Lee: ObamaCare is "Unaffordable and Unfair"

Jul 17, 2013

Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) delivered remarks regarding the need to withhold funding for ObamaCare, saying that no appropriations bill or continuing resolution should fund further implementation of the law.

With reforms, we could have avoided furloughs

Jul 15, 2013

With our national debt at nearly $17 trillion and climbing, it is crucial that the federal government find responsible ways to reduce spending. Unfortunately, Washington too often takes the easy way out, making it hard for the rest of the country.

Lee: Defund ObamaCare in the Next Spending Bill

Jul 9, 2013

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) responded to the Obama administration’s announcement that it would selectively enforce certain areas of ObamaCare:

"Delaying the employer mandate and exchange verification rules is the latest and most damning admission by the administration that ObamaCare was poorly crafted, remains unworkable, and, if implemented, will hurt American families, businesses, and our economy. The only solution is to fully repeal ObamaCare and start over with a more sensible, practical approach to fix our health care system.
 
"Short of full repeal, however, those of us who care about the health care and security of the American people still have a duty to act. If the president has decided he won't enforce his law as it is written, then Congress should not fund any further implementation of it at all.
 
“It is fundamentally unfair for President Obama to exempt businesses from the onerous burdens of his law, while forcing American families and individuals into ObamaCare’s unsound and unstable system.
 
“This administration has chosen to put its own political preferences and the interests of various government cronies ahead of the American people. Republicans in Congress must now stand up for the individuals and families who do not have the money, lobbyists, and connections to get this Administration’s attention.
 
"And we should do so using one of the few constitutional powers Congress still guards – its power of the purse. As long as President Obama selectively enforces ObamaCare, no annual appropriations bill or continuing resolution should fund further implementation of the law.
 
“Last week’s admission by the administration means that after three years of preparation and trial and error, the best case scenario for Obamacare will be rampant dysfunction, waste, and injustice to taxpayers and working families.
 
“If congressional Democrats want to oppose appropriations bills without additional ObamaCare funding, shut down the government, and side with the President and big business against the American people, then it's their choice. But three years in, even the president himself has now admitted that ObamaCare won’t work. The only responsible choice now is to protect the country from ObamaCare's looming disaster, start over and finally begin work on real health care reform.”

Freedom, properly understood, means people working together

Jul 4, 2013

The Declaration of Independence, the founding charter of our nation, is one the greatest assertions of human rights and dignity ever written. Its moral argument for liberty, equality and responsibility rings as true today as did in 1776.

We have to go back to, perhaps, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount to find a declaration more steeped in self-evident truths.

In fact, the two bear many similarities. They both speak deep, hopeful truths about the nature of man in language so clear and inspiring that they have literally changed the world every day since they were first delivered.

And, perhaps often overlooked, they were, in fact, both merely introductions, not conclusions.

The Sermon on the Mount is at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, not the end. The Declaration of Independence was signed five years before the Battle of Yorktown, and seven years before the Revolutionary War officially ended.

Both two millennia ago and two centuries ago, identifying human rights was only the beginning of the story. Whether following in the footsteps of Christ or reviewing the experiences of America's founding generation, this is a crucially important lesson.

The lesson is that with rights come responsibilities. Rights are only the beginning.

The rest of the story involves what we do with those rights. This is especially so in America today.

Here, self-government is not just a political system; it must also be a personal ethic. We can govern ourselves as a nation only to the extent that we govern ourselves as individuals. An assertion of rights is empty without a corresponding acceptance of responsibility.

The rights we enjoy are vast and significant. Our government recognizes that we are created with the God-given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit happiness.

Because our rights are endowed by our creator, our duty is to serve him. And of course, the way we serve our God is by serving our neighbor.

Human rights are the beginning of the story. Service — that is the rest of the story.

In this light, we can begin to see more clearly exactly what it is we celebrate on the Fourth of July.

Properly considered, independence, liberty and equality are not simply moral principles; they are moral challenges. So you're free — what are you going to do with your freedom?

The challenge issued to us, two millennia ago in Galilee, is to be a light on a hill, to provide comfort to the needy, to repair the world one day and one decision at a time.

The great gift the Founding Fathers gave us two centuries ago in Philadelphia is a nation where success depends on service.

Our free enterprise economy takes a lot of criticism for promoting greed, materialism, and competition. But no matter who you are or what you're seeking, the first question anyone in our economy must ask is: how can I help?

Businesses do not survive unless they take care of their customers, their suppliers, their employees and their neighborhoods.

