[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 133 (Tuesday, October 1, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6092-H6097]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, one would think after all of the hours
and hours of discussions that have taken place on this floor that
perhaps enough has been said. That may be true, but so much of what was
said seems not to be clarifying and providing a clear understanding of
what has actually happened here.
We want to take a few minutes here, probably maybe as much as an
hour, possibly less than that, and try to gain some clarity as to how
we got to this point with a government shutdown, how we can get out of
it, and what the impact is on Americans. There are good days and there
are bad days and then there are really, really bad days.
About 12:30 last night, as we were finishing the votes here on the
floor, it became very apparent that the government had, indeed, shut
down and that there wasn't any hope of resurrecting it in the final
hours of last night. So today, all across America, government offices
are shut down. You just heard a description of the World War II
Memorial. And that is but an example.
Now, how did we get here? How did this happen? We have been over the
last 3 years now dealing with one manufactured crisis after another.
They came to be known as ``cliffs'': ``fiscal cliff,'' ``debt limit
cliff,'' on and on. Each time we would come up to some deadline, and it
was made into a crisis. Our Republican friends were usually the--well,
they were always the instigators of this, at least since the 2010
election.
What has happened is they have used these deadlines, which come and
go every year, as an opportunity to leverage in one or another policy
changes. That has been going on. I think one of the most noteworthy of
these deadlines was the fiscal cliff that occurred in the summer of
2011 in which the United States came up against its debt limit and it
was just a moment away from that default.
{time} 2015
Fortunately, there were negotiations underway, and it did lead to a
settlement. The settlement, of course, was the infamous sequester. It
wasn't supposed to happen. Nobody liked it. It was in the bill. It did
happen, and now we are living with it. As time went on, we have had
even more of these moments of crisis, and yesterday was yet one more.
It occurs on a regular basis. Every October 1, we start a new fiscal
year, and that's an opportunity for us to look at all of the
expenditures of the Federal Government and to make decisions about what
should be or should not be funded and at what level it should be
funded.
So we had a crisis last night, and the result is the Federal
Government is largely unfunded, and monuments across the Nation--
national parks, Veterans Administration offices, Social Security
offices, and the rest--are in the process of being shut down, and some
are shut down. This is not a good thing. It's a very bad thing. It is
bad for this Nation. I was there in 1995 as Deputy Secretary at the
Department of the Interior when the Department of the Interior was shut
down--national parks, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S.
Geological Survey. Studies underway about the nature of everything from
earthquakes to hurricanes and the like were just put aside for 26 days.
We are back in that today. It could have been avoided--it should have
been avoided--and had we followed through on the normal process of
establishing a budget for the United States, it would have been, or
most likely would have been, avoided.
Why didn't that happen?
The House of Representatives passed a budget in March. The Senate
passed a budget at about the same time, and the Senate requested a
conference committee. From April to this moment, no conference
committee on the Budget has been established.
Now, the budget gives the framework in which the appropriations for
all of the Federal offices--the Department of Defense, parks and so
forth--are funded. It is within that framework of the budget. So,
without a framework, we were literally wandering in the dark, and some
very, very bad things happened. What happened was we came up against a
deadline. The continuing resolution, which continues to fund the
government--the first issue was for 2 months, until December 15, and
then it eventually came down to November 15. That continuing
resolution--sometimes called a ``CR''--actually provided less money
than did the Senate's version of the budget. It was $986 billion, which
is the sequestration amount that would continue forward.
While virtually every person in this entire House--435 of us--said
sequestration was bad and that we will never vote for sequestration
again, we were, in fact, presented with a sequestration appropriation,
a continuing resolution, that would go for 2 months. The sequestration
was, in fact, built into that. Now, the Democrats, in looking at this,
said, We don't want a shutdown. We will compromise for 2 months and
accept the lower funding level.
So, when people go back and forth here and say there was no effort to
compromise, that's not true. The fact of the matter is the Democrats
said, to avoid the shutdown of government, we will accept the
sequestration level of government, which was, I think, over $50 billion
less than what we would have liked to have spent to keep the programs
going.
Along the way, our Republican colleagues decided that they would use
this moment to terminate the Affordable Health Care Act. We are going
to spend some time on that this evening. The termination of the
Affordable Health Care Act would affect every American in many, many
ways, and we will spend some time talking about all of those ways.
