[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 136 (Friday, October 4, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN PERSPECTIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mica) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, just a quick minute to reflect on the previous 
speaker.
  First of all, as a former chairman of Transportation, chair of the 
Aviation Subcommittee, if the FAA Administrator is not ensuring that 
safety positions, including inspectors that are key to safety, that 
those positions are filled and manned during this shutdown, he should 
turn in his resignation immediately. I can tell you he has the 
discretion to make certain that safety and our Essential Air Service 
inspections are conducted. So this is a game that's being played by the 
other side.
  Secondly, the gentleman spoke to a non-Federal program. There is no 
reason that any program that's supported with private money can't 
continue. We've seen this game played this week, poking veterans in the 
eye, poking even minorities in the eye.
  If you have been to Washington and seen the World War II Memorial, 
it's an open space. And to put up barriers, and to put Park Service 
personnel out there to put fences up to prohibit the public and our 
veterans from walking into that open memorial, is an offense. To do the 
same thing to the Martin Luther King memorial is an offense to our 
minorities and all Americans.
  So this is a game that's being played. I have seen it played, you 
know, just a short time ago. And it's good to have some institutional 
memory on FAA. The other side controlled this body. Now, they 
controlled the House, the Senate and the White House in huge 
majorities, they could not pass an FAA reauthorization. They did 20 
extensions. During those 20 extensions, you know what happened? They 
left all of our safety policy, they left our advancements in 
technology, our Next Generation air traffic control programs, all in 
the lurch. And here they are talking about a 4-day disruption. And they 
did the same thing to me.
  I sent over to Mr. Reid, after the 20-some extensions, I sent to him 
a clean extension with one caveat: you couldn't have Essential Air 
Service, a Federal program in which you gave more than a thousand 
dollars per ticket subsidy. That was offensive to him because he was 
giving $3,720 per airline ticket subsidy. And he held up the 
legislation for 2 weeks. We had a partial shutdown of FAA for 2 weeks.
  They called me every name in the book. I was a one-man Tea Party 
terrorist cell. The President, I heard him talking about holding a gun 
to the head of the Senate. That's what they used against me. They've 
used this before, they are using it again. They had an opportunity to 
do some of these things, they didn't.
  They couldn't even pass a budget. The only reason they passed a 
budget this year was we put No Pay, No Budget. All of their 4 years. So 
let's look at the record. How did we get ourselves into this situation? 
They spent that 4 years passing a health care bill that they told us we 
would know what was in it after we passed it, and we found out.
  The President 17 times has changed provisions in it that were in law. 
He gave an exemption to business people. He gave exemptions to his 
friends. He changed the law. Many of us wanted to do away with the law. 
We know that has gone into effect. We have asked for a reasonable 
approach to negotiate and change some things that need to be changed.
  Let Members of Congress and the White House staff and others be 
subject to ObamaCare. Let's have some relief for individuals for some 
time. But you can't do that if you won't negotiate. If you are golfing 
on Saturday, as the President was doing, if you don't show up for work 
on Sunday, like the Senate didn't do, if you come to work on Monday at 
2 o'clock, you don't get the job done. And then if you go to the White 
House and you don't sit down and talk or negotiate, you won't get it 
done.
  We're here, we're going to be here 24-7, our leadership is committed 
to stay over the weekend, next week until we get it done, until we open 
the government, until we get the finances of this country as it careens 
down the path to possible default. Seventeen trillion, asking for 
another trillion of indebtedness. From $9 trillion to 17 going to 18, 
double it in what--5, 6 years of this administration? Spending out of 
control, large government programs that do need our attention. We need 
to be responsible. We need to be accountable. We need to take any law, 
whether it's ObamaCare or others, and make certain that our people do 
have health care and do the best job possible working together and 
compromising.

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