someone who will shoot you. We don't have to speculate. It is not hypothetical that maybe, kind of, sort of, possibly if you vote for cloture ObamaCare will be funded and the House of Representatives' continuing resolution will be gutted. We know that because Harry Reid has announced it. So any Republican who casts a vote for cloture is saying: Yes, I want Harry Reid to have the power to do that, and then I will vote against it once it no longer matters, once it is a free symbolic vote. I don't think those kind of games are consistent with the obligation we owe to our constituents. I made reference to the IRS employees union asking to be exempted from ObamaCare, and the union sent a letter where they asked their members please send. I want to read that letter. This is prepared, presumably, by the union bosses at the IRS employees union. Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi: Interestingly enough, this letter is directed to the Democratic leaders. When you and the President sought our support, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. By the way, who is saying this? The IRS employees union, the people in charge of enforcing ObamaCare on us, the American people. Right now, unless you under the Obama administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard- earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40- hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle class. I think this letter I am reading may not be the IRS employees union; it may be, in fact, the Teamsters letter. I am going to set that aside and see if we can get the actual IRS union. It is a great letter. I may read it again in the course of this discussion. But I don't think that is the IRS letter since it is signed by James Hoffa. I am pretty confident that was not the IRS employees union. Instead, let me read another note from a constituent. But don't trust me; don't trust any politician on what is happening on ObamaCare; trust the people. A constituent from Spring, TX, wrote on April 12, 2013: My late husband worked for the same company for over 40 years. Because of ObamaCare, this year that company decided it would no longer offer supplemental insurance to Medicare. The program I was forced into has increased my monthly premium by almost $100. Not only that, but the prescription plan has increased the drug plan--a generic one at that--by 30 percent. Ridiculous. This body--Democrats and Republicans--needs to listen to the people. Together, we must make DC listen.

Mr. CRUZ. I yield for a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Utah for that very fine question. The answer as to what we can do is to do what we must, as Americans, what we always have, which is to take the responsibility on ourselves, on our shoulders, to step forward, to engage. Edmund Burke famously said: The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. One of the tremendous aspects of the American character is Americans have never been willing to sit back and do nothing. People all over this country are disillusioned. They are disillusioned because Washington does not listen to us. They are disillusioned because Democratic Senators do not listen to the people and Republican Senators do not listen to the people. I understand that disillusionment. I feel the same way. Everywhere I go in Texas that sentiment is expressed. I do not think there is a State in the Union where they do not feel that sense. But there are moments--moments in time when we can change that. You think back to earlier this year, to another filibuster that occurred on this Senate floor with our friend Senator Rand Paul, when he was standing up to the administration's drone policy. Senator Paul began that filibuster, if I remember correctly, at 11:45 a.m. When he started, virtually every Senator in this Chamber viewed what he was doing as an odd crusade. They did not support it. They did not even understand it. What matters if the Federal Government can use a drone to target a U.S. citizen, to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil? What matters that, thought most Senators. Senator Paul began a brave crusade. I would note, during that filibuster, I was honored to stand side by side with my good friend Senator Lee as we were the first two Senators to stand in support of that and to battle the length of those 13 hours in defense of the Constitution. During the course of that filibuster, we saw what happens when the American people get engaged. Because the American people got engaged at an incredible level, and it forced a change. For 3 consecutive weeks, President Obama had refused to do what he did that very next day, which was admit in writing that the Constitution limits his authority to target U.S. citizens. Indeed, earlier that day before the filibuster began, it so happened that Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Lee and I were both there as part of that testimony. I remember an exchange with the Attorney General where three times I asked the Attorney General if, in his view, the Constitution allowed the U.S. Government to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil if that individual did not pose an imminent threat, and three times he responded: I do not think it would be appropriate to do so. The first time he gave that response, I responded to the Attorney General. I said: Mr. Attorney General, you seem to have misunderstood my question. I was not asking about propriety. After all, he was not there testifying as an etiquette columnist for the local newspaper. I said: You are the Attorney General of the United States. You are the chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America. Does the Department of Justice have a position on whether the Constitution allows the U.S. Government to use a drone to target and kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil if that individual does not pose an imminent threat? Again, the response was: I do not think it would be appropriate. After the third time, I almost felt as if the response was: I do not understand this Constitution to which you are referring. Finally, he conceded in that back and forth: Well, when I say ``appropriate,'' I mean ``constitutional,'' which I find a curious notion that somehow ``appropriate'' and ``constitutional'' are coterminous. You want to talk about what the American people can do? We saw during that, had not that filibuster and the American people mobilized, President Obama would have never admitted in writing what he admitted that next day, which was the Constitution limits his authority. And that matters. We saw another example with the gun debate. Following the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT--which every one of us was horrified at--the President, sadly, did not come out and say: Let us go after violent criminals. And listen, I think we should come down on violent criminals like a ton of bricks. Instead, the President, unfortunately, took it as an opportunity to go after the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, instead of targeting violent criminals, those who would prey on the innocent. The conventional wisdom in Washington was the momentum behind those efforts was unstoppable. Indeed, all the talking heads, the same talking heads who during Rand's filibuster said this is foolish, this is a fool's errand, this cannot work--the American people rose up and spoke and that was proven wrong. During the gun debate, those same talking heads--it is interesting, in the world of punditry there are no consequences for being proven wrong. You just keep going back to making those same gosh darn predictions. And you know what. If you keep making the same prediction often enough, eventually it is going to prove right. In the gun debate all those same talking heads said: You cannot stop it. This is unstoppable. What happened again? The American people got involved by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, calling their Senators, e-mailing their Senators, speaking out at townhalls, saying: Defend the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. We want the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens to be protected. I remember on the floor of this Senate, when it came for a vote, every single proposal of the President that would have undermined the Second Amendment was voted down. That astonished observers. They said it was impossible. It was impossible until the American people engaged. As we discussed not too long ago with Syria, the President advocated, said he was going to engage in a unilateral military strike within days. It was imminent. It was happening. There was bipartisan support from the leadership of both Houses of Congress. All those same pundits--Mr. President, if you are noticing a pattern here, there is a pattern here. These same pundits over and over again said: Whatever President Obama says, that is inevitable. It cannot be stopped. There is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing to see here. Move on. At first the President, quite rightly, listened to bipartisan calls to submit that decision to the constitutional authority of Congress. I was quick to praise him for doing so. And, second, even more difficult, the President showed the wisdom, the prudence to listen to the voice of the American people when the American people spoke out overwhelmingly and said: We do not want to be involved in a sectarian civil war in Syria when we do not have a dog in the fight, when the rebels are in some significant way allied with Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra, radical terrorists, when there is no national security interest in getting us in the middle of this. It was overwhelming, and the entire ship of state turned on a dime. What was inevitable stopped. And it stopped because of the American people. So the question my friend Senator Lee asked--what can the American people do? Do the same thing. But let me tell you now, you have to do it 10 times louder. You have to do it in even greater volume. Because I am sorry to say, Members of this body are dug in at a level they were not dug in on drones, at a level they were not dug in on guns, at a level they were not dug in on Syria. The Democrats in this body, I am sorry to say, have not yet shown the willingness to speak out like James Hoffa of the Teamsters has, have not yet shown the willingness to speak out for their constituents and say: ObamaCare is failing and it is not working. The Republicans in this body--there are quite a few of them who are angry we are having this fight. They believe it is not worthy of the time of this institution. They find themselves offended that the American people would expect us not just to have a symbolic show vote on a ObamaCare but actually to do something. Goodness gracious, this is Congress. We do not do something. Let's have another symbolic vote, and then we can put out a press release. About an hour ago, a member of my staff showed me that this discussion--even though virtually every Senator has gone home and gone to sleep--that this discussion, this debate is not just trending No. 1 in the United States, but in one way, shape, or form is trending No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. I have never seen anything like that. No. 2, I will confess, is Duck Dynasty, but I am going to claim Duck Dynasty as part of it since not too long ago I took the opportunity to