ICYMI: Sen. Cruz: The Supreme Court Is Complicit in Imposing Illegal Taxes on Millions of Americans

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today spoke on the Senate floor in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell decision.

View Sen. Cruz’s full remarks above. See excerpts below:

“Our government was designed to be one of laws, not of men,” Sen. Cruz said. “And this transparent distortion is disgraceful. These justices are not behaving as umpires calling balls and strikes. They have joined a team, and it is a team that is hurting Americans across this country. Obamacare is the biggest job killer in America. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors. Millions of Americans have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket, and it is a direct result of President Obama, of Democrats in the United States Congress, and of lawless judges at the United States Supreme Court who have joined the team of the Obama administration. If those justices want to become legislators, I invite them to resign and run for office. That's the appropriate place to write laws: on this floor, not from that courtroom….

“The Court adopted and put its stamp of approval on the IRS’s blatantly unlawful reading of the statute to make subsidies and taxes applicable to individuals on federal exchanges when Congress explicitly provided the opposite. Jonathan Gruber famously said Obamacare was built on exploiting the stupidity of the American people. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is now complicit in that deception…. After today's ruling, Obamacare will now be responsible for imposing illegal taxes on more than 11 million individuals and for burdening hundreds of thousands of businesses with illegal penalties on their workers, killing jobs, and further slowing economic growth.

“If you're a young person right now, you come out of school, you got student loans up to your eyeballs, you're struggling, you don't know if you're going to get a job, the dismal Obama economy means your future is bleak. You have no hope or optimism about actually beginning a career, getting skills, moving towards the American dream. Well today, the United States Supreme Court has joined arm-in-arm with President Obama and the IRS has illegally imposed taxes on you….

“Mr. President, I remain fully committed to repealing every single word of Obamacare. And mark my words, following the election in 2016, the referendum that we will have, in 2017 this chamber will return and we will repeal every word of Obamacare. We'll bring back economic growth. We'll bring back opportunity. And then we'll pass commonsense health care reform that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable, that keeps government from getting between us and our doctors. We will recognize that this horrible experiment has failed. And when millions of Americans lose their jobs, are forced into part-time work, lose their health care, lose their doctors, when millions of Americans see their premiums skyrocket, it's incumbent on members of this body, it's incumbent on the federal government to fix the wreckage they caused, to fix the wreckage that the Supreme Court has now embraced lawlessly.”