So, by combining the CR, which the Democrats accepted--and had it
passed the House and the Senate, there would be no government
shutdown--and by joining to that the desire, particularly of the Tea
Party Republican caucus members, we wound up with a stalemate. We need
to understand exactly what was in the CR and exactly what was the
impact of the--what shall we say? There were three different versions
of this. One version was to repeal, in other words, just wipe out the
entire law--the Affordable Health Care Act, or ObamaCare. Another was
to delay all of it. Then yet a third was to delay just a piece of it.
So there have been different iterations, but each one would
dramatically affect the people of America.
I would like to now turn to my colleague from Texas, Sheila Jackson
Lee, who will pick up with this issue.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would clarify that the gentleman
was recognized for half the time remaining before 10 p.m., or
approximately 54 minutes.
The gentleman may proceed.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Talk fast, Sheila.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the distinguished gentleman from
California for his leadership.
If I might inquire of the Speaker again, you said the time was--how
much time? I'm sorry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time is 54 total minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Out of 60 minutes? Is that what you're saying?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Rather than 60 minutes, it is 54 total
minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you so very much. I wanted to make sure it
wasn't 5 minutes.
Let me thank the gentleman again from California. I want to thank him
overall for a litany of causes and legislative efforts that I've joined
him on--Make It In America and a number of others. I am so glad that he
has come to the floor today to be able to recount for the American
people just what we have gone through.
I want to start where he started because I've heard a number of my
colleagues who are here on the floor--Congressman Honda, Congresswoman
Kaptur--speak eloquently about their work on the Appropriations
Committee
[[Page H6093]]
and of the wall--the mountain--that they had to climb with a compromise
that many Democrats voted for and that the President signed, which was
the sequestration that was created to avoid a shutdown some years ago.
The numbers were so odious that it was thought that we would bring the
Republicans to the table in a consensus group. I'd hoped the American
people would recognize that they would be surprised to find out that
those odious numbers were not even enough, that it didn't bring them to
the table. In fact, what it did is cause them to hunker down--to want
more cuts, more damage to the American people--which is where we find
ourselves today.
Without the shutdown that we are in now, that sequestration, itself,
which is what Democrats were trying to work toward to avoid this
deepening impact, was going to lose a million jobs, but we could not
seemingly bridge that gap of understanding with House Republicans and,
particularly, with the right-wing component. Over the weekend, by the
way, one Minnesota Member of Congress and former Presidential candidate
indicated that she was smiling. They got just what they wanted.
So, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I am glad to be able to
say these points just for a moment.
That was a moment of compromise--that was a moment of holding one's
nose--because we were doing it for the good of the whole. It was for
the greater good, for the good of the whole.
We come now to another moment of crisis. Someone asked me: What is
the plan? The answer is right before us, and that is a clean CR. Let me
explain.
It is not a clean CR to take us into 2014 and 2015. My friends, it is
only until November 15 so we can have cooler heads, and we can
reconcile with Senate Majority Leader Reid--who was offered this
compromise, this peace offering--and with the President and sit down
even before Thanksgiving and get a budget for all of the running of the
government and an appropriations process to allow that to happen.
Now let me quickly go to the three bills that we had and just say
these things.
National parks. I want to say directly to the Bellaire teacher--and
her name is Ann Linsley-Kennedy--that we are going to work as hard as
we can to get those parks open, and I will tell you the answer. The
answer is for the Republican House to vote on a clean CR, and you will
be able to go to the park with the Bellaire students.
I am going to be calling you tonight, Ms. Linsley-Kennedy, to let you
know how hard Democrats are working to encourage our Republicans to
just vote on that clean CR, and your youngsters will be able to be
headed to Yellowstone on October 4.
The other point is that I want to tell Patrick Smith, a disabled
veteran who called my office: thank you for your service. The reason I
voted down and joined my colleagues against this piecemeal veterans'
bill, Patrick, is that the numbers were so insulting to your
willingness to pay the ultimate on the battlefield. It was $6 billion
less. It wasn't going to help reduce the claims or get your benefits.
Those benefits are going to be running now for a couple of weeks, but I
will tell you, Patrick, on the floor of the House: I promise you that
we will not have this ridiculous treatment of our veterans, but we are
going to do something that is meaningful, not what was done on the
floor of the House today.
Finally, let me say to my colleague Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes
Norton--again, using the plight of the people of the District of
Columbia--that you are deserving of the respect of using your own $8
billion, and the Republicans know full well that all they have to do is
to vote for a clean CR to be able to ensure that this independent
area--the Capital of the United States, whose Member does not have a
vote--is able to do this.
Congressman, today is October 1. Again, I want to wish my brother,
Michael Jackson, a birthday wish.
I hope you had a great day, but you had an historic day. October 1 is
``get covered.'' That means that, with all of the noise about
ObamaCare--about the bill--it is the law.
