[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 141 (Thursday, October 10, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6459]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE CONTINUED SHUTDOWN OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BY HOUSE REPUBLICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, day 10 of a Republican shutdown of the 
Federal Government. Where are we? Well, the consequences are cascading. 
They build up: $373 million a day in new Small Business Administration 
loans frozen, preventing small businesses from getting started, 
preventing small businesses from expanding and hiring new workers; 
10,000 applications a day for Social Security benefits and Medicare 
frozen. Veterans benefits, we have reduced the backlog by 30 percent. 
The people who are reducing that backlog, furloughed.
  I had a constituent in my district who lost a loved one at Walter 
Reed Army Hospital. When the funeral home came to collect their loved 
one for preparation for his final burial, there were no doctors for the 
death certificate because they had been furloughed.
  This affects every American. Sometimes we are not aware of how 
interwoven Federal services are in our lives. We count on and take for 
granted that the Federal Government is protecting us from diseases. 
There is research being done on a crash basis to make sure that 
antibiotic-resistant infections don't kill us and our children. It is a 
real threat. Those researchers, furloughed. Protecting illnesses and 
invasive species, including deadly species, from coming into the United 
States, at risk because the men and women who are charged with that 
mission are furloughed.
  We are now a subject of conversation all around the world. What 
happened to America? How can we be a beacon for others? How can we be a 
model for how to run a country? How can we lecture an emerging country 
about democratization and how it works for its people when we allow 
this kind of brinksmanship, this kind of spectacle, and the danger to 
our own country and its people?
  It is reckless. It causes real harm. The solution is at hand, and 
that is a clean funding bill for the government and a clean debt 
ceiling to make sure we are good for our debts. We have been good for 
our debts since the founding of the Republic, since Alexander Hamilton 
established the creditworthiness of the United States in George 
Washington's first Cabinet.
  Never has there been a risk that we wouldn't be good for our bills, 
and yet we have one faction in the Republican caucus seemingly 
dominating that conversation on that side of the aisle, more than 
willing to embrace the threat of default. Almost every major business 
group has pleaded with this Congress not to do that, not to even play 
with that. The last time they did, in 2011, our debt was downgraded for 
the first time in American history; $2.4 trillion worth of household 
wealth was lost, including $800 billion on the equity markets that fell 
625 points the next day. It hurt America. It is hurting America now.
  We can bring up a clean funding bill before the floor of this House 
tomorrow--today. We have got the votes to pass it. It is a matter of 
Republican leadership. Will they allow the democratic process to work 
in this body? On behalf of the country, can we not put aside 
partisanship just once for the sake of our country and do the right 
thing and reassure the world we are standing together to do that right 
thing, protecting the creditworthiness of this country, protecting the 
American people by providing government and turning our backs on 
anarchy? That is really what some are preaching: you don't need 
government; government is always bad; government never works; 
government doesn't protect you.
  That philosophy is dangerous and that philosophy, unfortunately, is 
at work here in the House of Representatives.
  It is time to turn our backs on that philosophy and embrace the needs 
of this country and the wonderful people we serve.

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