read some words of wisdom from Duck Dynasty and I suspect that is not entirely disconnected. I have to admit, I have seen things trend No. 1. I have never seen them trend Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 all at the same time. Given the Senate Chamber has been largely empty for most of the night, it is self-evident that kind of involvement from the American people is not a factor of personalities. It is not a factor of myself or Mike or anyone else. And by the way, everyone who wants to distract from the subject of this debate will try to make it about personalities. If they can get the Washington press corps to write stories about personal flights, about back and forth, about civil war-- my goodness, how many times have we seen the words ``civil war'' in the last week in the press? I am wondering if reporters have it now on a macro: ``Alt'' ``C'' and it types ``civil war.'' Who cares? You know what. If you get out of Washington, DC, I do not know anyone who cares. What Americans care about is they want jobs back. They want economic growth back. They want to get back to work. They want their health care not to be taken away because of ObamaCare. Every effort to talk about anything else is all a deliberate effort to distract from the issue that matters. The reason this is trending Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 is because, for a moment, at least, some in this body are listening to the American people. I hope and believe and think that a great many Americans want to believe that more of us will do so, that more of us on the Republican side of the aisle and more of us on the Democratic side of the aisle will forget party, forget the battle, and actually listen to the people and fight to fix these problems. The question Senator Lee asked is: What can the American people do? I will say, nothing gets the attention of elected representatives more than hearing from their constituents in jaw-dropper numbers, in phone calls and e-mails and tweets and Facebook posts. Some Members of this body express annoyance that why would their constituents have the temerity to dictate to us--the solons of Washington--what to do. The answer is simple. Because our constituents are our boss. We work for them. They have every right to dictate to us. I will note, on a lighter note, my friend Congressman Louie Gohmert, who has been here all night, handed me something that was quite nice. It is from the Daily News. It ran on Friday, November 4, 1949. It is entitled ``Ode to the Welfare State.'' It reads: Mr. Truman's St. Paul, Minn., pie-for-everybody speech last night reminded us that, at the tail-end of the recent session of Congress, Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio) jammed into the Congressional Record the following poem, describing its author only as ``a prominent Democrat of the State of Georgia'': It is titled ``Democratic Dialogue.'' Father must I go to work? No, my lucky son. We're living now on Easy Street On dough from Washington. We've left it up to Uncle Sam, So don't get exercised. Nobody has to give a damn-- We've all been subsidized. But if Sam treats us all so well And feeds us milk and honey, Please daddy, tell me what the heck He's going to use for money. Don't worry bub, there's not a hitch In this here noble plan-- He simply soaks the filthy rich And helps the common man. But father, won't there come a time When they run out of cash And we have left them not a dime When things will go to smash? My faith in you is shrinking son, You nosy little brat. You do too damn much thinking son, To be a Democrat. That is from the Daily News, Friday, November 4, 1949, apparently inserted into the Congressional Record by a Member of Congress. Let's take it a different direction. We talked about liberty, liberty that is at stake here. I want to talk about that same principle. On one level, on the real, on the personal, on the hard-working American families, they are facing a loss of jobs. They are facing small businesses that are not growing. They are facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums. They are facing losing their health insurance. But on another level, we are facing an assault on liberty. Before, we went through some of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Now, I want to go further back to 1850, to read some excerpts from a classic that I would recommend to everyone to read, Frederic Bastiat's, ``The Law.'' The Law is a primer in free enterprise. Though expansion of government programs may be tempting, the designers often have selfish aims, and the program almost always thwarts the liberty and prosperity of the people. He warns of the dangers of programs and the way in which government programs deprive the people of their rights. So Bastiat observes: Life is a gift from God, which includes all others. This gift is life--physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, he has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources, we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course. Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property--this is man. And in spite of the cunning and artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent on the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force--his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective rights--its reason for existing, its lawfulness--is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force--for the same reason--cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. Property and plunder. Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property. But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder. Now, since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain--and since labor is pain in itself--it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder. But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws. That would be us. This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least effort possible, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds. I would note throughout the course of this debate, the central theme I have been focusing on is the disconnect between Washington and the people and the practice right now of Democrats and Republicans not to listen to the people. Let me read again that sentence from Bastiat written in 1850--not written in response to the Senate in 2013--in 1850. He says: This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power he holds. It seems almost as though Bastiat were writing about Congress right now, about the Obama administration granting exemptions from ObamaCare to the friends, to those with political influence, the giant corporations, and to Members of Congress. Why do Members of Congress get an exemption from ObamaCare that hard-working American families do not? Bastiat tells us this 160 years ago. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law and in proportion to the power he holds. Bastiat goes on to talk about the victims of lawful plunder. Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter--by peaceful or revolutionary means-- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it. Now, let me note at this point, this goes directly to the question Senator Lee asked a little bit earlier this morning: What can the American people do? The plundered class, the hard-working American families that are finding their jobs going away, that are finding economic growth stripped away, they are finding themselves forcibly put into part-time work. They are seeing their health insurance premiums skyrocket or are seeing their health insurance jeopardized or taken away. They can come together and force our elected officials in both parties to listen to the people--make DC listen. That is what Bastiat is talking about there. Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws! Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against the other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interest. It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution--some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding. It is almost as if that sentence was written about ObamaCare. I would suggest when you read that sentence and then you pick up and read the letter from James Hoffa of the Teamsters saying: We knocked on doors. We supported President Obama. We block walked. We phone called. We supported your agenda. Now we have discovered that this law, which is your signature achievement that you fought for, is a nightmare that is hurting millions of Americans and their families. That is what James Hoffa said. Or, as Bastiat said: It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution--some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding. Bastiat continued. Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty. Mr. De Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity. I answered him: The second half of your program will destroy the first. In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot. Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy. At this point, I think that I should explain exactly what I mean by the word plunder. Plunder violates ownership. I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptance--as expressing the idea opposite to that of property [wages, land, money, or whatever.] When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it--without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud--to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed. I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this act that it is so supposed to suppress, I say that plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights is even worse. In the case of legal plunder, however, the person who receives the benefits is not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society itself. Therein lies the political danger. The Law and Charity. You say: There are persons who have no money, and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless another citizen or other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder. I would note the adage that any legislator who proposes to rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. Going back to Bastiat: With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice. Legislators Desire to Mold Mankind. Now let us examine Raynal on this subject of mankind being molded by the legislator. The legislator must first consider the climate, the air, and the soil. The resources at his disposal determine his duties. He must first consider his locality. A population living on maritime shores must have laws designed for navigation. . . . If it is an inland settlement, the legislator must make his plans according to the nature and the fertility of the soil. Frederic Bastiat--1915--explained principles of liberty that continue across the ages, principles of liberty that we owe it to every man and woman in America to protect his or her life, liberty, and property. ObamaCare does violence to the natural rights of every American; it does violence to their opportunity. Do you know the cruelest joke of all? ObamaCare has been justified: Let's help the least among us. That is a noble goal. We should all care about helping the least among us. The cruelest irony is that the people who are being hurt the most by ObamaCare are the least among us. The rich, as the President frequently inveighs, millionaires and