I want to announce on the floor today that we are told that millions
of people have gotten on this Web site--hear my words: HealthCare.gov--
2 million or so in New York, California and all throughout the Nation.
When I went to my office in the early morning hours of last evening or
what was yesterday--at 1 or 2 in the morning--we turned on
HealthCare.gov, and I want you to know that the system said it was
overwhelmed, not because of inadequacy but because people were pressing
to be able to have good health care. They needed it. These are people
with issues and preexisting conditions--people who are suffering from
sickle cell and people with diabetes and others. They were saying,
thank God. There is one less spina bifida. One woman was 18 years old,
and her family was told, You are off of the insurance. God knows she is
going to be able to be covered.
So I want to thank you for doing that.
I am closing on a number of 3,000. These are 3,000 children in
Houston who are on the waiting list for Head Start because of sequester
and the government shutdown. I end on that note because we have talked
about the disabled and disease, and we have talked about the District
of Columbia and about going to a park, but who cares about the
children--3,000? How many are across the Nation who can't get Head
Start or who can't get food stamps because this body decided to vote
$40 billion out?
I look forward to continuing this discussion, but more importantly, I
want to thank you for recognizing that the way to the golden arch is
through decency and compromise and sensible reconciliation. Vote on a
clean CR, and we will get to the next step, which is to work to make
sure this government stays open and that the American people are our
first priority.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much.
There is no doubt that this House has the ability at any moment to
vote on the continuing resolution that the Senate has sent back here.
If that were to happen, the President would immediately have that law
on his desk. He could sign it, and government would at that moment
reopen. Keep in mind that that CR was not one that we thought was the
best. It, actually, is significantly below the level of funding that
the Democrats wanted, and it does continue, at least for another month
and a half, the sequestration, which we do not like.
I would like now to turn to Ms. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, who spoke here
on the floor a few moments ago.
Ms. Kaptur, please share with us your thoughts on the current crisis
in America.
Ms. KAPTUR. I want to thank Congressman Garamendi for bringing us all
together this evening, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, Congressman Honda--
those who are here and are serious about trying to rectify what
happened last night with the GOP shutdown of our departments of the
Federal Government. How very irresponsible, how reckless, how it puts
our economy at risk to put politics ahead of the national interests,
and so, so unnecessary.
{time} 2030
I stand here this evening as a member of the Appropriations
Committee, the committee and the Constitution that is responsible for
operating and providing the funding for the Departments of our
government: the Department of Transportation, the Department of
Defense, the Department of Education. You can go across the
Departments. As of the end of September, we're supposed to have the
budgets passed for each of those Departments for fiscal year 2014. That
officially began last night at midnight. At the moment, those 12 bills
have not been passed. The Republicans are holding them hostage for
their efforts to try to contort the legislative process to change the
law, to change the Affordable Care Act because they don't like parts of
it.
Actually, that is a tangential issue. It has nothing to do with
whether or not the Department of Transportation will have the funding
to sign contracts to get roads paved across this country, to repair
bridges that are in disrepair across the Nation, or to make sure that
we have air controllers across this Nation on a regular basis and not
just on an emergency basis.
It has nothing to do with whether in Ohio, for example, at Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base, the full complement of staff, both military
and civilian, can
[[Page H6094]]
report for work at the 180th Fighter Wing F-16 unit in Lucas County,
Ohio; whether the technicians who repair those planes, who were
furloughed, over 200 of them, who are, in my view, essential--because
you can't fly the plane if the thing doesn't work, right?--but they
were let go for the moment and classified as not having to report for
work.
This is such a mishmash across the government of the United States
and so utterly irresponsible to try to hold every single Department
hostage to the GOP's particular view of a bill that they don't like
that has nothing to do with the operation of these other Departments.
I stand here tonight to say that they put at risk the entire economic
recovery of the country, furloughing over 800,000 people across the
Government of the United States, parks--some folks have talked about
parks. It's way beyond parks. We talked about the World War II Memorial
here and the first time I've ever seen it without anyone on site
because it's all cordoned off. It was as though a neutron bomb had hit
the site. There were no citizens that could access the site. The
fountains were turned off, the Visitor Center, the facilities that are
there for people to use were all shuttered. To what end?
The normal constitutional appropriations process works in a way that
we pass our bills in the House and in the Senate; and then we meet, the
House and the Senate, the Senators and the Representatives together, we
work out our differences; we send the bills to the President by the end
of September; and the government operates for another year.
