[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 143 (Saturday, October 12, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6560-H6566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messer). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. HANABUSA. Mr. Speaker, it is very disturbing that we are here on
day 12 of the Republican government shutdown, but it is even more
disturbing when we heard the point of order that was made just a little
while ago, the point of order on October 1, about a special rule that
was passed. What has happened by that vote--the vote, again, by the
majority party--says that only the majority leader or his designee can
bring the matter of calling up by motion the ability to rule, the
ability to ask people to vote on the continuing resolution as amended
by the Senate.
In this process of not only shutting down government, what we have
also done is shut down the people's right to have a representative form
of government. So, out of all of us--435, who are mandated by law to be
the Members of the House of Representatives--only one or his designee
has the right to bring forth this critical, critical issue on which the
people throughout this Nation are asking for a resolution. Only one can
do it. Yes, it passed by the majority of the Republican votes in this
House. Now, not only have we shut down government, not only have we
made things unbearable for the people, but we have deprived them of
their representative form of government. That, Mr. Speaker, is
something that the people should be absolutely outraged about.
I would like to begin this Special Order by first yielding to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
Mr. DOGGETT. I would ask the gentlelady about the number of Federal
employees you have in your area who remain unable to do their work.
Ms. HANABUSA. To the gentleman from Texas, I appreciate the inquiry.
As you may probably be aware, because of its unique location and its
location before the time we were a State, Hawaii has a large Federal
presence, and a lot of them are in the military. Because of the actions
of this House, plus the Senate, plus the President, about 20,000 of
them are defense. The last time I was able to check, we just had a
small handful that were yet not back to work, but we do have a large
number who did not work.
What is being impacted now are the other agencies which had some
funds like, for example, the courts, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the
other people like, for example, the State Department. All of them we
are watching very carefully, but we have an additional number--
somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000--who are being affected. As the
gentleman knows, it is not only they; it is the people they service,
and it is their families who are being impacted.
Mr. DOGGETT. That is exactly what I wanted to explore with you.
First of all, all of those public service workers, whether they are
at work or not at work, continue to face the uncertainty of whether
their paychecks will arrive when the car payment is due or when the
rent is due or when they need to buy another round of groceries. They
don't know if those checks will be there.
I think that there are some people out there across our country who
are watching this shutdown, and they are saying, Well, at least we are
saving some money by not paying hundreds of thousands of workers across
the country--Federal employees--who are not yet able to return to work.
In fact, isn't it true that, under the Tea Party faction rule here in
the Republican Party, they have passed a resolution through this House
to pay every one of those hundreds of thousands of Federal workers to
stay idle--to pay them not to work--at a time that they could be
delivering the services they were hired to provide so that then the
taxpayer has to pay them to stay idle and cannot receive the benefits
of the many varied services that these public service workers would
like to provide?
Ms. HANABUSA. The gentleman is correct that we as the House of
Representatives unanimously passed that bill that we would pay the
furloughed workers. You are also absolutely correct that, because the
government is still shut down and because the Republican position is to
open up government piecemeal, with no concurrence on the Senate's part,
that that is exactly what is going to happen.
Many of these Federal workers feel like, Why can't we go to work? We
are getting paid to work. Why isn't that happening?
I believe that that is clearly a disservice, not only to the workers,
themselves, but to the people of this great Nation. It makes no sense.
I yield to the gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Last weekend, I left. I went to Florida. Many
people in church came up to me, and they wanted to know about this.
These are not Federal employees; they are contract employees. So,
therefore, they do service for the Federal Government, but they will
not get paid; is that correct?
Mr. DOGGETT. That is correct.
The other thing that happens: suppose you have a cafe across the
street from a major Federal installation. Suppose you have a dry
cleaners or a service station or an auto repair. Your business has
fallen through the floor because that workforce is not there, not only
to do the public's work, but to do business with you.
There is not any plan from this irresponsible Tea Party caucus to
reimburse the many small businesses around America as well as the
contractors to whom you referred. There is not any plan to give them a
dime. So they will suffer at the same time they pay Federal workers not
to work and not to deliver the services that they were hired to provide
and are willing to provide.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Lockheed Martin indicated that they are going
to lay off over 3,000 employees. There are many companies that do work
with the Federal Government, but because the Federal Government is shut
down, they are going to furlough their employees, and they are not
going to be paid.
