The Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I am exceptionally privileged to be here on the House floor of the United States Congress this evening to speak on behalf of my constituents and in front of the Nation. It is an honor that few people realize, and it's worthy of mention.

I just want to also thank the fine gentlemen and ladies from the other side that were here this evening. I appreciate your impassioned pleas. That's what this place is all about. I might disagree with many of them, but I appreciate your passion and your willingness to serve.

I just want to talk about a couple of things and, at least from my side, Mr. Speaker, set the record, or at least kind of balance the record--maybe not set it straight in some people's minds because I'm sure some folks will disagree. But when the one gentleman said that he opposed the Iraq war and folks were here paying for it with a credit card and he was opposed to that, well, I wasn't here. So I can't really atone for the sins of the past, and there's a good chance that I would disagree with many of them, but one of the reasons I wasn't here was because I was in Iraq at that time.

And even though I think it is morally wrong to have spent this Nation into such debt over those conflicts, when you are attacked, you must respond, number one; and, number two, I think it kind of belies the fact that the current administration has nearly doubled that spending in half the time. So with all due respect, I think it's fair just to point that out.

And regarding another gentleman who talked about the interest of the other side to negotiate and agree to a compromise and to compromise, in looking at the numbers, the sequester came from the President of the United States out of another supercommittee that was created, and the President demanded the sequester, demanded the number. So this Congress has given it to him, and this Congress has held that number. It was demanded out of that negotiation. So by saying that they've compromised, they haven't compromised on anything. That's where we all agreed to be at the end of that negotiation.

Now, there's been a lot of impassioned talk and yelling and wailing, and I don't really think that's helpful to the narrative here. We're all going to have to work together at some point and figure this thing out, and blaming one side or the other side, I just don't know where that really gets us.

I want to just talk a little bit about some of the facts. And these aren't my facts; they're not Scott Perry's facts. I've got The Washington Post here, because some people say this is unprecedented, it's never happened before, and only one party does this.

Well, there was a shutdown in 1976. Gerald Ford was the President. The Democrats held both Houses. It was ended by all sides coming together and working towards a continuing resolution.

The next one was in 1977. Jimmy Carter was the President. Democrats held both Houses. Amazingly, it was resolved by both sides coming together and working on a Medicaid ban.

Then there was the shutdown of 1977. Jimmy Carter was the President. Democrats were in charge of both Houses. They signed a temporary bill because they came together and worked something out. The 1977 shutdown under Jimmy Carter, Democrats were in charge, and they were doing what they thought they needed to do. They're elected by their people to do the work of this House, but they came together after 8 days and they resolved it.

The next one, 1978. Jimmy Carter was the President. The Democrats controlled both Houses. Eighteen days--eighteen days--but they resolved it after they got together. The President, the Senate, and the House, they got together.

1979, Jimmy Carter was the President. The Democrats were in charge of both Houses. Eleven days. What resolved it? They got together and they talked. Nothing happens here, and nothing will happen here, if we're not going to be willing to be civil with one another and get together and talk.

1981, Ronald Reagan was the President. The Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by the Democrats. After 2 days, they resolved it. Again, Reagan came down and signed a bill extending the current spending limit.

And then again, in September of '82, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans held the Senate. Democrats held the House. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker. But they resolved it in just 1 day because they got together. Both of them were out that evening having fundraisers, both parties. They let the government shut down, but they got together and moved beyond it.

1982, Tip O'Neill again the Speaker. Republicans were in charge of the Senate. Ronald Reagan was President. Over the MX missile, they shut it down, but they figured out a way to get past it because they negotiated.

And for 3 days in 1983, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans were in charge of the Senate. The House was controlled by Democrats, with Tip O'Neill Speaker. And they resolved it, again, over about a $100 million discrepancy.

1984, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by the Democrats. Over a Supreme Court ruling, they shut it down, but they resolved it after all sides came together and negotiated.

This is from not a right-wing paper in town here. These are not my facts.

1984, Ronald Reagan was the President. Republicans had the Senate. The House was controlled by Democrats. Tip O'Neill was the Speaker. And they shut it down again, but they opened it back up.

The 13th one happened in 1986 under President Reagan. Republicans controlled the Senate, Bob Dole. Democrats in the House by Tip O'Neill. And they resolved it by getting together--each side gave up some of their demands--and they expanded welfare in return for the appropriations necessary to reopen the government.

Ronald Reagan, in 1987, was the President. Democrats were in control of both Houses. And again, they found a way to get together on the fairness doctrine.