billionaires, are not hurt by ObamaCare. They are doing just fine. In fact, they are doing better. The richest segment of this country is doing better today than they were when President Obama was elected. Who is getting hurt? Who is losing their jobs? Who is not finding jobs? Who is getting their hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week? Who is losing their health insurance? I have read one letter after another from people across Texas and across this country, and not one of these letters said: I am independently wealthy, cruising on my yacht in the Caribbean, and yet ObamaCare has crimped my style. That is not what is happening. These are letters I read from the retired couple in Bayou Vista who had saved their whole life to buy their home, and now they are at risk of losing their home because of ObamaCare. Let me read from another constituent in Houston, TX, my hometown, who on July 11, 2013, wrote: My wife and I are currently both working jobs where there is no provided health care coverage. My wife is a self- employed physician and I am in sales. We have never gone without health coverage our entire lives. My father was in the military, so I had health care until I graduated college. My wife had coverage through her parents until she graduated. We never wanted to go without coverage, so anytime our coverage had a break we went ahead and bought catastrophic short-term coverage, even knowing we would have coverage soon. While my wife was in medical school, I had employer coverage, and I bought an individual policy for her because it was much less costly than group coverage. When my employment status changed and neither of us had employer coverage, I bought individual policies for both of us. We would not risk going without health insurance. Because we were both young and healthy at the time, the policies were very affordable, about $130 a month. Purchasing coverage was a no brainer. While in her residency, we got family coverage through her work. When she finished her residency in 2012, neither of us had employer coverage, so it came time for another policy. We looked around at all the options for a family of four, two 30-year-old adults, a 2-year-old boy and a newborn girl. We found a HTIP plan for $400 a month with a $10,000 deductible. We also had scrimped and saved so that in the event we had a catastrophe we would have a deductible coverage. After that our plan paid for 100 percent. This is the best coverage I had ever purchased. I had become an educated consumer in health care, shopping around for the best deals on medications, and informing doctors of our situation so they coded it properly. When we needed care we opted for urgent care and physicians' offices instead of emergency rooms. Many of my young healthy friends now have these plans, either individually purchased or through their employers. As of January 1, most of these plans will go away for us, as most of my friends are around 30 years old. These plans are actually decreasing the cost of health care as they inspire us to be educated consumers. Unlike what the President said, I don't get to ``keep my plan.'' I never thought that not purchasing insurance would be an option for my family. I have done a fair amount of research using the IRS info, current and estimated prices, even my own insurance company's estimates. It looks like for the cheapest, bronze plan, the estimated cost will be about $1,600 per month, which is $20,000 per year. We don't qualify for subsidies. If I choose not to comply, I would pay a fine which, for us, amounts to about $2,000 and save the $18,000 balance in a bank account. Our fine will max out at about $5,000, so I will still have $15,000 per year. I will now begin paying cash for my health care and negotiate with doctors and hospitals myself. As I get older I will consider big insurance when it looks like the cost-benefit ratio is better. No one in my family has ever gone without coverage because health care is the No. 1 priority on our list. It still is, but this individual mandate has caused us to consider going without insurance for the first time. I would gladly keep my fine if I could keep my current insurance, but that is not an option either. Here is one of my friends' stories. He is a high school teacher and his wife is a stay-at-home mom with two kids. His district pays for all of his coverage and none of his spouse's. This year they opted to purchase an individual plan for her because it was more affordable, $150 a month versus $500. Beginning January 1, she will be forced into the exchange, where her estimated cost will be about $400. They currently cannot afford this, and they don't qualify for a subsidy because her employer offers coverage for her, even though her income would qualify her for a 50 percent subsidy. They will choose not to have insurance coverage on them. Many of the young, healthy people I have talked to told me they plan to go without insurance--people who currently purchase individual plans--because the coverage would be too expensive and the fine for most of them is much less than the coverage. As was told to the American people, if you like your health coverage, you can keep it. We now know that promise was simply, objectively, 100 percent false. For Americans all over this country, the facts are otherwise. It is incumbent on us, representing our constituents, to look to the reality of these facts. Look to the young people. I don't think you could design a plan designed to harm young people more than ObamaCare. It is more than a crying irony that some 70 percent of young people voted for the President. I recognize that young people didn't necessarily understand the consequences of ObamaCare and how it is impacting their future. It is one of the things on which I hope this debate will focus. If you are a young person coming out of school, have some student loans, and let's say you are hoping for a job and for a future, if you can't get that first job or if you are forced into part-time work, you are not going to gain the skills you need to get that second job, the third job, the fourth job, or to build a career, to get married, and to provide for your family. We read earlier from the Wall Street Journal describing how economists now talk about young people as the ``lost generation.'' One of the striking consequences of this is that young people are putting off marriage and putting off kids. We know that has societal consequences. That has societal consequences that are altogether detrimental. And they are doing it not for matters of individual choice, they are doing it because the economy is so terrible for young people that they have no options. They have no options to provide for a spouse, to provide for kids, so they rationally choose not to begin those families until they have a job sufficient to provide for their families. This thing isn't working. Every one of us owes it to our constituents to listen, to listen to the young people who are suffering, to listen to the single moms, to listen to the seniors, to listen to those with disabilities, to listen to the African Americans, to listen to the Hispanics who aren't getting jobs, are getting forcibly put in part- time work, facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and who are losing their health insurance. We can vote party loyalty. That is easy to do. It is the way Washington often works. We can vote and say: Congress is exempted. We have special rules that apply to us, so it is not our problem. Yes, it hurts hard-working Americans. If there is one thing Washington knows how to do, it is ignore the plight of hard-working Americans. Or we can show a level of coverage that has been rare in this town and step up and say we will risk retribution from our own parties. We will stand up and speak the truth. We will stand up and champion our constituents. Elected officials need to listen to the people. Together, we must make D.C. listen.

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield for a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Utah for his very kind comments regarding my father, and I will say that he and I--I will paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, who said: If I have seen a little bit further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. I will say one thing. Senator Lee and I are both fortunate. We are blessed to be the sons of fathers whom we admire immensely and who, I think for both of us, played a big part in trying to raise us to be principled, to fight for liberty, and to fight for the Constitution. When you think about the journeys to freedom that constitute who we are as American people, all of us have a story. It doesn't matter--in any group you go to, you could get 1,000 people in an audience, and each person could come up to the microphone and tell their family story of someone who risked everything to be here. My dad as a kid was born in Cuba. We mentioned earlier that his father had come from the Canary Islands when he was 1. As a young man-- my dad was 14 when he began to get involved in the Cuban Revolution. At the time, Batista was the dictator. Batista was cruel, corrupt, closely aligned with the Mafia, and he was oppressive. The revolution occurred--dad was a 14-year-old boy, and I am looking at the pages who are sitting here now who are older than 14, and I would suggest, if you could imagine at the age of 14 finding yourself in a war, finding yourself fighting a war, hoping to liberate the country, being asked to fight against the army, and being asked to fight for freedom. The revolution was being fought on behalf of Fidel Castro, and indeed my father was one of many freedom fighters who fought on behalf of Castro. My father didn't know Castro. He was a kid. He was not a high ranking person in the revolution. I can tell you, my dad and the kids who were fighting, none of them knew at the time Fidel Castro was a communist. As my father describes it today, he says: Look, we were all 14- and 15-year-old boys. We were too dumb to know about that. We were just fighting for freedom. We just wanted to get out from under the boot of Batista. For 4 years my father fought with the revolution. When he turned 17, my dad went out and partied. He was enjoying himself. He was a 17-year- old young revolutionary. He was in a white suit. You know, Senator Lee, Latinos love white suits. He was in a white suit and he was partying it up in Havana and he disappeared. For several days my grandfather went looking for him. My grandfather--my grandparents knew their son was involved in the revolution. He hadn't hid that from his parents. And they also knew if your son is involved in the revolution and he disappears, it is a bad, bad thing. Well, after searching for him for several days--searching the jails, searching around--they found my dad. He was in a jail. He had been imprisoned, and he had been tortured. I will confess to this day I don't know a lot about what happened. Different people have different experiences. My father doesn't talk much about it. To the best of my knowledge, other than our colleague Senator John McCain, whom all of us respect immensely for his tremendous service and sacrifice to this Nation, I am not aware of any of our colleagues in this body who have experienced anything like imprisonment and torture--and what my father experienced was a tiny fraction of what John McCain went through in