Mr. DOGGETT. That is one of the reasons I feel that, with every hour
that we go through this government shutdown and with every hour that we
get nearer to a default--an historic default on the full faith and
credit of the United States--we are jeopardizing our security. As to
your comments regarding Lockheed, we are talking about the national
security of the United States, and I am also talking about the economic
security of your fellow church members and of our veterans.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. We had the Secretary of the VA come to our
committee. He indicated that by the 1st of November, if he did not have
his appropriations, over 5,000 veterans and their families and their
spouses would not get their benefits in the mail.
Mr. DOGGETT. I view that as a real disgrace.
This week in Texas, in San Antonio and in Austin, as we attempted to
call the Veterans Administration about problems some of our veterans
were
[[Page H6561]]
having, they said they had turned off their equipment and that they had
furloughed some of the representatives we work with--I am sure that
happened in your areas also--so that we cannot be the advocate we want
to be for our veterans.
Additionally--I think it is around a fourth or a little over a fourth
of our Federal workforce who are veterans. They are people who have
served our country and have put their lives on the line, and now they
are serving our country in a different way. Those are some of the
families who are being paid not to work, and all of them, whether they
are at work now or not, are left with great economic uncertainty about
when they will get paid.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. The list goes on and on.
For example, we have furloughed most of the HUD employees, so we are
going to have more homeless veterans. The list goes on and on.
Cemeteries. We have furloughed cemetery employees. The other issue is,
if we default on Thursday, then the Social Security payments will not
be made.
These people in this House of Representatives want to operate by
management. For example, yesterday, I heard over the news the number of
cows that had died--or had been killed--because of a storm. We came
back the next day and did the farm bill. Because everyone has been
furloughed, they can't even provide the assistance they usually
provide. We are going to tackle this, but there is a whole array of
services that we are not picking up. For example, when you look at the
number of, let's say, people who work at the universities, their checks
say the universities, but they are really working for national
foundations or the Mayo Clinic.
Mr. DOGGETT. You are talking about things like cancer research or
someone who is working on childhood disease.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Or on Alzheimer's research. So all of this work
is brought to a halt for no good reason.
Mr. DOGGETT. For no good reason.
That is why it is outrageous that we could be here on this Saturday
and that the Republicans have recessed the House until Monday night.
They know that this default is approaching. They have outlined no plan
to avoid default. They had one coming up on the floor 2 or 3 weeks ago,
and they could not get agreement among their own Members about how to
avoid default. Now at a time when you--like all of us who are here--
have signed a petition to reopen the government and are prepared to
address the default issue right here, they have gone home.
Mr. Cantor was here on the floor a few minutes ago. He is the only
one under the rules--the Republican majority leader--whom they will
permit to offer the motion to continue the operation of the government.
That is why we turned, as you know, to this petition of all of us
coming together. We are approaching now--are headed toward--200 Members
of the House. We only need about 17 or 18 Republicans to come join us
so we can reopen this House and then move to address the default issue.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. The sad issue here in the House is that the
minority has no rights.
Mr. DOGGETT. Because they were specifically, as you know, cut off in
the rules. The rules of the House, which have existed for so many
years, would have given the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentlewoman
from Hawaii, or any of our colleagues who are here now from across the
country the right to say, Mr. Speaker, let us vote on continuing the
operation of the government.
Now, why would they deny us that traditional right as Members of the
Congress--all Members, Republicans and Democrats--and give Mr. Cantor,
as the Republican majority leader, the sole right to do that?
I say it is because of fear. They are fearful that this House will
continue the government operations, and they can no longer hijack the
country the way they have hijacked the Republican caucus and jeopardize
the security of our families.
{time} 1145
Ms. BROWN of Florida. In the Veterans' Committee, members kept
alluding to the Senate, the Senate, the Senate. Let's be clear, the
Senate passed the bill, and I thank God for the Senate. They passed the
bill and took the House number, which was unacceptable to all
Democrats, unacceptable, took those low numbers in order to pass a
continuing resolution so we could have discussions. But what happened
to the House? They are missing in action because there is no leadership
on the Republican side.
