Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gentleman from the Silver State, my good friend, Representative Horsford, for his tremendous leadership for anchoring this CBC Special Order. And it's my honor and my privilege to join him today, during this Congressional Black Caucus Hour of Power, where, for 60 minutes we have the opportunity to speak directly to the American people. It's always an honor and a privilege to do so, but it's tragic and sad that we're here today under such circumstances. This is a manufactured crisis, a government shutdown engineered as a result of mean-spirited, reckless, and unreasonable behavior by our friends from the other side of the aisle.

And in order to mask the obstructionism and the behavior that has resulted in more than 800,000 hardworking civil servants being kicked out of their jobs temporarily--we hope--there's been a series of myths, of factual misrepresentations that have been brought to the American people from our good friends on the other side of the aisle. I just want to spend a minute or two exploring some of the most significant ones courtesy of the House GOP.

The first thing that led us down this road is this idea that the Affordable Care Act is a train wreck, repeated over and over and over again. The Affordable Care Act is a train wreck.

It's not a train wreck. The train hasn't even left the station. Enrollment just began a few days ago on October 1. The coverage period for the American people doesn't even begin until January 1 of 2014. How can it be a train wreck when the train hasn't even left the station?

This is behavior that is designed to create an accident because of some obsession that folks have on the other side of the aisle with providing tens of millions of Americans who are otherwise uninsured with health care coverage. It's an obsession that, quite frankly, I can't understand.

What are you so angry about? Are you upset about the fact that the Affordable Care Act prohibits preexisting conditions from denying health care coverage to Americans, including children?

Do you dislike the fact that young people going out into a very difficult job market can now stay on the insurance of their parents until the age of 26?

Does it really bother you that small businesses will be eligible for a tax credit up to 35 percent to help provide health insurance coverage for their employees in a manner that will allow these small businesses to grow and prosper?

Enough with this myth the Affordable Care Act is a train wreck. But that was the basis of the shutdown and the ransom notes that were sent over to the Senate majority that courageously stamped each one: Rejected; return to sender.

Defund, delay, destroy the Affordable Care Act, that was the genesis of this conflict. And then we shifted, once it was clear that that strategy was not going to work, into the second great myth of this debacle that we find ourselves in. The second myth: Democrats refuse to negotiate.

Negotiate over what? Negotiate over a law that my colleagues have clearly indicated is the law of the land, passed by a duly-elected Congress in 2010, signed by the President, declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in a decision issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, a Bush appointee, and then affirmed by the reelection of President Barack Obama in the electoral college landslide? Why do you want us to negotiate over settled law?

There are three ways in the American democratic system for you to change law, Mr. Speaker:

The first is through the legislative process. In 2010, you lost. Forty-three or 44 additional times subsequent to that, you've lost, unable to do it legislatively.

You can try and change the law in America through our democratic system jurisprudentially, through the court system. In 2012, the Supreme Court rejected that. You lost.

Then you can try and change things as a result of an election, and you lost with the reelection of the President by more than 5 million votes in 2012.

Those are the three legitimate ways--legislative, jurisprudential, electoral--that you change laws in American democracy. You do not extort concessions and threaten to shut down the government.

So this notion that we've refused to compromise is a great myth, particularly when, as my good friend from Nevada pointed out, the fact is that we've already compromised as it relates to the underlying number connected to funding the government.

The Democrats believe the appropriate number is $1.058 trillion. That number is right here. The Republicans believe the appropriate number is $986 billion. That number is right here. We've agreed to drop our number all the way down to $986 billion, representing a $70 billion compromise, yet you continue to put forth this myth, as if we're the ones behaving unreasonably. The American people see through this factual misrepresentation.

Lastly, let me just say, we had another great myth put forth this weekend by none other than the Speaker of the House of Representatives. No, not the junior Senator from Texas; the other one from Ohio. He said there are not the votes in the House to pass a clean CR. Not the votes? I'm no mathematician, Mr. Speaker, but it's clear, 198 Democrats have indicated they're willing to reopen the government if you put the bill on the floor. And if you add that to the 23 Republicans who have gone on record back at home in their districts, that gets us to 221, the magic number being 217 to reopen the government.

Stop peddling factual misrepresentations to the American people to cover your legislative malpractice. Let's get back to doing the business of the American people.

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