In 1990, George H.W. Bush was the President. Democrats controlled both Houses. They figured it out and signed a continuing resolution and reduced the deficit.

And then the 16th time, Clinton was the President and Gingrich was the Speaker of the House. The Senate was controlled by Republicans and so was the House. But even then, they worked it out. Even then, they worked it out. When both Houses of Congress were against the President, Mr. Speaker, they found a way to work it out.

And then for 21 days in 1995, with Clinton as the President and the House was controlled by Republicans and the Senate was controlled by Republicans, again, what resolved it? They worked it out. They got together, and they worked it out.

So let's go to the debt limit, because we've also heard this is a historic time, it's unprecedented, it's never happened before, Mr. Speaker.

So 1970 is where we found out the practice of attaching nongermane provisions to the debt limit began in earnest. In 1971, Social Security changes; 1972, the spending cap and impoundment of powers on the proposal to increase the debt limit.

And I'm just skipping because there's a pile of them here.

In 1980, Congress repealed an oil import fee. President Carter vetoed the bill. Both Houses of Congress were Democrat and President Carter was a Democrat. But he vetoed it, and they overrode the veto by wide majorities, but they worked it out. They worked it out.

1985, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2010, 2011, 2012. The debt limit is the appropriate place in this divided government to find some fiscal sanity, and that's what's happening here right now in this town.

Now, of course, like I said, I don't want to get into the blame game here. I'm really going to try to stay out of it. Whether we agree with ObamaCare or not is not the issue. It might be a great law. And there are other laws that some people think are great laws or are not great laws. The question really should be and really is: Can we afford it? Can we afford it?

We are running a trillion-dollar deficit every single year. We take in $1 trillion less than we spend. So if you are a household that brings in $100,000, you are spending $25,000 more every single year as a ratio more than you bring in. I ask the American people, Mr. Speaker, how long can this be sustained?

So even if we agree that it's a good law--and many of us don't. That's fair. But even if we agree that it's a good law, how are we going to pay for it? That's the question.

Now Congress' job in this House and this Senate is to craft legislation and to determine our spending priorities and our spending levels. That's our job. The other gentleman said, We haven't read the Constitution or--it's in the Constitution. It's very simple. That is our job.

With all due respect to the President, I've got to tell you, it does not help. Again, we are going to have to work together. It's for the sake of our Nation. It does not help to be lectured to about what we must do here, according to the President, when it's exactly what he would not do and did not do when he served in this building. It does not help.

Now, our constituents elected us. The citizens of our districts elected us. They elected us to come here and do something, to do something. And we keep on hearing from the other side, Just pass a clean CR. Just pass it and everything will be fine.

I came here to do something. We are spending $1 trillion more than we bring in every single year. We are $17 trillion in debt. The bill that's being implemented, the law that's being implemented right now is going to cost us $2 trillion or $3 trillion. We don't know. And the President, I understand--I'm not sure of the number--is going to ask in a week to raise the debt ceiling another $900 billion. So that is $100 billion short of $1 trillion, which are still all numbers that are staggering to my mind.

So if we add that up, okay, so at the minimum, we're at $20 trillion, and that doesn't include Social Security and all the other obligations that we have. And the clean CR that we're being beseeched to just vote on so everything will be fine says, That's okay, just keep going. Don't change a thing. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here.

Everything's not fine. The constituents that elected me had three concerns when I ran, and I hear about them every single day at the grocery store, at the gas station, on my telephones, in email, and in the letters they send to me. Do something about this debt. Do something about this deficit. Do something about this spending. Do something about ObamaCare. That's what they send to me. That's what they tell me.

Maybe the world doesn't understand where this is going to end, but a lot of us do. When our dollar isn't worth anything, when we have to take a wheelbarrow of dollars to the grocery store to buy just what we need to survive, that's where it will end. We don't have to go there. We are choosing to go there. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Another one of the gentlemen said, Well, we need to move on so we can make investments, investments in education, investments in infrastructure. And he's right. The world is leaving us behind. He's right. But we only have so much money. So we have to prioritize, Mr. Speaker. We must prioritize. And that's what this is about. We said, We've only got so much; and if you want to spend a bunch more on education and on infrastructure so we can compete, then you are not going to have as much money to spend on some other things.

But nobody wants to make that distinction. Nobody wants to choose in this place.