Mr. DOGGETT. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for the
opportunity to join with her on this because the numbers she refers to
is back during the summer--and Speaker Boehner acknowledged this last
Sunday on ABC. There was an understanding reached between the House and
the Senate that Democrats would compromise and agree to a level of
government services that we think is totally unacceptable.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Would you repeat that again, sir.
Mr. DOGGETT. There was an understanding, that he acknowledged,
reached between the House and the Senate that we Democrats, in order to
keep the government functioning, would agree on, for a time this fall,
to accept an unacceptable low number that we know won't deliver the
level of services that we need for Head Start, for education, and for
cancer research.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, are you saying that the Democrats in the
House held their nose and voted for the Republican irresponsible
numbers?
Mr. DOGGETT. We have said we will do that now if it will keep our
government open and protect our families and avoid default, open the
government. And it is that motion, not a motion to give us all that we
have asked for, but a motion to take the Republican budget number and
put it in place as a compromise, and I might say not a very good
compromise, not a favorable compromise.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Say it again. Say it again. We lost on the
compromise.
Mr. DOGGETT. We agreed to do that. The Speaker indicated that he had
agreed to that, and then this Tea Party faction took control, the
shutdown caucus.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, a conversation. Can we have a
conversation. Can you repeat what you just said again. A conversation.
You mean to tell me that the Speaker had a negotiation with the House
and with the Senate on the Republican's low levels? That it was
unacceptable to the Democrats in the House, we held our nose and voted,
would be willing to vote for it if they bring it up in order to move
forward and get a conversation going?
Mr. DOGGETT. Absolutely.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we just want a conversation.
Mr. DOGGETT. I want to yield back to the gentlewoman from Hawaii and
in doing so thanking her for this time. The reason that it is alleged
that they would not continue to stand by the agreement that was made
between the House and the Senate for this bad number was they wanted to
shut down the Affordable Care Act and our opportunity to get health
insurance for millions of Americans. And as the gentlewoman from Hawaii
knows, they have failed utterly and completely to do that. They are now
in search of some other rationale, some rationalization, some
justification for keeping the government shut down.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, just one other question. I want to know
how many times did the Republicans pass their bad bill in the House and
then send it over to the Senate, and they think that the Senate is
supposed to pick up their bad bill? How many times did they pass it--
44?
Mr. DOGGETT. They have passed little partial bills many times.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I am talking about on the health repeal.
Mr. DOGGETT. Oh. They have sent that over there, I guess, 40 times to
repeal.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I think it was 44.
Mr. DOGGETT. Forty-four? One can lose count because they do every
time you turn around.
But I thank the gentlewoman from Florida and the gentlewoman from
Hawaii. This totally unjustified shutdown must end, and we must stand
for American families to avoid the insecurity, the threat to them that
grows by the hour.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
[[Page H6562]]
I think what everyone needs to understand clearly, what the gentleman
from Texas was referring to was the level of funding in the continuing
resolution which was amended by the Senate at $986 billion. As the
gentlewoman from Florida said, for many Democrats that was
unacceptable. But you know what, the Democrats haven't had the
opportunity to vote because it hasn't come to the floor, but it is a
compromise.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. If the gentlewoman would yield, we have agreed.
We have compromised. We have had a conversation. We have agreed to put
our politics aside and do what is in the best interest of the United
States of America. It is unfortunate that we have people that serve in
the House of Representatives, what is supposed to be the people's
House, and they do not care about the people of the United States of
America. They only care about their petty politics.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlewoman the gentlewoman from Florida
(Ms. Brown). Do you wish to speak further?
Ms. BROWN of Florida. I think I have said everything I need to say,
but I do want to say one thing jokingly. I went home last weekend, and
I was looking for some snake oil since they said that Cruz had given
the House Republicans snake oil. I couldn't find any snake oil, but I
did find some holy oil, and I asked my pastors to pray for us because
we need all the prayer we can get.