The GOP in the House has been very unwilling to follow the rules,
very irresponsible. They've now placed the whole country in jeopardy
because they can't reach agreement with us. How sad for the Nation and
how unnecessary; how reckless to do this to the economy. And we know
that when contracts aren't let--and contractors are calling all of our
offices wanting to know when those contracts will be signed. Whether
it's for unmanned aerial vehicles that we have to develop in this
country or whether it's fixing combines or overflows that are a serious
challenge in the Midwest and other places, the government simply can't
conduct its business. Generals and departmental administrators are
spending more time thinking about who's going to be furloughed tomorrow
than getting the job done. So it throws a wrench into the gears of a
great society, of a great country, the oldest Republic on the face of
the Earth.
I thank the gentleman for calling this Special Order this evening to
say to the American people that we share their frustration. We are
their representatives. We want the Government of the United States to
work. To try to use the process that they've used to gerrymander in
States like Ohio to suppress the will of the majority of the people by
holding the Affordable Care Act out there and every Department hostage,
they're contorting the government and its ability to operate in the
same way that they contorted the gerrymandering of this country when,
in fact, there were 1,500,000 more votes cast for Democratic Members
who ran for Congress than Republican. In States like Ohio that vote 50/
50, we only have four Democratic Representatives out of 16. There are
12 Republicans, 4 Democrats because of gerrymandering. The very same
contortion that they did to the politics of the country in the drawing
of those lines, they're now using that same weapon inside this House to
try to contort the legislative process that has resulted in shutdown.
I thank Congressman Garamendi for bringing us together this evening,
for trying to inject some reason, some responsibility and prudent
behavior into the way that this government operates. We share your
passion for that end.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Ms. Kaptur. We should have
pointed out in the introduction that you are the ranking member of one
of the Appropriation Committees--transportation, the energy programs,
all of the research that goes on, and a lot of the projects of, I
believe, NASA, also. I know you worked long and hard on that, and I
sense a sadness, from your remarks, that all of the good things that
are done by those Departments are simply in abeyance now; and given the
level of funding that is in the CR with the sequestration, much will
not be done.
Let me now turn to my colleague from California (Mr. Honda), who has
been serving for a while here representing the Silicon Valley and much
of what we were just talking about, the research and the development of
the economy. I know you've had a great deal to do with that over the
years, really helping to create one of the engines of economic growth
in the United States. Mr. Honda.
Mr. HONDA. Thank you, my friend. I want to add my thanks to you for
convening this group and being joined by my good friends from Texas,
the gentleman from San Antonio and the gentlelady from Houston.
The comments I want to make to the Speaker are two things. One, I
want to share with the people of this country some information that
maybe many people don't know about who you are, my friend. We have
something in common. We spent 2 years in Peace Corps--you in Ethiopia
and I in El Salvador. From those experiences, we understand the kinds
of impact that we could have as individuals from this country. Through
the program of Peace Corps that President Kennedy had put together,
we've been able to accrue a lifelong journey and experience that allows
us to reflect rather deeply and profoundly the impacts that government
can have, both positive and negative.
I do know, from my observation of your history in California, that
being the first commissioner of insurance in the State of California
was significant. That experience has to have some import and some
insights into what's going on today in terms of the Affordable Care Act
and President Obama's efforts in trying to make sure that this country
allows each and every person coverage as individuals in this country
and the benefit that it brings about.
The fact that you were the first commissioner of insurance also
allowed you the interesting insight of the impact of the health
insurance companies and how they manage to impact the cost of health
care. I think being the commissioner of insurance in California also
has to give you a sense of pride when October 1 is the day that we had
kicked off the State exchange to cover California. That has to give you
a sense of accomplishment, but also a sense of dismay that there are
folks here who would use the political process to deny people the
coverage that they need in order to have a good health program.
I just wanted to share those thoughts not only with you, but with the
folks who are viewing us in this country so that they know that we're
standing here not because we want to take up time and space, but we
want to utilize the experience that we have accrued over time for the
benefit of this country. That was the third mandate of Peace Corps, to
come home and utilize all that we understand and invest it in this
country. I just wanted to share that with you and with the rest of this
country.
Now, all day the beltway discussion has been centered on who has the
leverage and who is paying the political cost of a government shutdown.
What about the human costs, and what about our workers and their
families? What about our economy? They cannot afford this. Today there
are over 800,000 people that should be working that aren't, and there
are people all over this country that rely on the work that these
people do.
As long as the majority wages this ideological war, the National
Institutes of Health will not be able to accept new patients for
lifesaving research. Our veterans will have to go without their
disability and pension checks. American families will have their home
loans stalled. Family businesses won't have access to the capital they
need to grow, and pregnant women and young children will be prevented
from receiving critical nutrition support.