Some of us, reluctantly, because it's unpleasant, but reluctantly we know it is your duty and so we are forced to choose, and we are ready to choose. I say it's doing nothing because passing a clean CR will do nothing to fix our $17 trillion debt and our $1 trillion annual deficits. It will do nothing.

So I will go home to my constituents, to the people that elected me, and they'll say, What did you get accomplished? And I will say nothing?

I won't say nothing. No, I will say I tried. I might fail. I might fail, but I'm not going down on my knees, Mr. Speaker. I'm going down, if I go down, I'll go down fighting, because I can't do nothing.

I don't want to see a government shutdown. Nobody in this place wants to see it. It's not good for this side, it's not good for that side, it's not good for the American people. It is not good. We acknowledge that.

But why should anyone believe the concerns about debt and deficit will be discussed when they haven't been discussed in the 5 years?

And to be clear and to be honest, they haven't been discussed really ever. Republicans, Democrats, nobody wants to touch it.

I've got a mother on Social Security, Medicare. I don't want to see her out on the street. I will take care of my mother. That's what we do in our family. We will not let that happen.

But some people don't have that option. I don't want to see it go bankrupt. But right now, Social Security Disability, that portion of Social Security, the last report I saw, will be bankrupt in a year and a half. In a year and a half.

Social Security, 10, 15 years behind it. Medicare, Medicaid, bankrupting our Nation. And we're doing nothing. We're doing nothing.

We can't do nothing. And so we must discuss it. We must get to the issue.

So we can't agree to this thing where the other side says, just pass it. Let us spend as much as we want to, and we promise you that we'll come to the negotiation table and talk to you about the things that are important to you.

With all due respect, they haven't been important enough in the last 5 years or the last 20 years; and so we have no reason to believe, I have no reason to believe that they will.

And those who say that one side is doing this for partisan reasons, for political gain, I ask, what political gain?

What is the upside?

What is the upside for me, any of us?

There is none. The Representatives in this body who disagree with passing a clean CR are putting themselves at peril for love of country and love of the future.

I've got two little girls, two little girls that I'm desperate to have the same opportunities that I had. When I grew up, our house didn't have electricity. We didn't have running water. My parents were often unemployed. Me and my brother ate some strange things just to eat because we didn't know any better. We did okay. And we made a life for ourselves, but we had an opportunity in America.

But that opportunity is going to slip away from us because of the way we are handling our fiscal house.

Look at what will happen if we continue without adjusting course. I would argue that the first people that would lose their jobs under this situation are government workers.

When we can no longer borrow from the Chinese, when we can no longer borrow from ourselves, Social Security, the Social Security trust fund, part of that $900 billion that they're going to ask us to raise the debt ceiling so we continue to borrow is coming out of the Social Security trust fund. Who agrees with that?

I don't know one American that says that's okay. And somehow this is the only place in the world where it would be okay.

But government employees, just like in Greece, when they ran out of money, when they ran out finally, the first ones to go--not for a week, not for a couple of days, gone. The job is gone. You are no longer working. You have no job. There's nothing to come back to.

We don't have to do it. We don't have to. We can make a choice now. We're saying turn the ship around on a dime. We're saying turn the wheel a little bit, just a little bit, and let's start heading to the course of correction.

But voting for a clean CR says just keep going, just keep going. Don't worry about the torpedos, don't worry about the iceberg, just keep going.

So just like in Cyprus, we'll come home to find out the banks under Federal control and Federal order will have removed the money from our savings account. They'll just do it. That's what they did in that country because they ended up where we're going.

Why would we do it?

Now, those who say they want a clean CR, they are patriots. I know that. They are hearing from their constituents. I've had constituents come in, crying, literally crying in my office, and we talked about the situation.

Those folks that want a vote on a clean CR, they are patriots too. They want to fix it; they just want to do it now.

But I would say that it is time to do the hard right because for too long the easy wrong has been done. I don't know when they want to do something, but I want to do it now because I don't think we can wait.

Now, we have offered our ideas and we have asked for their ideas. We have offered them. We understand and respect the other side disagrees with our solution.

We had four votes in this House before this government shut down, four bipartisan votes. People on both sides of the aisle voted four times for something.

But the Senate disagrees. The President disagrees. I respect they disagree. I respect that they don't like our solution. It is their prerogative, and maybe it's their duty.

All we're saying is okay, fine. You disagree. I get it.

What's your idea?

What's your solution?

The solution should not be nothing. The solution from them has been no. Now go about your business and come up with what we want.