It is shameful. The Republican Party, particularly in the House of
Representatives, continues to hold the nation hostage in a futile
attempt to defund Obamacare.
I am so deeply disappointed that Republicans, especially those tea
party Republicans in the House, continue to keep the government closed
by appealing to the most extreme members of their Party by refusing to
pass a clean funding bill to keep the government working.
Speaker Boehner's Republican Shutdown Must Stop
Republican recalcitrance has once again brought about a manufactured
crisis designed to promote right wing ideology at the expense of the
needs of all Americans.
Instead of working together to develop a budget that will work for
Americans, Republicans let extremists and ideologues drive their agenda
and drive us all into a national crisis.
Why did Republicans so carelessly shut down our government? Because
they continue to be obsessed with eliminating the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican crusade against providing affordable access to health
care for all Americans knows no bounds, and it has become apparent that
they are even willing to sacrifice the basic functions of the U.S.
government just to prove a point.
Even though millions of Americans were clamoring to sign up for
insurance benefits on just the first day the exchanges opened up to the
public.
Members of Congress are elected to make sure our government
functions, and Americans have had enough with this Republican led
shutdown.
There is a solution to this problem.
The Senate passed CR would fund the government for an additional six
weeks, and all Speaker Boehner has to do is bring that bill up for a
vote to end this stalemate.
In fact according to some reports, there are enough votes to pass a
clean CR now.
This short term bill to fund the government already represents a
compromise, after a negotiation, by Democrats and is the level
requested by Speaker Boehner.
But Republicans cannot take ``yes'' for an answer. They are
continuing to play more games by pushing a piecemeal approach to
resolving this shutdown. This will not work.
As USA Today put it, it's like seizing a school bus full of kids then
offering to release the cutest ones.
The Senate will not pass these bills, because they do nothing to
address the real problem--that we need to fund the whole government.
Instead of working together to do our jobs and resolve these critical
issues, Republicans have taken a decidedly different approach, one that
they seem to have been looking forward to for some time--to make
another desperate attempt to stop the Affordable Care Act.
In fact, as one of their chief spokespeople, Congresswoman Michele
Bachmann put it, ``We're very excited. It's exactly what we wanted, and
we got it.''
Republicans seem not to care too much about the consequences of a
shutdown, even though the consequences are significant.
Thousands of federal employees have been furloughed. National parks
are shuttered. Loans to small businesses, farmers and families trying
to purchase homes have been shelved. Lifesaving scientific research at
NIH is halted. People waiting for travel visas and passports will be
even further delayed. Those who need assistance to get back on their
feet like recipients of the Women Infants and Children program (WIC)
are struggling to find other means to get by. Veterans and their
families applying for hard-earned benefits are waiting indefinitely for
their fair due.
But the plan is in place, the Republican slash and burn approach to
governance continues, and they have shown that they are willing to put
it all on the line to appease the extreme right wing of their party.
As if their work to dismantle the programs Americans rely on like
Head Start and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
wasn't clear enough when they pushed the sequester through, they have
now chosen to just stop our government from functioning.
The cavalier attitude on display by House Republicans makes it clear
that the Majority is more interested in ideology than action.
Their government shutdown could be the most damaging thing to hit our
economy since the budget sequestration they imposed on Americans.
Rather than passing a jobs plan to get Americans back to work, help
rebuild our economy and create good jobs with good benefits, the GOP
has gotten what they really wanted all along--shutting the doors of the
government of the United States.
As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. You just might
get it.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlelady from Florida.
Now I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).
Mr. HONDA. I want to thank the gentlelady from Hawaii. I just have to
say offhandedly that this is a wonderful, candid interchange, one that
needs to be heard, witnessed, and participated in because the way the
rules of the House are set up, there is very little exchange between
the different parties here on the floor. The rules are very rigid, and
it disallows debate and interchange of ideas and discussion, a
discussion that is very, very needed in this country because through
this discussion that we just had, as candid and as colorful and as
interactive as it was, it was informative. And, hopefully, the
information that was shared between the gentleman from Texas and the
gentlewoman from Hawaii and the gentlewoman from Florida was helpful
and would raise some questions in the minds of individuals watching and
listening to us, and perhaps asking themselves, Is this all true?