I urge my Republican colleagues to think about the families in their
districts that don't have a vote on this floor. They expect much more
from us and deserve a better outcome. Let's remember that at this very
moment, the common denominator is that there is enough agreement in
this body on a funding level to end this shutdown right now. Let's do
that. Let's bring up the Senate continuing resolution, a
[[Page H6095]]
clean one. Let's put people back to work and do what we were sent here
to do: keep government working for the American people and fulfill our
constitutional obligation.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Honda, thank you so very much, and thank you for
your lifetime of service, your early years in the Peace Corps in El
Salvador, the work that you did there, and, as you said, bringing it
home and continuing to serve right up through this day and beyond as
you continue to represent the great Silicon Valley of California. So
thank you very much for all that you have done over these many years.
You mentioned something that I'm going to turn to very quickly. I was
the insurance commissioner, and one of the things that we wanted to do
in California, but we couldn't get the legislature to pass, was the
Patients' Bill of Rights. Some of this we tried to do with regulations,
but the Patients' Bill of Rights is now the law of the land.
When our Republican colleagues came forward with a continuing
resolution that was actually a sequestration and a low level of funding
and added to it the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, I'm going: Wait
a minute. You want to repeal the Patients' Bill of Rights?
I'm going to run through this very quickly.
Children with preexisting conditions, young children at birth or in
the early years that have developed some serious medical condition
before the Patients' Bill of Rights which now is in effect this day,
children cannot be denied coverage, period. There are thousands upon
thousands of children across this Nation that find themselves in this
situation.
Young adults at the age of 18, prior to the Patients' Bill of
Rights--and this has been in effect for more than a year now--at the
age of 18, they were off of their parents' coverage and they were out
there on their own, often unable, particularly if they were a woman, to
be able to get insurance. But the Patients' Bill of Rights allows them
to stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26; and there are
more than 6.6 million young Americans 18 to 26 that are now on their
parents' health coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
Women have the right to health care coverage without discrimination
for all kinds of things--breast cancer, pregnancy, and other kinds of
illnesses that women might get. Prior to the Patients' Bills of Rights
and the Affordable Care Act, there was heavy-duty discrimination
against women. They couldn't get insurance. If they could, they would
pay substantially more. We're talking that half of the population of
America, at one time or another, women--actually, more than half--were
facing this discrimination, but no longer with the Patients' Bill of
Rights.
{time} 2045
Seniors have a right to affordable medication and also to an annual
wellness visit, which actually has dramatically reduced the ongoing
inflation rate in Medicare, bending the curve.
And then finally, this one down here, every American has the right to
health care coverage without a limitation on the annual amount that you
could spend. A family with a cancer case would blow right through the
limitation. They'd be on their own. And this is what led to the
enormous number of personal bankruptcies, more than 50 percent of which
were caused by health care problems.
So the Patients' Bill of Rights was, according to our Republican
colleagues, to be repealed along with all of the Affordable Health Care
Act. Needless to say, those of us on the Democratic side said, This is
wrong. This is not good for America. It's not good for Americans,
individuals, children, or adults. And we fought the fight.
We're not finished with this yet. Although as of today, it appears as
though our Republican colleagues have dropped the issue of defunding,
delaying, or repealing the Affordable Health Care Act as far as the
continuing resolution is concerned.
I will come back. I will cover some of these things again. I would
like now to turn to our new colleague from San Antonio, Texas, Joaquin
Castro. Please join us. You have a great background in that city. And
you come with an extraordinary reputation, well earned, as a scholar
and as a great citizen of San Antonio.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Thank you, Congressman Garamendi. And thank you
for all of your work and for pointing out the many benefits of the
Affordable Care Act, which, as many Americans know, took effect today.
There were so many people that were anxious and excited about getting
health care coverage, about comparing prices to see if they might get a
lower price for insurance that the Web site actually had glitches, it
had problems. But that is a good thing. And in Texas, we know that
problem very well. We're the State that has the highest percentage of
people that don't have health care coverage at all.
Would you believe that one out of four Texans--25 percent of kids and
25 percent of adults--have no health care coverage at all. Thirty
percent of women don't have health care coverage. Thirty-eight percent
of Hispanics in Texas don't have health care coverage. And so the fact
that the Affordable Care Act and the exchanges kicked off today is a
great day for Texas and a great day for Americans.
