The Dangers Facing Our Country

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Would the gentleman yield?

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Brilliant question. And I cannot actually think of something that was substantive, where there was a collective idea from my brothers and sisters on the left or the right that there was actual intellectual battle here where we made something better.

This place is functionally an intellectual dictatorship.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Would the gentleman yield to allow me just a quick colloquy with him?

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. The process is broken. It is why I come here almost every week--and you do, too--and we try to just focus on what is ahead of us. I just spent a half an hour sort of focusing on debt and deficit. That is not Republican or Democrat, it is what is ahead of us.

You have been here a few years. How many actual real discussions-- other than theater of, We should do a study commission. We should write a strongly worded memo; the theater of this place--instead of doing what is really hard, and understand, you can't just do one thing. That is the great fraud now. We have gotten ourselves in such a difficult position, it has got to be everything.

A couple years ago I came here, and we brought in 19 attributes that you had to do almost at the exact same time to maximize enough economic growth, enough technology disruption, all the things to make it work. You actually helped me on some of that. But my fear, those are really uncomfortable, and you will have an army of lobbyists really unhappy with you when you tell the truth about the math.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. The gentleman knows in many quarters I am a bit of a heretic on this. I actually believe we are on the cusp of miracles, if it is true that we just found a cure for Type 1 diabetes. If the math is true, about one-third of all U.S. healthcare spending is just Type 2 diabetes--for my Native American populations, for my urban poor, for my rural Anglo poor--the amount of diabetes, the misery, the suffering, wouldn't it be one of the most elegant, noble things we can do is say, screw this noise we are doing, we are going to do our Operation Warp Speed.

Now we see there is a stem cell to the islet-producing insulin. There is a path, but it requires intellectual discipline, telling the truth, and saying no to a lot of people who are going to be upset because a cure ends the misery. It also ends the manipulation.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Chip, you are a heretic.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Before I leave you, I am still hopeful. I think there is a path that saves us, but the window for that escape is getting very narrow.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. The speed of debt accumulation, the unwillingness to deal with complex problems with complex solutions--because that is reality--is closing fast on us. And the number of Members who are like you, who are willing to come to the floor and say very difficult things that are truthful, they are becoming rare. I thank the gentleman for the colloquy.

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