[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 135 (Thursday, October 3, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WE NEED LEADERSHIP, NOT THE BLAME GAME

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Bera) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BERA of California. Mr. Speaker, day No. 3--day No. 3--of a 
government shutdown that doesn't need to happen.
  Mr. Speaker, we need leadership, we don't need the blame game, and 
yet that is what we are seeing. Republicans blaming Democrats, 
Democrats blaming Republicans, the House blaming the Senate, the Senate 
blaming the House, and the House blaming the President.
  That isn't getting us anywhere. And to the American people, they're 
not saying: Oh, it's the Democrats' fault or it's the Republicans' 
fault. They're looking at Congress and saying: Why can't you do your 
job? Why can't you come together as Democrats and Republicans, bring 
your best ideas forward and compromise and negotiate?
  What this House is doing, what Congress is doing, is reckless. It's 
irresponsible. We need to start putting the American people's interests 
first because they're the ones that we work for. That's who sent us 
here.
  We're not asking anyone to give up their convictions. We all have our 
convictions, and we all have our districts and the people back home. 
What we're asking for, the Members in this body, the Republicans and 
the Democrats, is to think about the country. Now is the time for us to 
put the American people first. That means we've got to be able to come 
forward and understand and learn how to listen. It's hurting real 
people.
  I'm a doctor by training, and I look at this from the perspective of 
being a doctor and the American patients. As reported in my hometown 
newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, at my hometown hospital where I'm still 
a clinical professor, UC Davis Medical Center, here is what they said:

       For cancer patients, government help--in the form of 
     clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute--
     can be a matter of life and death. And the NCI, a Federal 
     agency, has closed its doors for the duration.

  One of my colleagues, Dr. David Gandara, a UC Davis Cancer Center 
lung cancer specialist, said this:

       We have California patients from our center who have been 
     going through clinical trials there and have been told to go 
     home. The program has been shut down.

  Now, I know yesterday you brought a bill to the floor, a resolution 
that restored partial funding to the NIH for 3 months, through 
December. But as a doctor, cancer patients are not looking at 3 months. 
They need some certainty. We need some certainty in the practice of 
medicine when we're sitting with our patients. So I implore this body 
to come together as Democrats and Republicans to think about those 
patients and to think about those Americans who are being hurt by our 
inability to do our job.
  Now, as a Democrat, I'm going to continue talking to my Republican 
colleagues and looking at ways that we can move forward, but 
inflammatory rhetoric and the blame game is not going to get us 
anywhere. We've got to learn how to listen to one another, we've got to 
learn how to speak to one another, and we've got to learn how to put 
the American people ahead of political parties. That's who we work for.
  The oath I took as a doctor is borne on a foundation of two solid 
principles: benevolence, to do good; nonmalfeasance, to do no harm.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress' inability to get the job done is doing 
irreparable harm to Americans and to American patients, and we 
certainly are not doing any good by not getting a budget put together 
and getting America back on track. Let's do our job. Let's do what the 
American people sent us here to do. Let's work together as Republicans 
and Democrats and learn how to listen to one another again and do the 
work of the American public.
  Mr. Speaker, the public is watching.

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