But as we think about what's going on today--and today has been a
very sad day in our country not only because this is the first time in
17 years that our U.S. Government has shut down but because of the way
it happened. And I think that, you know, when people woke up today and
they turned on the news or the radio or picked up the newspaper and
they saw a government shutdown, the people who usually live their
lives, work hard every day, sometimes don't have a lot of time to pay
attention to politics, saw those headlines and thought, What are these
guys up in Washington doing? What are they up to? And that played into
all of the stereotypes about how bad Congress is, about how bad
politicians are.
But let's think about how this happened. During the summer, there's a
junior Senator from Texas, from my home State that barnstormed the
Nation and our State, insisting that we defund what was derisively
called ObamaCare, that we get rid of all of the patient protections and
all of the great things that you have just described. And he, in fact,
said that he would do everything in his power, everything in his power
to make sure that that law was defunded.
Now you and I both know that you pass laws, you do budgets, and you
also raise the debt ceiling limit, but that those are different things,
that you don't hold one hostage to the other. But he insisted and got
many of the Tea Party members in the House of Representatives--in fact,
he had conference calls with them, had personal meetings with them. His
folks were calling out the Speaker of the House on Twitter and on
Facebook, when the Speaker thought about being reasonable, passing a
clean CR so that we could go about the Nation's business.
And it became clear that this was playing into a pattern that has
developed with Republicans since 2010, since the increase in Tea Party
Republican members. This is the pattern. Think about the sequester.
That came about in 2011 through the Budget Control Act. It mostly came
about because there was a lot of pressure by Tea Party Republicans to
cut in every single corner of government. And so we got a bad law, the
sequester, which I think most people acknowledge now is bad.
But if you will remember, Congressman, when that happened, these
Republicans who for years, for years have been staking their careers on
cutting government, all of a sudden magically were running away from
the fact that they did it, were acting like, Wow, that was never our
idea. It was the President who wanted sequester. It was the Democrats
who insisted on sequester. When, in fact, for years and years and even
more intensely since 2010, they have been demanding that we cut
government no matter what. But when it happened, many of them wouldn't
claim it. They say, That wasn't us.
Well, let's fast forward now 2 years. The same thing happens with a
government shutdown. So the government shuts down as they wanted. And
what happens the next morning? Folks come to the floor. They do
interviews on television. They give quotes in the newspaper saying, It
wasn't us. We've been
[[Page H6096]]
saying this the whole time, but it wasn't us. It was the Democrats that
did it.
Look, if you're going to advocate for something, if you're going to
push for something, then you need to own it, and you need to accept it.
Now I will say, if you look at a lot of the social media sites for
Republicans, a lot of those Tea Party supporters are very honest about
what they want. I had a chance to read through many of them yesterday.
And they said, Shut it down. Shut the government down.
Now, look, there may be a small percentage of Americans who feel that
way, who are so frustrated with government, who are so frustrated with
American society that they do, in fact, want to shut America down. But
the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats know that that's a
horrendous thing.
So what we have today are some errant comments by folks who slipped
up politically and said, Yes, we're happy about shutting this thing
down. But then you have another group of folks who, even though they
voted in lockstep with Senator Cruz and the Tea Party Republicans, now
try to cast aspersions on the folks who tried to stop it, the
Democrats. You can't have it both ways. If you advocated for it for
years, if this was your strategy, then when it happens, you take
responsibility for the results.
Now there's also been a little bit of debate about, well, how do you
handle this situation? We know, as I said, that you don't hold the
budget hostage to policy. In other words, you don't try to change
policy through the budget. We understand that.
So just to crystallize that, I would ask my colleagues, if you think
it's okay to not raise the debt ceiling limit or approve a budget
because you disagree with public policy, a law that was passed 3 years
ago, then I would ask you, should we not approve a budget, as
Democrats? Or should we not raise the debt ceiling limit because we
believe that there should be a comprehensive immigration reform plan
with a path to citizenship?
Now bear in mind, these guys are saying that the Affordable Care Act
is upside down in its numbers. In other words, there are probably about
53 percent of Americans saying, quite frankly, that they don't like it
right now. More and more are liking it. But they're right on those
numbers.
Well, 60 percent of Americans say they want comprehensive immigration
reform. Ninety percent of Americans said they wanted background checks.
Should we hold out and say, We're not going to raise the debt ceiling
limit unless we get universal background checks or we get comprehensive
immigration reform? Of course not. And Democrats have acted
responsibly. There's a reason that we've not done that. Because we
respect this democracy. We respect the Nation. And we're honest with
the Nation.
So I hope that as cooler heads prevail that we'll be able to resolve
this, that we'll be able to pass a clean CR, and that we will be able
to do the people's business in a respectful and honest way.