the years he was in that Vietnam prison. But my dad, when I was growing up, never would really tell me what happened there. But I remember one night when I was a kid--I think I was in high school, maybe junior high or high school, I don't remember--my dad and I had gone to see the movie Rambo. My dad and I both liked movies. He had taken me to see Rambo, and it was a fun movie to see as a kid. It happened that night--my parents owned a small business, and my dad had one of his clients over for dinner--that during the course of dinner, my father was talking to his client, and he was feeling a little gregarious, and he started talking. He said: You know, my son Ted and I went to see Rambo this evening. And you might remember there is a pretty nasty scene where Rambo is strapped to a bed frame and being subjected to electric shock. Not a very pleasant scene in the movie. My dad was saying: You know, the Cubans weren't nearly so fancy when it came to torture. We watched the movie Rambo. They didn't have any fancy bed frames and electric shock or anything. The Cubans were much more simple in their torture. Basically, they would just come in every hour and beat the living daylights out of you. They would just beat you, and beat you, and beat you. Then they would leave, come back in an hour and do it again. I can tell you my grandmother said when my dad came out of that jail cell in Cuba the white suit he was wearing, you couldn't see a spot of white on it, that every inch of that suit was covered with mud and blood from where he had been beaten. And my father's teeth, she said, were dangling from his mouth in shards. Today, my father is a pastor in Dallas, and his front teeth are not his own because when he was a kid they were kicked out of his mouth in a Cuban jail. He got out of that jail and at that point my grandfather told him, he said: Look, Rafael, they know who you are now. In fact, the Batista police were following my dad hoping he would lead them to others in the revolution. The only reason he got out is they thought: Well, maybe if we let him go he will be dumb enough to go to some other people in the revolution and we can track them down too. So my grandfather said: Listen, they know who you are. At this point they are just going to hunt you down and kill you. You can't stay here. So my father applied to three U.S. universities. He applied to the University of Miami, he applied to LSU, and he applied to the University of Texas. It was pure happenstance that the first one to let him in was the University of Texas. Had it been otherwise, had it been the University of Miami, I might today be a constituent of our friend Marco Rubio. But it so happened it was the University of Texas, and that led to my father getting on a plane in 1957 when he was 18. I want again to talk to the pages who are here. Some of you may be 18 or near it. I want you to imagine at the age of 18 getting on a plane and flying away from your family, thousands of miles away to another country--to a country where you don't know anybody, you don't have any family, and you don't speak the language. Imagine walking off the plane. My father had the suit on his back. He couldn't take anything with him. He couldn't take a suitcase or anything. He was wearing a suit. The one possession he had was a slide rule that was in his pocket. I see looks of somewhat confusion on the faces of the pages. I note anytime I talk to young people they have utterly no idea what a slide rule is. That was the one possession he had that he had taken from Cuba. And my grandmother, before he left, sewed $100 into the inside of his underwear. She wanted him to have at least a little money when he landed. So in 1957 he shows up in Austin, and his first priority was to get a place to live. So he went and found a place to live. And then he had to get a job. And the job he got was washing dishes. Why washing dishes? Because you didn't have to speak English. He couldn't speak English. He made 50 cents an hour. He didn't have to talk to anyone. He could take a dish, stick it under hot water, scrub it, and move on to the next one. That he could do. My dad worked 7 days a week washing dishes and then as a cook to pay his way through the University of Texas. And times were tight. I can't imagine. I didn't have to go through that. I don't believe Senator Lee had to go through the experience of going to school full time and working full time. My dad worked 7 days a week while he was going to school full time as a student. It wasn't that he wanted to. He didn't have any other alternatives. There wasn't anyone else providing for him. I remember a couple of stories my father told me of his time in college. With the indulgence of the Chair, I will share those stories because they are stories, I think, of the American experience; they are shared experience. The great thing about working in a restaurant is they let you eat while you work. So during the 8 hours, he would eat those 8 hours. The other 16 hours he wouldn't eat. It was even better when he got promoted to being a cook, because as a cook you really got a chance to eat. For example, one of the things the restaurant served was fried shrimp. My dad had a policy that anyone who ordered a dozen shrimp, he would cook 13 and eat one. During the course of the day a lot of people would order fried shrimp, and he would just eat one steadily throughout the day. My dad used to try to drink 6 or 7 glasses of milk during the day. He figured there was no percentage in water, and he needed the nutrients. Because when he left, he was going another 16 hours without eating until he came back to work the next day. He didn't have money for food. There was one little exception. There was a coffee shop he found in town. He went in one day, and he splurged. It was one of the few times he actually spent money, and he spent money for a cup of coffee. Another gentleman in the coffee shop came in and ordered some toast. My dad saw the waitress take out of a bag a fresh loaf of bread, take both of the heels and throw them away, and then take two other slices of bread, put them in the toaster and toast them. My father said: What are you doing? You are throwing away perfectly good food. And she said: well, we can't serve the heels. When you are desperate and you are hungry, you have incentive to do all sorts of things, and so my father said: Listen, do me a favor. Save them for me. Just save them for me. You can't serve them, I will eat them. He used to go into that coffee shop, and that waitress very kindly would save the heels when she opened a new loaf. When he would come in she would have five, six, or seven heels. She would toast them and give him butter, and he would order one cup of coffee and have five or six heels of toast and drink his coffee. Another similar story. There were a lot of immigrants at the University of Texas who didn't have two nickels between them, and he went over to some friends who I think were brothers and they invited him over for dinner. He was sitting down for dinner with a big pot of black beans. Cubans love black beans. When he was reaching in to get black beans, they said: Watch out for the nail. Watch out for the nail? What on Earth are you talking about? These two brothers explained: Look, we don't have money for food. So what little money we have, we have enough to have beans each night, and we have enough to purchase a little tiny paper-thin steak. The brothers said: Initially, we started to cut the steak in half so we would each eat it. To be honest, we both left hungry and we weren't happy with that. So we decided instead of doing that, we would take a nail, drop it in the beans, and we would fish for the nail. Whoever got the nail with their beans got the whole steak and the other brother didn't get any steak at all. They said: Rafael, since you are our guest--and he was kind of waiting for them to say we are going to give you the steak, but they were not quite that generous. But they said: Since you are our guest, we will give you half of the steak and we are going to fish for the nail for the other half. One other story. In his freshman or sophomore year, I'm not sure which, my dad and a couple of other Cubans who were students there decided they wanted to have a Christmas dinner. The Cuban tradition of Christmas is to roast a whole pig. Indeed, if I may digress, when I was dating my wife Heidi--Heidi is the love of my life, she is my best friend. She was raised in California. She and her whole family are vegetarians. I remember Heidi brought me back to meet her parents for Christmas, and we were sitting there having Christmas dinner. I would note that a vegetarian Christmas dinner is just like any other Christmas dinner except the entree never comes. Everything else is wonderful, but you keep waiting for them to bring out the entree and it is not there. My now in-laws, who are wonderful tremendous people, who were missionaries and just wonderful people, they were trying to get to know this strange young man their daughter had brought home. And they said: Ted, tell us, how does your family celebrate Christmas? I said: Well, we are Cuban, and the Cuban tradition is that on Christmas Eve we roast a whole pig. I must tell you the look of abject horror. If you can imagine a table full of California vegetarians, when I said we roast a whole pig. I don't think if I had said we consumed live kittens it would have more horrified them than that so viscerally carnivorous tale. But my dad and a couple of his Cuban buddies decided they wanted to have a Christmas dinner, and to actually celebrate. So they drove to a farm just outside of Austin. They found some farmers in central Texas and said: Listen, is there any chance we could somehow buy a little piglet from you? Can we do something so we could get it and roast it? We would like to have it at Christmas Eve dinner. These farmers decided they wanted to have fun with my dad and these kids, so they said: Tell you what. We will take this little piglet and let him loose in a corral filled with mud. If you can catch it, you can have him for free. My dad and his friends chased that piglet for close to an hour, running around in the mud. They finally caught the piglet, the farmers gave it to them, they took it home, and they roasted it for Christmas Eve. The epilogue to the story about my in-laws is that when Heidi and I became engaged, her mother called her and said: Sweetheart, are you prepared to catch the pig? Thankfully Heidi reassured her she was quite confident in our marriage that there would be no pig catching that she would indeed be carrying out, and that has indeed proven true. All of us have stories about our families. My father has been my inspiration ever since I was a kid because I think it is a great blessing, a tremendous blessing to be the child of someone who has fled oppression, to be the child of someone who came here seeking freedom. It makes you realize that what we have in the United States of America is precious, it is wonderful, it is unique, and we cannot possibly risk giving it up. At the same time, I am amazed at how commonplace my father's story is. Every American has a story just like that. Sometimes it is us, sometimes it is our parents, sometimes it is our great-great- grandparents. But I have yet to encounter someone who doesn't have a story like that in their background, often closer than one might think. I