It just seems like not negotiating--if I had a fight with my wife, if I had a dispute with my daughter, I never want to go to bed angry at my family, and I never want my family to go to bed angry with me. Before the day's done, we're going to sit down at the table, and we're going to talk about it.

We might go to bed a little sore with each other, but we love each other and we love this country, and so it's imperative that we stay with each other to work through it.

We understand and respect the other side. We understand that they don't want to do anything with ObamaCare, but ObamaCare adds $2 trillion to $3 trillion to our national debt. So if you don't want to do anything about that, fine. What do you want to do?

That's all I'm asking. That's all we're asking.

What do you want to do?

Some say, well, you need to raise taxes. ObamaCare raised taxes; I think it was the largest tax increase in history.

Okay. So we did that. And that wasn't enough, so just last December, when I wasn't here, another $650 billion in taxes on an economy that's struggling to get through, 1 to 2 percent growth.

We're choosing this, and I don't think we have to.

Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that we're taking in more tax revenue right now, right now, than ever before in history?

There's more money coming in now than ever before, and we're $1 trillion apart every year. I mean, how much more can we take?

Should we just take it all?

I mean, that's another form of government. It's been done. It doesn't work out real well.

Well, some will say, well, cut the military. Well, this place cut the military about $1.2 trillion over the last year and a half. And for me, the Constitution says provide, it uses that word, provide for the common defense, Mr. Speaker.

The line below it is promote the general welfare. Words mean things. We have a duty to provide for it.

Certainly, there are inefficiencies. I've been in the military. I've served, and I know they're there. And it's right to take a look. Everything needs to be on the table.

But how much more, and how much do we enfeeble ourselves and disable our ability to do our constitutional requirement, which is to protect the citizenry?

It is our requirement.

Now, we passed a bunch of bills in the House here; and, to tell the you truth, I kind of like it. We're moving towards the CR one piece at a time, so I don't have to vote for things that I don't think we should spend money on for the sake of the things that we must spend money on.

Mr. Speaker, it's not optimal, but it's a way to get there. But, like, for cancer research for kids, we passed that out of the House, and the leader of the Senate says, when asked, well, why won't you pass it? He says, well, why would we want to do that?

My goodness, why wouldn't we want to do that?

That's where we have consensus. We have some consensus.

And another gentleman questioned why Congress has the right to pick and choose what gets funded. Isn't it astounding that someone in the Senate doesn't understand that not only is it the right of Congress to do that, but it's our duty. That's what we're here to do. That's what we're supposed to do.

We have offered numerous ideas. The Senate says no. They don't say no--but. They just say no.

Refusing to negotiate is, to my mind, irresponsible. I mean, I don't know if they're here for themselves or the greater good of Nation when I hear reports--I don't know if they're true--but they're reported in the newspapers that the park rangers are told make it as difficult as possible.

And when I see the World War II Memorial, when I went out on the Mall this morning, the World War II Memorial barricaded up. It costs more money to close it than it does to leave it open.

I saw a cone out on one the streets with barricades all around the cone in the middle of the street. I mean, why are we renting barricades?

And on the Mall adjacent to the street that's closed because it's a Federal park area, there's an immigration rally that's being supported by the Park Police.

What's happening, Mr. Speaker?

The Grand Canyon, closed. I guess you can't walk up to the rim and look over. The State offered to pay the bill, and the Federal Government said, no, we don't want your money. We want to close it.

Is that reasonable?

I don't know. It's not reasonable to me.

It was The Washington Post that reported employees were to make it as inconvenient as possible.

Now, some are characterized around here as being extreme, an extreme faction. The four bills that we passed to avert the shutdown were passed by this side and that side together, four bipartisan bills.

And they say the House is being held hostage by a few Members. I don't know. Bipartisan votes on both sides seems less than extreme to me.

And I've got to ask, since when are Americans who want to see the government act within the constitutional bounds, that is, the House and the Senate, the Congress figuring out our spending level and our spending priority, when is that extreme?

Why is that extreme?

That's our job. That's the division of powers. That's the checks and balances. That's what we do. That's why we're here.

How is that extreme?

How is spending trillions of dollars more than you have now viewed as responsible?

How is talking about trying to save some money and be responsible with the taxpayers' money on our future, how is that seen as extreme?

Why is it okay to think that spending that money is okay and acceptable to most Americans?

Who gets away with that kind of behavior in their own households?

Well, you do, but not for very long, I guess.

With that I'd like to yield some time, if I could, to the fine gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

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