Thank you, Congressman, very much for the time.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Castro, thank you so very, very much. You spoke of
your Senator, Senator Cruz. I suspect in 5 years, you're going to
replace him, and I would like that.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I'm happy to hear that.
Mr. GARAMENDI. It's time for us to go back to our East-West Show,
which we have done here many, many nights. My colleague from the State
of New York, Paul Tonko, who has represented for 5 years now the area
where the Industrial Revolution began, along the Hudson and Mohawk
Rivers.
Right now we're in a fix here in Washington. The government is shut
down. All of the things you've talked about over these many years,
about building the American economy, manufacturing, the research that
you were responsible for for the State of New York--and it's all shut
down.
Mr. TONKO. Right.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Share with us your thoughts if you would, please.
Mr. TONKO. Sure. Well, the gentleman from Texas gave a great rundown
of the dynamics that have brought us to this moment.
It's a sad day in this House with a government shutdown. The
Republican shutdown of government is something that I think bears great
consequences. And we've seen it and heard about it already. I wasn't
here for the last such episode, which is about 17 years old in
duration, but I do know that hearing from constituents already about
concerns for vital services, about furloughing, about the impact on
family budgets for our many, many Federal workers is real.
So we need to move forward, I think, in a way that allows us to
address a clean CR. People say, Well, what is a clean CR? What is a CR?
A continuing resolution allows for a short-term continuation of a
Federal budget, absent a negotiated budget.
And I think that we find ourselves in this situation where we require
a CR. Hopefully it will be a clean one. No bells and whistles, no
attachments. And the desire to attach the Affordable Care Act and to
call it on this floor in those discussions, in those debates ``a bill''
is disingenuous. It's an act. It is a law that was signed into place by
the President and that was given constitutional approval when reviewed
by the highest Court in the land, the Supreme Court. So let's call it
what it is. It's a law.
This is unprecedented in trying to take a law and repeal it as part
of a negotiating process to move a budget forward. A budget should be
about the math of that budget, about upward/downward adjustments of
programs and putting together a blueprint for whatever--a 3-month, 4-
month scenario that will enable the government to be funded and
continue to operate. And quickly coming upon the heels of that is a
debt ceiling bill that needs, again, approval from Congress to have
America pay her bills.
So these are basic fundamental processes that ought not be tainted by
political whim and disagreement and discontent with an outcome that is
3 years old now and that found a great threshold date today, October 1,
as many people are now allowed to enroll across the country for the
purposes of health care coverage--affordable, accessible, quality
health care for individuals and families. That was the thematic. That
was the mission statement. That was the goal. So we need to go forward.
We need to now get out of this shutdown and not enable it to continue
for any longer in duration. And we need to make certain that we
understand that the need for a CR, a continuing resolution, is because
we don't have a budget.
Now when the United States Senate approved its version of a budget,
when the House of Representatives--this body--approved its version of a
budget, and when the President and his administration offered their
fiscal blueprint for the fiscal year, we should have moved forward.
Many of us--yourself, myself--aggressively encouraged the leadership
to name the panelists at the conference table. Name the ``conferees,''
as they're dubbed, to the process so that we can put together a
budget--balanced, bold--that allows us to do the sort of creative
qualities that would reduce the deficit, grow the economy, create a
climate for growing jobs, and produce revenues where they're essential
so that we cut where we can in order to invest where we must,
especially in this innovation economy.
That should have been the order of business for the day. This whole
debate, this whole shutdown, the Republican shutdown that happened to
become reality this morning at midnight could have been avoided if we
had gone forward, named the conferees, named the panelists to the
conference table to negotiate out a settlement, recommend to the two
houses, get the work done. This economy, this Nation requires that. The
individuals, families members across this Nation deserve that sort of
certainty, as does the small business community.
{time} 2100
That's the business that should have been accomplished; but, instead,
we find ourselves requiring a CR. And now, in this painful moment of
allowing for the budget to be funded, or a CR to be done, we attach
bells and whistles like the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Unnecessary, immoral, in a sense, to hold back a process like this.
Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might just add to the exposition that you laid
out: the
[[Page H6097]]
two budget proposals, the Senate and the House budget proposals both
passed. The Senate appointed conferees. To this moment, the House has
not appointed conferees to the budget conference committee.
Mr. TONKO. And the leader of the minority has named the conferees for
the Democrats in the House. So you're right, just about everyone named
those individuals that will be part of the team at the conference
table, getting work done.
Mr. GARAMENDI. So the Republican leadership refused to establish the
conference committee by refusing to name the conferees.