think the most shared characteristic among all of us as Americans is we are the children of those who risked everything for freedom. Sometimes people ask, what differentiates Americans from, say, Europeans, Americans from other countries? I think more than anything it is in our DNA to value liberty and opportunity above all else. When ObamaCare was being passed 3\1/2\ years ago, I think the proponents believed--in fact, they stated--that once it is in place Americans would come to love it and would give up their liberty, would give up their freedom in exchange for bread and circuses. Yet 3\1/2\ years later we see ObamaCare is less popular now than it was then. That is true all over the country. That is true in every region. That is true among Republicans, among Democrats, among Independents, and among Libertarians. There are several reasons for that. One is simple facts. Forget party ideology affiliations. The simple fact is this isn't working. If you look at it on its face, it is a train wreck, as the Democratic Senator who was the lead author of ObamaCare has described. On its face it is a nightmare, as James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, has described it. ObamaCare in practice is killing jobs all over this country. It is causing small businesses to stay small, not to grow, not to create jobs. It is causing Americans all over this country to forcibly reduce to 29 hours a week. Do you know who is being reduced the most? It ain't the rich. It ain't, as the President likes to put it, the millionaires and billionaires. The millionaires and billionaires are doing great. They are richer today than when President Obama was elected. I think the biggest lie in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of the rich. I think it is a complete and total falsehood. The rich do great with big government. Business does great with big government. Why? Because big business gets into bed with big government. What have we seen with ObamaCare? The rich and powerful get special exemptions. Big businesses? The President exempts them. Members of Congress? The President exempts us. It is the little guy who doesn't have an army of lobbyists, doesn't have special interests, the little guy is the one left out. So who are the people losing their jobs? Who are the people forcibly having reduced hours? Who are the people facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums? Who are the people having their insurance dropped? It is people such as the disabled retirees whose letters I was reading earlier today. It is people like my father. If ObamaCare was the law in 1957, when my father was washing dishes, I think it is a virtual certainty that he would have found his hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours a week--if he had been lucky enough to get a job in the first place. He might not have been hired at all. That is happening to people all over the country. The people who are losing under ObamaCare are people like my dad, teenaged kids who don't speak English, who are recent immigrants, who are Hispanic, who are African Americans, single moms. I have a good friend who is now a justice on the Texas Supreme Court whose mom was a single mom and waited tables. He computed the distance she walked as a waitress to bring him up. I don't remember the exact measurements, but it was some remarkable number of times walking from the Earth to the Moon and back that she walked so her kids could have a better life. That single mom who was waiting tables, her son is now a justice in the Texas Supreme Court. That is the story of America. But if ObamaCare had been in place, that single mom waiting tables is working 29 hours a week. Try feeding a family on 29 hours a week. You can't do it. It cannot be done. So what happens instead? People get their hours forcibly reduced. They either can't earn enough to feed their family so they leave the workforce altogether and they go on welfare. Not that they want to. They want to be working. But if Congress has passed a law so that the only job they can get is 29 hours a week, that is not enough to feed their family. Right now one in seven Americans is on food stamps. What a travesty. It is not a travesty from the perspective of the budget; it is not a travesty from the perspective of the taxpayers. It is a travesty from the perspective of those people on food stamps who would rather be working, who would rather have the dignity of work to provide for their family and to climb the economic ladder. My dad started washing dishes, but he didn't stay there. After washing dishes he got a job as a cook. After a cook he got a job as a teaching assistant. After a teaching assistant he got hired at IBM as a computer programmer. Then he started his own business. If he doesn't get hired washing dishes, he doesn't get the next job as a cook, he doesn't get the next job as a teaching assistant, he doesn't get the next job at IBM, he doesn't get the next job starting his own business. If you look at those single moms who are waiting tables and suddenly get their hours reduced to 29 hours a week, if she ends up giving up, going on food stamps, going on welfare, saying I can't earn enough in the market to provide for my family, not only does that have devastating effects on her and on her kids, but it also means she won't have a chance to move up the ladder. She won't have a chance to get that next job. Maybe if she was waiting tables, she would get promoted to being assistant manager and then manager. Maybe she would have another opportunity moving up the ladder. But if she doesn't get on that first rung, we know to an absolute certainty you won't go to the second or third rung. What a travesty. This is a country of unlimited opportunity, and ObamaCare is cutting off that opportunity. It is shutting down that opportunity. Those are who are hurt the most under ObamaCare. There are many reasons why ObamaCare is problematic. It is problematic because it is the biggest job killer in America. It is a train wreck because it is forcing more and more people to be driven into part-time work 29 hours a week. The second thing the single mom can do--suppose she doesn't give up. Suppose she says, Darn it, I want to work to provide for my kids. I am not going to give up. I am not going to go on welfare and stop working in the workplace. The other option is to go find another job. So then she has two jobs at 29 hours a week. Her kids now see less of their mom. And, by the way, neither one gives her health care. So the Affordable Care Act and all the great benefits of that haven't helped her at all. Instead of being at one job where she could work and focus on that one job and potentially climb the ladder to different opportunities, she is working two part-time jobs. Part-time jobs are much harder to advance in your career with. She is also dealing with commuting. She has got to get from one job to the other. For a single mom whose time is at a premium, who would like to be at her kids' soccer game if ever she could work the schedule to do that, if she has to drive from one place to the other back and forth, there are a lot of soccer games that single mom is never getting to, not to mention the headaches of having two different jobs and two different bosses. If you have boss No. 1 who says, I want you to work Tuesday morning, and boss No. 2 says, I want you to work Tuesday morning at my place, how do you balance those? Both of them say, I don't care about your other job. I need you here. What a nightmare. ObamaCare is a train wreck. It is a nightmare because it is killing jobs, because it is driving up health insurance, because it is causing more and more people to lose their health insurance. But it is also fundamentally wrong for a broader reason: because it infringes on our liberty. The Federal Government is telling every American: You must purchase health insurance. The individual mandate, we are going to make you purchase health insurance. If not, the IRS is going to come and find you. The Federal Government is telling Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals, Christian companies like Hobby Lobby: You must pay for health insurance procedures that violate your religious dictates. They may not violate everyone's religious dictates. There may be a lot of people in this country who have no religious qualms about that whatsoever, and that is fine. Each of us is entitled--indeed, encouraged--to seek out God Almighty with all of our heart, mind, and soul as best we can, and we will follow different paths. But I guarantee you, if the Federal Government can tell Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals: You must violate your religious beliefs or we are going to fine you out of business; if the Federal Government can tell that to Hobby Lobby, a Christian company, they can tell that to you too. Whatever your religious beliefs happen to be, if the Federal Government can say: Violate your religious faith or we are coming after you, that is a dangerous Rubicon we have crossed. We are a nation that was founded on liberty. Always defend liberty. You can't go wrong with that as a mantra. In the interest of that, I would like to share a few excerpts of one of my favorite books, ``Atlas Shrugged'' by Ayn Rand. Let me encourage any of you who have not read ``Atlas Shrugged'' to go tomorrow and buy ``Atlas Shrugged'' and read it. What is interesting is in the last 3 years sales of ``Atlas Shrugged'' have exploded, because we are living in the days of Ayn Rand. I will share a few excerpts that are all fundamentally about liberty and the liberty that ObamaCare infringes. Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth and the image of one's values--that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape-- There is a phrase you don't hear often in modern parlance. --on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay-- My, is that happening across this country as a result of ObamaCare, people being forced to settle down into jobs that require less than our mind's full capacity --that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.'' A few other excerpts. What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. Boy, that is counsel the Senate should listen to. That is counsel I would encourage for every Democratic Senator who feels the urge of party loyalty, to stand by their party, to stand by ObamaCare because it is the natural thing to do. Yet we saw union leaders, we saw the roofers union, we saw James Hoffa of the Teamsters say they cannot remain silent any longer. Why? Because of the suffering ObamaCare is visiting on so many working men and women. It is a nightmare, according to James Hoffa of the Teamsters. I encourage my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, as difficult as it is to cross one's party leaders--I say with perhaps a little familiarity with the consequences of so doing that it is survivable and that ultimately it is liberating; that the Democratic Senators of this body maintain their fidelity, their loyalty not to the party apparatus, not to the party bosses, but to the men and women who sent them here, to the men and women like the union members of the Teamsters who are pleading with Members of Congress: Hear our suffering. ObamaCare is a nightmare. With that prism in mind, let me reread Ayn Rand's excerpt: What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. You know, at any