Hopefully, it will drive them to check it out and see if the
information that was exchanged was valid and factual. I believe they
will find it is.
Ms. HANABUSA. To the gentleman from California, I want to say aloha
and mahalo. You are from California; but as far as I am concerned, you
have been a great friend of Hawaii all along. Your concern over the
shutdown is not only for your constituents in California but the
constituents of the United States. And I know we in Hawaii, we also
have a special place in your heart. So I thank the gentleman.
Mr. HONDA. As our past Senator Inouye would have said, mahalo,
sister.
Mr. Speaker, I come here from California. My friend, Ms. Hanabusa,
comes from the islands of Hawaii. All of us here in this body came here
to do things that will make our country better, to help us build a more
perfect Union. We have different ideas on how we would do that; but
like in the medical field, we should observe one rule before all else:
do no harm. We should not be causing unnecessary suffering, inflicting
unnecessary pain on our country or on our economy and those who sent us
here to try to improve their lives.
Here we are on day 12 of the Republican government shutdown and less
than a week from an unprecedented government default; and every day
that the Republican majority does not allow a clean vote to reopen the
government and give us a long-term certainty on the debt ceiling, they
are violating that most important rule: do no harm.
Critical child care, nutrition support, lifesaving research, small
business capital, high-tech and groundbreaking research and
development, home loans, affordable housing, veterans benefits, tax
support, visas and passports are all negatively affected. And the list
goes on and on to touch nearly every sector of the economy, with the
cost to our economy compounding every day; $50
[[Page H6563]]
billion is the estimated cost to the economy over a month's time.
As we get closer and closer to defaulting on our debt obligations, we
are causing more and more undue harm to our economy. A failure to make
payments on any part of our debt for any amount of time would cause
severe disruptions in the global financial markets, downgrade the
creditworthiness of the United States, and do long-term harm to the
economy. If we defaulted, Social Security, Medicare, and veterans
benefits could all be disrupted. Retirement accounts would be
devastated, State and local governments might be forced to default, and
their ripple effects would be felt all over the world.
Mr. Speaker, time is running out, and the world is watching. There is
nowhere for us to hide from our obligations. Let's start the process of
ending this manufactured crisis and stop inflicting unnecessary harm to
our economy and to our people. Let's lift this cloud from over our
economy and have the vote that Americans have been waiting for.
Let me just close, my friend, with this other personal observation.
We know the phrase PTSD, and we know about its devastating effects on
people. I suspect the kinds of things we are doing here--or not doing
here--is causing or inflicting a massive PTSD upon our seniors, our
families, and those who are trying to make ends meet. I appreciated you
doing this Special Order for us.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentleman from California. The gentleman
from California makes some great points, including that we are never
fully aware of the impacts, and that is what is the saddest part of
what has been done with the shutdown, and that is we do not know what
are the true impacts. I can say for my Democrat colleagues, that is the
reason why we fight so hard on trying to reopen government. But the
question is for the majority party and especially for the Speaker, what
about the people? The gentleman raises a great point.
I just would like to share something before I call upon the
gentlelady from Illinois. I just learned recently in visiting with some
of the most decorated members of the Greatest Generation, members of
the acclaimed 442nd Regiment in Hawaii, everyone knows about them, and
one person came up to me and said, You know, we found out that although
our fathers sort of suffered quietly as a result of that war and the
result of the rejection by a Nation that didn't want them, that they
were suffering from PTSD, we just didn't know that it was called that
back then.
I think the gentleman from California makes an amazing point, that we
have got to see the hidden injuries, because if we can all look upon
the hidden injuries; no one, on either side of the aisle, can let this
craziness continue.
With that, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos).
Mrs. BUSTOS. Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity, and
I also appreciate that you are talking about the human consequences of
this shutdown. That is what I have been doing for the past couple of
weeks now is trying to draw attention to the human consequences of this
senseless government shutdown because this is about people we are here
to serve, and now we are in week two of this crisis.