The very same process is at work every day in our voluntary civil society: our civic, charitable, religious and social organizations do not survive unless they succeed in achieving their objectives.

Both in our free-enterprise economy and our voluntary civil society, success in America is ultimately based not on competition, but cooperation. We look out for ourselves by looking out for everyone else.

Freedom, properly understood, doesn't mean you're on your own. It means, "we're all in this together." As it is with our economy and our civil society, so it is with our republic, as well.

On Independence Day, as we celebrate with fireworks, parades and snow cones, we also recognize this annual event as an opportunity to cherish the God-given rights that make us free, strong and able to carry out our responsibility to do God's work on the earth.

Let us stand together as the watchman on the tower, the city on the hill, the candle that must not be hid under a bushel and the salt of the earth. As Americans, we have been born with God-given rights which, if properly understood and righteously asserted, will enable us to continue to establish this nation as the world's last great hope.

The American People Deserve Better

Jun 27, 2013

As the Senate nears a vote on the Gang of 8 immigration reform proposal, I delivered a speech to explain the many problems with the bill. Here are the main points I made during this speech as I shared them on Twitter. Help me out by retweeting your favorites.

Lee Delivers Remarks, Calls Gang of 8 Bill a “Disappointment”

Jun 27, 2013

WASHINGTON—Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) delivered remarks on the Senate floor, expressing his opposition to the Gang of 8 immigration bill.

I rise today in support of immigration reform.  

I support strengthening our borders and ensuring they are secure before beginning a pathway to citizenship because it is the only way we will avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

I support robust interior enforcement and a biometric visa tracking system because without them we will not solve the problem of illegal immigration.

I support modernizing and streamlining our visa system because we need an efficient process of legal immigration that meets the needs of our economy.  

And I support immigration reform that is both tough on those who have chosen to break our laws and fair for those who have obeyed them.  

Today, there is reason for disappointment but also cause for encouragement.  

The bill we have before us today is an enormous disappointment.  The American people deserve better.

As a matter of public policy, this bill fails to meet many of the goals we set out to meet.  

It is full of promises to beef up border security, but makes no assurances.  This legislation cuts out the American people by cutting out any congressional oversight.  It remains grossly unfair to those who have languished in our current legal immigration system, unable to get answers for decades in some cases.   It transfers enormous authority and discretion to the Executive Branch, exacerbating an already widespread problem in our federal government.

And it fails perhaps the most important test of all: according to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill will reduce illegal immigration by just 25 percent in the next ten years.  This should be reason alone to scrap this entire bill.  

As a matter of process, members of this body should be embarrassed about how this bill moved through the Senate.  

From Day One, the country was misled about what was in the bill. The talking points never matched the reality of what was in the bill.  

We were told that if we didn’t like what was in it, we could fix it.  But that wasn’t true either.  During the committee “mark up,” Democrats and the Gang of Eight Republicans voted as a bloc to defeat virtually all substantive amendments proposed to improve the bill.

They said there would be regular order on the floor.  But that turned out to be a false promise as well.  For a 1200-page bill, the Senate, including the members not on the Judiciary Committee, was allowed exactly 9 roll call votes before the process was shut down.  

During the 2007 debate on immigration reform, the Senate voted 32 times to amend the bill.  Some would argue even that was too small.  But certainly nine votes on a 1200-page bill doesn’t suggest that the proponents of the bill are interested in regular order.

And for the grand finale, at nearly the end of this process, the proponents substituted what is effectively a brand new bill in place of the one we had been debating for over two months.  They gave us very little time to read it before we had to vote on it, and, once we were on to the new bill, they did not allow a single vote on any amendments.  

Mr./Madame President, this is an embarrassment to this institution and an assault on the principles of democracy.  

But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, from this low point in the Senate springs an encouraging path forward for those, like me, who truly want immigration reform.  

First, this exercise has laid out in front of the American people all the problems inherent in passing massive pieces of legislation that presume to fix all of our problems at once.   The so-called comprehensive approach has been utterly discredited.  

From denying votes to buying votes, our experience over the past two months only reaffirms why the vast majority of Americans don’t trust Washington.  The special interests had a huge hand in writing the bill while the American people had none.  Almost all of the discussions and negotiations took place in secret back-room deals.  And rather than debate policy differences, the debate was a daily “fact check” on misleading and outright false claims made by the bill’s proponents.  

The good news is that the House appears to have learned this lesson and wants no part of it.  Already, the Speaker has said the Senate bill is dead on arrival – so today’s vote is largely symbolic.  