price? Look, at the end of the day, a Member of the Senate bucks his or her party leadership, and to be honest, the prices are all pretty piddly. What a coddled world we live in that we think that if someone says a cross word to you at a cocktail party or, God forbid, even worse, leaks a scurrilous lie to some reporter, that truly is a grievous insult. Goodness gracious, compared to what the people have gone through, compared to the suffering my dad went through being tortured in a Cuban prison, that is all mild. To be honest, compared to the single moms who are just wanting to provide for their kids, give them a good home, give them a good example, help them get a good future, the retribution any political party can impose on us for daring to buck the leadership is so mild and inconsequential, it is not even worth mentioning. Let me encourage every Democratic Senator to try to meet that definition of morality: Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. Let me encourage my Republican colleagues, there may be some Republicans who are inclined to vote for cloture on this bill, to give majority leader Harry Reid and the Democrats the ability to fund ObamaCare on a straight party-line vote, as some of my colleagues have publicly said they are so inclined. It is my sincere hope that between now and the vote on Friday or Saturday, their better angels prevail. Listen, any Democrat who crosses the aisle to vote with us will face swift retribution, but at the end of the day we have a higher obligation. We have an obligation to the constituents who sent us here. Any Republican--I know there are some Republicans who are saying: I am going to support cloture. I am going to support giving Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare. Why? Because my leadership is telling me to, and I am a good soldier. I will salute and march into battle in whatever direction leadership instructs. I will confess that Republicans are sometimes even more susceptible to such commands to being orderly. Let me commend to every Republican, ask yourself that same test that Ayn Rand laid out. What is morality, she asked. Judgment to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it; dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price. I can tell you this: If any one of the 46 Republicans in this body asks not what does our party leadership want us to do but asks the more important question of, what do our constituents want us to do, I tell you this: If I get any gathering of Texans, Texans are not conflicted. If I ask a gathering of Texans--and by the way, it doesn't matter what part of Texas--east Texas, west Texas, the panhandle, down in the valley. I was in a gathering down in the valley a few weeks ago. The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is the poorest part of the State. My friend Senator Lee knows the valley well because he was a missionary down in the valley. In fact, he has darned good Spanish as a result of living in the valley in Texas. In fact, I think that gives Texas a reason to claim him unofficially as a third Senator. He may not acquiesce to that, but we will claim him anyway. I was at a gathering in the valley a few weeks ago, 200, 300 people. I would guess a significant percentage if not a majority of the people in that room were probably Democrats. A majority of them were Mexican Americans. You know, I try to make a policy of giving the same remarks standing for the same principles regardless of whether I am talking with a group I think will necessarily agree with me or will not. The bulk of the remarks I gave to that group before taking Q and A from the group for some time were focused on defunding ObamaCare, and it was really striking that in that group, which was largely if not predominantly Hispanic Democrats in the valley in Texas, when it came to defunding ObamaCare, to stopping the train wreck that is ObamaCare, the result was rousing sustained applause and cheers. Why? Because if you get out of the partisan prison that is Washington, it is not complicated. There is a reason why labor unions want out. There is a reason the Teamsters, who describe that they have been knocking on doors as loyal foot soldiers for the Democratic Party, are saying: This is a nightmare. Repeal ObamaCare. Repeal it because it is a nightmare. There is a reason why Members of Congress, why Majority Leader Reid and Democratic Senators who support ObamaCare so much for the American people said: Good golly, get us out from under it. We certainly do not want to be subject to the same rules the American people are. There is a reason why the IRS employees' union is saying: Even though we are enforcing ObamaCare, please get us out from under it. Under the objective facts, this is not working. I urge every Republican who is here, before you make a decision how to vote on cloture on this bill on Friday or Saturday--and I think certainly in the time I have been in the Senate this is the most consequential vote I will cast and I believe any Member of this body will cast during the time I have been here--I ask every Republican to ask not simply what this party leadership wants you to do but what is the right thing to do for your constituents. If you gather 100 of your constituents together in a room and you ask them: How should I vote on this motion--let me frame it a little more explicitly because, you know, politicians are sometimes crafty characters. Some politicians say: I could get 100 of my citizens, and I could frame in some abstract procedural way how I would vote on the cloture to take up the bill to do the whatchamacallit and it would really be supporting the House bill. What do you think? We can talk fast enough that we can confuse some people in the room for a few minutes. But let me suggest to any Republican Senator, gather at random 100 of your constituents--I am going to suggest even broader: not 100 Republicans, 100 constituents--and pose the following question to them: Should I as your Republican Senator vote to allow Harry Reid and the Democrats to fully fund ObamaCare with no changes, no improvements to address the train wreck that is ObamaCare on a purely party-line partisan vote of only Democrats? I will wager all the money in my bank account that every one of the--by the way, you could pick the bluest State for which a Republican Senator represents that State--I will wager that in that State, if you grab 100 of your constituents, it would not be a 50-50 proposition. I don't even think it would be a 60- 40 proposition. Your constituents overwhelmingly would say: No, don't vote to give Harry Reid the ability to fund ObamaCare without fixing this train wreck, without stopping this nightmare. All that it takes for us to do the right thing is to listen to the people. It is not complicated. It is not rocket science. Listen to the people. Ayn Rand in ``Atlas Shrugged'' also held: The nation which once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production is now told that it is achieved by squalor. She also observed: Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth. God has created men and women to be free creatures. It is not benefiting anyone to strip them of their liberty, to make them dependent on government. I cannot tell you how many times I have said: Thank the good Lord that when my dad was a teenage immigrant in Texas 55 years ago, how grateful I am that some well-meaning liberal did not come and put his arm around him and say: Let me take care of you. Let me give you a government check. Let me make you dependent on the government. Don't bother washing those dishes. Don't bother working. I am going to take care of your every need. And by the way, don't bother learning English. I respect your culture so much that I am going to lock you out of the business and professional classes in this country. I am going to make sure that if you do work, you are almost surely going to be consigned to menial labor because you cannot communicate with the significant majority of Americans. What a destructive thing to do to someone. If someone had done that to my father and he had listened, I am hard-pressed to think of anything that would have been more destructive. At the end of the day these points are not partisan or ideological; they are common sense. They are who we are as Americans. Ask any abuelo or abuela: What do you want for your grandkids? Do you want your grandkids dependent on government? Do you want your grandkids receiving government support or do you want them working? Do you want them working in a job, working hard? Do you want them climbing the economic ladder to success? Do you want them in a career where they can have a better life than you had and their parents had? Do you want them working in a job? I don't know of a grandmother in this country who would find that a difficult choice. That is a choice that is basic common sense. It is fundamentally destructive to the human spirit not to be able to work and stand on your own feet. After standing here for 14 hours, I can say that when you are standing on your own feet, sometimes there is pain and sometimes some fatigue that is involved. But you know what. There is far more pain involved in rolling over, far more pain in hiding in the shadows, far more pain in not standing for principle, not standing for the good, not standing for integrity. That is what it means to be an American. We do the hard things. To all the Republicans who say fighting this fight is going to be very hard, I sure hope they didn't run for the Senate because they wanted something easy to do. I sure hope they didn't run for the Senate because they wanted to avoid hard challenges. To the Democrats who say, I couldn't buck the party leadership, gosh, it would make the White House mad, make the party leadership mad, and make our leadership in the Senate mad, we have to be united, Team, team, team. We are not a team. We represent the people. You know the team that each of us is on? It is the American team. It is a team where we have an obligation to the men and women who sent us here. Let me be clear: We have an obligation to all the men and women who sent us here. I have an obligation not just to Republicans in the State of Texas and not just to those who voted for me in the State of Texas, although there were quite a few voters in the State of Texas who voted for President Obama and voted for me. If you listen to Washington conventional wisdom, they would suggest that is impossible. I was pleased to get a number of Texans who did that. Even those who voted against me and disagree with everything I am doing, I still have an obligation to represent them and to try to use my best judgment and try to listen to them and fight for them. I am convinced that every one of the 26 million Texans in my State will be better. They will have a better future, a better life, and an environment where economic growth comes back and small businesses are thriving and creating jobs and not shrinking. They will have opportunities so they are not forced into part-time work but will have full-time opportunities so more people who are like my dad--teenaged kids who can't speak English--can get that first job washing dishes. That first job helps them to get the second job, the third job, and the fourth job. I believe in the American dream with all of my heart and might. The American dream is being jeopardized by ObamaCare, and that is a travesty