Mr. TONKO. Right. And, again, every effort has been made to advance
letters, to speak from the floor, to notice the leadership of our
request, our urging, our challenge to name these people. That's the way
the business gets done.
It was avoided, for whatever reason, perhaps not believing in your
own budget that you put together as a House. Otherwise, why would you
not bring it forward?
Why would you not vote on your own budget in a way that would have us
at the conference table?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there you have it. And we have a shutdown.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have left.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 5 minutes
remaining.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, let us split that time. Would you like to
close, or would you like to continue on?
Mr. TONKO. I will just make mention of this, that I think the
muddying up, if you will, of a CR, a continuing resolution, first,
calling it a bill on the floor several times over is disingenuous.
People place trust in us. You should honor that trust, and not,
nomenclature-wise, change the outcome here.
We have an act of Congress that was signed into law. This is a law of
the land, in this case, to provide for affordable, accessible, quality
health care. If you didn't like that result, there were opportunities
to change it.
Candidate Romney, Governor Romney, Representative Ryan, as the Vice
President, they ran to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The people of
this great Nation decided in that Presidential election for the re-
election effort of President Obama, that they were going to stay with
the President. So that statement was made.
The highest court in the land reviewed it for constitutionality. They
approved that, gave it a thumbs-up.
Why are we still dwelling on this situation?
Why are we bogging down the process, where you either defund, deny,
repeal, whatever the course may be. We have seen it over and over
again, so that 45, 46, 47 votes in a row to repeal were all denied.
When you do the same thing over and over and over again, expecting
different results, people have defined that as insanity.
So we have not provided the sort of integrity this process needs. We
have not shown the respect to the individuals and families that are
automatically showing today, with the very aggressive, very involved
activism today to sign up with the Affordable Care Act. We are
disregarding that. We're disrespecting that.
And I think the polling that was done, I saw a poll today that said
71 percent of the American public does not believe we should hold up
and fold the government, shut down the government because of an effort
to repeal the Affordable Care Act. So the public is speaking. They're
telling us, do it better.
And thank you, Representative Garamendi, for the opportunity to join
you.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for joining me once
again.
I'm going to wrap this up with a note of sadness. The American
Government is shut down. It is shut down because of the conflict that
has developed between the Democrats and the Republicans here in the
House and on the Senate side.
It's a conflict that didn't have to happen. We could have worked this
out in a conference committee, had Speaker Boehner chosen to appoint
conferees. It didn't take place.
A continuing resolution--the Democrats compromised seriously and
accepted a continuing resolution at the sequestration level, far less
money than we think is necessary, but we wanted to keep the government
running.
We refuse to abandon the Affordable Care Act and the millions upon
millions of Americans that have benefited from that and are benefiting
today as the exchanges are going into place.
California's had an enormous success, and it will work. And as it
works, I think we'll find that those Americans, some 40 million that do
not have health insurance, will, in the next months ahead, get their
health insurance at an affordable cost. And this is already bending the
cost curve for American health care. It's a good thing.
But it's also a very sad day. There is absolutely no reason that this
government was shut down, except for the intransigence of our
Republican colleagues demanding the repeal of things like the Patients'
Bill of Rights, demanding that we go back on a promise that America has
tried to have for some 60 years now, providing health insurance to all
Americans. We're moving towards that with the Affordable Care Act, or
ObamaCare.
It's a sad day, but it's also a hopeful day. It's a hopeful day
because the exchanges are working. There will be computer glitches, and
there will be some error in the mathematics; but across this Nation,
the exchanges are working.
And the American public that is uninsured, not the insured, but the
uninsured, they're going to the exchanges and they're saying, let me
shop; let me shop in a rational market where I can compare prices and
quality and providers. They're doing that in California, in New York,
and in Texas, all across this Nation.
So it's hopeful. It's a hopeful moment, even though we have spent the
last week battling out the fundamental question, Is America going to
move forward and stay in business, or is the government going to shut
down?
Republicans chose to shut down the government.
Are Americans going to get health care?
The Republicans said no, the Affordable Care Act must be repealed.
The Democrats said no way, no how.
It's in place, folks. The Affordable Care Act is in place, and the
exchanges are working, and millions of Americans will find an
opportunity to buy insurance in a competitive market, free market, not
a government market, but a market structured by government so that the
private sector can display its insurance policies, what their price is,
what their quality is, which doctors they can go to.
It's a sad day, but it's also a hopeful day.
Mr. Speaker, with our 54 minutes, we thank you for the opportunity to
explain this, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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