[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 2, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address 
my colleagues today. Indeed, being in the middle of a government 
shutdown is something we did not want, and my colleagues and I on our 
side of the aisle continue to invite the Senate colleagues and their 
conferees to sit at the table with us and negotiate. We want to make 
certain that we work out the issues of our Nation's fiscal health.
  We have to remember currently we're borrowing $2 billion, $3 billion 
a day to keep the doors open. This is something we cannot do. It is not 
fair. It is not fair to future generations. It is not fair to our 
children and grandchildren. It is not fair to the small business people 
who have dreams of building a business, watching that business grow, 
watching those dreams come true. It is not fair to the future of their 
families. To our Senate colleagues, we do continue to ask them to join 
us and to negotiate these issues.
  There's a lot that's been said about ObamaCare, and some say, Well, 
it doesn't have anything to do with the budget. You know what, Mr. 
Speaker? It has everything to do with the budget because of the amount 
of growth that is taking place in this program. I think we all remember 
that originally ObamaCare was to be a health insurance access program. 
Let's give a pathway for uninsured Americans to have access to health 
insurance, a laudable goal, something that there was agreement on. 
Where it ran off the rails, if you will, was in the projections of the 
cost--far exceeding what anybody thought it would be--when it began to 
make $600 billion worth of cuts in Medicare, taking money out of 
Medicare, money that the Federal Government is taking out of wage 
earners' paychecks and putting it into the pot that says ``ObamaCare'' 
and using that money to redirect, to stand up the ObamaCare program.
  There's a problem with that. There's a problem when there are 
mandates that are made on our hospitals, on our physicians that are 
paying them less. There's a problem when there is $819.3 billion of new 
taxes specifically embedded in the ObamaCare legislation, the law, 
$819.3 billion worth of new taxes that are going to come out of the 
paychecks of workers and be put into the ObamaCare pot to implement 
that law.
  The impact is dramatic. Even though the President has given 1,200 
waivers and special favors, even though he's chosen to make 19 delays 
of the program for people and entities that have gone to him and said, 
Hey, we would like a delay or we would like a waiver--the list goes on 
and on--it is individuals, like my constituents, who are dealing with 
the full impact of this.
  Here are a couple of the emails that I have received:

       Marsha, please stop ObamaCare from happening.

  This is a small businessowner in one of my cities:

       It was great for me to have insurance through the CoverTN 
     program for small business. It works great for me and others. 
     It's affordable. There's no way I can afford ObamaCare. My 
     insurance cost is going up five times more than what I pay 
     now. We cannot afford this program.

  A small business owner who went to a check-cashing facility, got 
$400, started a business, and now has five locations, 45 employees, 
wants to grow this business, and cannot because with a 40-hour 
workweek, 50 employees, it would cause him to have to shutter the doors 
of his five locations and do something different for his 45 employees. 
That is the impact that this law is having on a regular daily basis.
  Another constituent with a child with type 1 diabetes, they have 
utilized their employer's reimbursement account, $5,000 that was there. 
Now that's going to be limited to $2,500. They are looking at how 
unaffordable the Affordable Care Act is going to be for them.
  The list goes on and on.

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