that should outrage and horrify everyone in the Senate. For everyone on the Republican side who said this is hard, we might be blamed; there might be some political blame; let's let it all collapse--I have heard Republicans say, especially the pundits, Gosh, to get on TV--I will tell you that one of the best ways to get on TV is to just advise and then run away from any battle that matters. They put you on TV a lot if that is your advice. What they say is, if Republicans stand and fight this fight, the President and Harry Reid might force a shutdown and Republicans might get blamed and, gosh, that could hurt us politically. Beyond that you might hear--and this is the very clever Republicans--ObamaCare is such a train wreck and a nightmare that we just need to sit quietly. James Hoffa said he couldn't sit silent anymore, but Republicans say to sit silently and let ObamaCare collapse on its own weight. Never mind that Harry Reid said when it collapses on its own weight, it will lead us to single-payer socialized health care. Why? Because it will destroy the private health insurance. Never mind that. We have been told that if we do nothing, it will collapse on its own weight and everyone will blame the Democrats. Let me make it very clear: Who cares? Listen, if everyone will blame the Democrats, then consider me the person trying to actively save the Democrats from that blame. I would gladly celebrate any Democrat brave enough to stand and say: Listen, I used to think ObamaCare was a good idea. I supported it, and I am persuaded by the facts and by my constituents. This thing isn't working. People are hurting. When President Obama reversed course and listened to bipartisan calls to submit his decision to launch a unilateral military attack on Syria to the will of Congress, I happily and loudly praised President Obama for submitting to the constitutional authority of this party. When he went even further and listened to the calls from the American people not to put us in the middle of that sectarian war, I again happily and enthusiastically praised President Obama for being willing to change his mind and turn back because he listened to the voice of the American people. That was the right thing to do. For everyone who thinks this is hard, I would like to turn to some of my favorite remarks from a Republican President who I suspect many on the Democratic side of the aisle admire as well because he was one of the most progressive Republicans, although he was not shy in any way, shape or form. Indeed, Teddy Roosevelt was once giving a speech, and he was shot during the speech. He finished the speech before seeking medical attention. There was an old episode on ``Saturday Night Live''--the pages have probably never seen this--that was ``Quien es mas Macho,'' which means who is more macho. You know what. Teddy Roosevelt quien es mas macho. If you get shot while giving a speech and stand there and finish the speech, you win. Even Sean Connery is looking at him and going, wow, that guy is tough. I will read the words Teddy Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. These are words for everyone who thinks this fight is too hard or that we shouldn't take a risk or we shouldn't risk political blame. These are words that every one of us should listen to: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man-- Or the woman-- who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Yes, you can avoid risk. You can avoid doing the hard thing. You can avoid doing the things where you might get politically blamed. You can stay silent and hope that the other party gets blamed because there will be political benefits for that. But I am going to suggest to you that is not doing our job. That is not what we were elected to do. We were elected to stand and fight to do the hard things for the men and women of this country because it is an extraordinary and breathtaking privilege to serve in this body. I cannot tell you how it brings me virtually to tears to think about the opportunity I have to stand here at a time when our Nation is threatened as I have never seen before. You know what. The tears that I talked about, and am now experiencing a little bit, are a very small reflection of the very real tears I have seen from men and women all across Texas. Men and women have looked me in the eyes and said: I am scared for my country, my kids, and my grandkids. We are losing America. We are losing the wonderful free enterprise system. We are losing the prosperity. We are losing growth. Will my kids and grandkids have a better life than I did? I don't think so. I cannot tell you how many Texans have said that. You know what. When you say that, that is not something you say like reporting the weather: It is sunny today and 78 degrees. That is heartbreaking. As Americans, it is fundamental in who we are. We believe in a better tomorrow. We believe morning can come to America, and we believe our kids and grandkids will live with a better challenge. If we continue down this road, we will be mired in what I call the great stagnation. Over the last 4 years, our economy has grown on average at 0.9 percent a year. If we continue down this road, we will allow young people to be what economists are starting to dub ``the lost generation.'' I am sorry to tell young people that is what economists are calling them right now. This generation is coming of age at a time when there is no economic growth and no real prospect for that to change. What it means as a practical matter is that young people are not getting that first job or they are getting jobs--and as Ayn Rand observed--that are far less than their mind, their capacity, and their talent is capable of. What that means is they don't get their next job or their next job, so they don't develop to their full potential, and that stays with young people for decades to come. This body needs to listen to the American people. We need to make DC listen.

Mr. CRUZ. I yield to the gentleman without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Utah for that question. On the motion to proceed, on the decision of whether to take up the bill, I think there is widespread agreement that we should take up this bill as there is no more important bill we could be debating now than this. Indeed, in my view, there should not only be 3 Senators in this Chamber, there should be 100. The urgency facing this country from ObamaCare is such that we have nothing better to do. When James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters, says that ObamaCare is a nightmare, frankly, Senators shouldn't be asleep while the Nation is undergoing a nightmare. The vote that matters is the vote on cloture on the bill. It will occur on either Friday or Saturday of this week. On that vote, 60 Senators, vote yes for cloture. That is a vote to shut off debate, a vote to say we will not debate anymore. What it does is it opens the door, it sets the stage. It allows the majority leader Harry Reid to fully fund ObamaCare with just 51 Democratic votes. That means for the Republican side of the aisle that any Republican who votes along with Harry Reid--and you quite rightly know that Leader Reid and presumably all of the Democrats will vote for cloture on a bill with which most, if not all of them disagree. They get the joke. There is no mystery to this when the majority leader has announced: I am going to shut off all other amendments and I am going to add one amendment to totally gut the bill and to transform it, to do to this bill what they did to this bill. Can you imagine if we were debating cloture? This is actually a very good analogy. Imagine if this bill were coming over, the bill that was turning into ObamaCare, and we had the same procedural arrangement-- cloture vote first at 60 votes and then all amendments to be approved at 51 votes. Imagine if Republicans said: I support an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code to modify the first-time home buyer credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces. That is a good idea, so I am voting yes for cloture. That is the bill I supported. It is the bill that came over, and it is the bill that I have right now. Imagine if that were the scenario, and imagine that majority leader Harry Reid had announced: Once we get cloture, I am going to offer an amendment to strip every word of that bill you say you support, strip it all out and to replace it with 2,000 pages of ObamaCare. I would suggest that any Republican who stood up and said: I am voting for cloture to give Harry Reid the ability to strip out the bill that I support--which he said he is going to do--and to replace it with a bill that I say I oppose and not just oppose slightly, that I say I oppose passionately, I would suggest that would be beyond irrational. Indeed, it would be so irrational to do that, and I would suggest no Member of the Senate is capable of such irrationality. This means, if they are saying that, it is for a deliberate purpose. It is because they affirmatively desire that outcome and yet they wish to be able to tell their constituents something different. It is fundamentally the same dynamic that leads to the cynicism about Washington that ``our elected leaders don't listen to us.'' I wish to note on a different front that serving in an elected office is a tremendous privilege. It is a humbling experience. You get to meet people from all over the State, sometimes from all over the country. You get to meet incredible people. You get to meet people who have done remarkable things. One of the people I have been privileged to meet is my colleague and friend Senator Mike Lee. We have learned tonight a number of extraordinary things about him, a number of things that border on the superhuman. No. 1, we have learned that Senator Mike Lee would be willing to purchase a ton of rocks and a Barry Manilow record simply to bring his wife milk and eggs. That is extraordinary matrimonial fidelity. No. 2, we have learned that Senator Mike Lee as a boy could be run over with a Buick filled with seven people and not have his foot injured. That, too, is extraordinary and superhuman. No. 3, we have been privileged with a tour de force constitutional lecture with no notes, with no materials in front of him that, frankly, was reminiscent to me of a former boss of mine. Senator Lee is the son of a legend in law. His late father, Rex Lee, was the Solicitor General of the United States. I did not have the opportunity to meet his late father but have known him by reputation for much of my life because he was revered as one of the finest Supreme Court advocates who ever lived. I think Mike was all but weaned on the Constitution as a young lad. The discourse Senator Lee just presented to this Nation reminded me of my boss, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who, like Senator Lee, had a deep love for the Constitution and, like Senator Lee, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Constitution and could weave the battles we have had to rein in government power to protect individual liberty into a tapestry of narrative that explained what it is we are fighting for. I will say that as we stand here now at 3:35 in the morning, I feel privileged. I feel fortunate to be standing side by side with my friend. I will say this: If ever I am threatened by a Buick with seven people in it, I want to put Mike Lee between me and the Buick.