The House Judiciary Committee has recently passed two significant pieces of immigration reform – one on interior enforcement and another dealing with agricultural workers – proving that reform can be passed in a step-by-step approach.  

Indeed, the only reason immigration reform is controversial is because the Senate refuses to pass it one piece at a time.  There is simply no legitimate reason why we have to pass a one-size-fits-all, take-it-or-leave-it bill.  

Though it is likely this bill will pass today, I strongly encourage my colleagues to consider where we started, where we are now, and what lies ahead.  

They said it would secure the border. It doesn’t.  Congress has been fooled by false promises before.  We shouldn’t go down that path again.

They said illegal immigration would be a thing of the past.  It won’t. The Congressional Budget Office confirmed that under this bill there would still be 6 to 8 million illegals in the country in ten years.  

They said it would be good for the economy.  It isn’t. CBO also confirmed it would lower wages and increase unemployment.  

They said it would be tough but fair.  It’s neither.  It is not tough on those who have broken the law and it is not fair for the people who have been trying to come here legally.  

And if this bill passes today, it will be all but relegated to the ash heap of history, as the House appears willing to tackle immigration reform the right way.

The sponsors of this bill had the best of intentions, but in my opinion, intentions aren’t enough.  

As I said at the outset, Mr./Madame President, I stand here today in support of immigration reform.  But this bill is not immigration reform.  It is big government dysfunction, and it is why I cannot support it.

Lee Delivers Remarks, Calls Gang of 8 Bill a “Disappointment”

Jun 27, 2013

Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) delivered remarks on the Senate floor, expressing his opposition to the Gang of 8 immigration bill.

The American People Deserve Better Than the Gang of 8 Bill

Jun 27, 2013

As the Senate nears a vote on the Gang of 8 immigration reform proposal, I delivered a speech to explain the many problems with the bill. Here are the main points I made during this speech as I shared them on Twitter. Help me out by retweeting your favorites.

July 2013 - Mobile Office Schedule

Jun 26, 2013

Tuesday 9 July 2013 – Davis County
When: Tuesday 9 July 2013 @ 10:00 AM - Noon
Where: Clinton, Utah @ Clinton City Hall, 2267 N 1500 W, Clinton, UT 84015 (Large Conference Room)

Tuesday 9 July 2013 – Davis County
When: Tuesday 9 July 2013 @ 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Where: South Weber City, Utah @ City Hall, 1600 East South Weber Drive, South Weber, UT 84405 (Council Chambers)

Wednesday 10 July 2013 – Iron County
When: Wednesday 10 July 2013 @  6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Cedar City, Utah @ Cedar City Library, 303 North 100 East, Cedar City, UT 84720 (Room C)

Thursday 11 July 2013 – Washington County
When: Thursday 11 July, 2013 @ 10:00 AM – Noon
Where: Springdale, Utah @ Town Hall, 118 Lion Blvd, Springdale, UT 84767

Thursday 11 July 2013 – Washington County
When: Thursday 11 July, 2013 @ 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Where: La Verkin, Utah @ City Office, 435 North Main, La Verkin Utah 84745

Tuesday 16 July 2013 – Utah County
When: Tuesday 16 July 2013 @ 10:00 AM - Noon
Where: Santaquin, Utah @ Public Safety Building, 275 West Main Street, Santaquin, UT 84655 (1st Floor Conference Room)
Tuesday 16 July 2013 – Utah County
When: Tuesday 16 July 2013 @ 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Where: Pleasant Grove, Utah @ Pleasant Grove City Library, 30 East Center, Pleasant Grove, UT 84062 (Little Theater)
Wednesday 17 July 2013 – Salt Lake County
When: Wednesday 17 July 2013 @ 10:00 AM - Noon
Where: Holladay, Utah @ Holladay City Offices, 4580 South 2300 East, Holladay, UT 84117 (John Holladay Room)
Wednesday 17 July 2013 – Salt Lake County
When: Wednesday 17 July, 2013 @ 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Where: Kearns, Utah @ Kearns Library, 5350 South 4220 West, Kearns, UT 84118 (Conference Room) 
Thursday 18 July 2013 – Weber County
When: Thursday 18 July, 2013 @ 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Huntsville, Utah @ Ogden Valley Branch – Weber County Library, 131 South 7400 East, Huntsville, Utah 84317 (Conference Room)

Lee Reacts to Supreme Court Decision on DOMA

Jun 26, 2013

I believe marriage is properly defined as between one man and one woman. I hope the Court will respect its own decision and the constitutional rights of Utahns and citizens of every state to legislate in their own States according to their beliefs and values.