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield for the purpose of a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. It is an excellent question from Senator Lee. The answer is quite simple. If Congress acted to make clear that nothing in the Affordable Care Act created a tax, that would remove the entire basis for the Supreme Court's upholding ObamaCare. Indeed, it would be a relatively simple matter in subsequent litigation for the Court to conclude under the matter it has already concluded that the other bases for upholding the act are not present. When have you elected officials who go to the people, and go to the people as Senator Lee still quite rightly noted and still say it is not a tax, you would think they would happily vote for it, except there is a vested interest. I would note there is a difference between calling this a tax when Congress said and says it is not, and the examples we went through of the Hundred Years War and the purple finch, and that those are relatively innocuous misnomers, where there is something designed to be actively deceptive. Indeed, another one you could add to that litany we went through is you might think if an act were titled ``An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to modify the first-time homebuyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces,'' you might think that is the title of an act that would concern something about the first-time homebuyer's credit, perhaps even members of the Armed Forces. Depending on the content of it, it might even be an act that Senator Lee and I together would support. Yet think again. That act is ObamaCare. This is the 2,000-plus pages of ObamaCare, a little bit worse for wear. Right on the cover of it on page 1: December 24, 2009, ordered to be printed and passed. Resolved, that the bill from the House of Representatives, titled H.R. 3590, entitled, an Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to modify the first-time homebuyer's credit in the case of members of the Armed Services and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes, do pass the following. Then what was this amendment that was done? Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert. Everything for the first-time homebuyer's credit, everything about the Armed Forces, that all got erased. The title stayed there but it all got erased. Suddenly, ObamaCare was born. That was a creature, that was a fact that came out of the procedural games that had to be played to force ObamaCare into law on a straight party-line vote. But I would note that this body has not forgotten how to play those games. Indeed, I would ask again rhetorically to the body, is the game the Democratic majority of Congress played in passing ObamaCare, saying it was not a tax, when in fact it was a tax, when it was not a tax, any different than what right now some members of the Republican conference are doing when they say they will vote for cloture in order to give Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats the ability to fully fund ObamaCare, and that they will do so because they want to defund ObamaCare? Is that fundamentally any different, presenting one story to tell the voters and a different story in terms of what will happen in this body? When it comes to accountability, I wonder if we are seeing much the same games played out again, games that undermine the integrity of this institution, games that undermine the confidence the American people have that our elected representatives listen to us.

Mr. CRUZ. I will yield for the purpose of a question without yielding the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. I think the good Senator from Utah is exactly correct. Indeed, as he quite rightly explained, it was not an accident that Congress deliberately did not call the individual mandate in ObamaCare a tax, nor was it an accident that the President of the United States explicitly said it is not a tax, because the effort was to represent to the American people that it was something quite different. Indeed, again, asking a question rhetorically to the body--I know Senator Lee is aware; I know many other Senators are aware--of a lot of cases in the Supreme Court, the commandeering line of cases that provides that one of the things this body cannot do, Congress cannot do, is commandeer a State legislature, commandeer a State lawmaking apparatus or a State executive agency to implement, to carry out Federal law and Federal policy. Indeed, the Supreme Court has explained the reasoning behind the commandeering line of cases; that fundamental to our democratic system, fundamental to our constitutional system is the notion of accountability, the notion that the voters should be able to determine who is it that put this policy in place. If Congress could commandeer and force State legislatures to carry out Federal policies, it might be that voters would get mad at the State legislators, and they would be mad at the wrong people because if the decisions were coming from Congress and yet it was the State legislators being commandeered into acting, that would frustrate the principles of accountability that underlie our constitutional structure. So the Supreme Court has explained that to make the democratic system work, the voters need to be able to understand who has made a decision, what that decision is, and if they do not like it, they need to be able to, as they say colloquially, throw the bums out. The Affordable Care Act in Congress, declining to call it a tax. I might ask, did the Supreme Court's rewriting the statute to call it a tax for Congress, to call it a tax for the President--despite the fact that both had said it was not--did that contravene the accountability principles that underlie the Supreme Court's commandeering doctrine that underlie the constitutional principles of, frankly, a republican form of government, where we may know who our elected officials are and what their actions are, and that they may be held accountable for those actions so that a democratic republic can function?

Mr. CRUZ. I will be happy to yield for the purpose of a question.

Mr. CRUZ. I yield for the purpose of that question as well--and they might well. One of the striking things--and although under the rules of the Senate I am not allowed to ask Senator Lee a question, I can pose a rhetorical question to the body, and should Senator Lee have thoughts on that rhetorical question, he can choose to ask me a question that might contain his thoughts on that rhetorical question posed to the body. So given that sort of convoluted reasoning, which may explain why we are in the Senate with the odd and precarious procedures that govern this body, I am going to ask this rhetorical question to the body, which is, Senator Lee explained that the Supreme Court of the United States upheld ObamaCare, after concluding it exceeded the commerce clause authority of Congress, by concluding that it was a tax. By calling it a tax, it was able to force it into a different line of jurisprudence and uphold it under the taxing clause, the taxing power of Congress. I would ask rhetorically of this body, was it an accident that the ObamaCare statute did not call the individual mandate a tax? Maybe it was a scribe's error. Maybe it was they meant to call it a tax, they thought it was a tax, and a clerk writing just wrote the wrong word. So instead of ``tax,'' the word ``penalty.'' Surely that is not consequential. It must purely have been an accident. As a related component of that, was it an accident that the President of the United States went on national television and told the people of America, while this was under consideration, this is not a tax. He affirmatively said this is not a tax. Mind you, the argument that the U.S. Department of Justice made, the Obama administration made to the Supreme Court was this is a tax, although the statute did not say it. The argument the Supreme Court ultimately found persuasive was: This is a tax, although the statute said it was a penalty and not a tax. The question I would rhetorically pose is: Was it an accident or is there perhaps another reason why elected politicians would not call something a tax?

Mr. CRUZ. I will yield for the purpose of that question as well. Indeed, I can tell you that. Now, you would think, if you call a chain of islands the Canary Islands, it must be a bird, maybe a bird in a coal mine but some sort of bird. Think again. The Canary Islands are named after a dog. I would note, the Canary Islands are a chain of islands I have some real connection to because my grandfather, my father's father, was born in the Canary Islands. Indeed, he moved to Cuba when he was 1, was raised in Cuba. My father was born in Cuba, was raised in Cuba. The lesson from all of these is striking. Labels do not always mean what they say. Some might wonder, what does this chain of insightful questions from my friend, the junior Senator from Utah--how does it relate to the issue of ObamaCare? If we look at Senator Lee's tremendous discourse of the Constitution--and I would note, by the way, there is not another Senator in the Senate who could give that constitutional lecture that my friend Senator Lee did, sharing with this body. I wish all 100 of us had been here to hear that because a lot of Senators--all Senators would be well served by learning or relearning those basic constitutional principles.

Mr. CRUZ. Again, I will yield for the purpose of that question to note a purple finch--listen, similar to most husbands, I have a color palate of about six colors. I remember once my wife asked me, with regard to a tile--we were redoing our bathroom. It was a white tile. She was long distance. She said: What shade of white? I will note that was a question I was utterly incapable of responding to. I was not aware there were shades of white, and my vocabulary does not cover such things. I finally dropped it in a FedEx envelope and simply sent it to her. I was like: It is a white tile. I know nothing beyond that. But yet your question: What color is a purple finch? I would tend to think it would be purple, but I would think wrong if that were the case because a purple finch is crimson red.

Mr. CRUZ. I yield for that question. Curiously enough, I do. You might think a camel's hair brush must be made of camel's hair. There are lots of camels. They have hair. Surely you can make a brush. Well, maybe you can. I do not know if you can. But a camel's hair brush is made of squirrel fur. It makes you wonder. The squirrels apparently have a very bad marketing department if they give their fur that gets credited to the camels.

Mr. CRUZ. I will yield for that question and note it could possibly be Panama. You might think if you call it a Panama hat it would make sense that it would be Panama. But, no, think again. Ecuador. Ecuador makes Panama hats. I do not know that anyone makes Ecuador hats.

Mr. CRUZ. I say to Senator Lee, I do. A lot of people would say it must be black. If we were dealing with ordinary English language, it would be black. But perhaps airplane manufacturers think like Congress because the black box on an airplane is orange.

Mr. CRUZ. I will yield for a question without yielding the floor.