What I have been doing is spending a lot of time on the telephone
talking firsthand with the people from my region of Illinois who are
suffering through no fault of their own. Today, I would like to share a
story about a family who not only wants a piece of the American Dream,
but is striving to achieve that and is working their tails off to
achieve just a piece of the American Dream.
This is a story about a woman named Jill King. She is a wife and
mother of two young girls and a disabled veteran from Moline, Illinois.
Jill also happens to be a Federal employee who works at the Rock Island
Arsenal, which is the largest employer in the district I am here to
serve.
{time} 1200
On top of all that, Jill has gone back to college as a way to
continue her education, and her husband, also a veteran, who lost his
job recently, has gone back to school to increase his employment
opportunities. All they want to do is provide a better life for their
two young girls. They are ages 4 and 6. One is a preschooler, and one
is a first-grader. But because of this government shutdown, Jill has
been furloughed and is afraid that now she will lose her VA benefits on
top of it. With her husband back in school, not knowing where their
next paycheck is going to come from, Jill and her husband are rightly
worried about how they are going to make their home mortgage payment,
or, for that matter, even pay their most basic bills.
Jill and her husband worked very hard for a number years in order to
buy a home. They had to rent to save that money. They have never missed
a payment of any sort. They have never even been late with any payment.
Now what Jill is left doing is calling her banks just to talk about the
what-ifs, because, like many people throughout the country, they don't
know what the next steps are. They have had to cut back, and Jill has
even had to stop going to her doctor appointments because of the
injuries that she has been treated for that are associated with her
military service. Her husband now is considering dropping out of school
in order to bring home more money to help their family, and Jill is now
applying for a second job.
What especially worries her is that if she has to work both night and
day, and with her husband now not sure what he's going to have to do as
far as his education or going back to work, is that her children--
again, ages 4 and 6--might have to be at the babysitter not only during
the day, but at night now. I would ask any mother, or for that matter
any parent: Who thinks that that is acceptable?
There is so much sacrifice that we have asked of our veterans and
their families, and in this case we are asking so much of this family
when all they want to do is do better. Jill King and her family want
more from their government. And on week two of the shutdown, I ask of
this Congress to do what is right for families like Jill's. That is
nothing more than let's talk, shake hands, work together, be civil, be
kind, and allow Congress to vote on a measure that simply reopens this
government.
We have been talking this morning and now into the afternoon that the
votes are there. Republicans and Democrats, together, but only
together, can reopen this government. We can do it right now. We could
do it right this minute for that matter. I think everybody here today--
at least here today--would say let's do that. Let's bring this up for a
vote. Let's open up government. Let's do what is right for Jill King
and her family and all the families throughout this country.
Ms. HANABUSA. If the gentlelady would stay for some conversation.
I had the opportunity to actually go to Rock Island. I know people
are probably saying, what is somebody from Hawaii doing in Rock Island?
I also want people to know how difficult it must be for Jill because
Rock Island Arsenal, what many may not be aware of, is the last foundry
of the United States Army we have in the United States. They actually
do do things like the necessary plates to keep people safe in the
Humvees and the Strykers and things like that. They are also faced with
the question as we withdraw or draw-down from Afghanistan, and as we
have drawn down from Iraq, of what happens to Rock Island Arsenal, and
what they are able to do for the military--the whole idea of reset, and
what do we do with that? I can just imagine the uncertainty with
sequestration, with the drawdown, and now with this unnecessary
shutdown that it must cause her amazing and critical concern about the
future of her family, and to put on top of that the concern over
veterans benefits.
Because we have talked about this, I would like for you to share how
your office has been able to get this kind of information because you
have actually adjusted your schedule and what your office does to
service your constituents. I would like for you to say that because it
is so important as to how you have tried to adjust and make things
easier for them.
Mrs. BUSTOS. I appreciate greatly the kind words that you say about
the Rock Island Arsenal. It is the largest employer in the entire
7,000-square-mile district that I represent that stretches from
Rockford to Peoria to the Quad Cities, and so many great
[[Page H6564]]
towns in between. We have about 8,000 employees there. Here is what
they have been going through because of the nonsense, these votes that
have been cast that have hurt government employees who just want to do
a good job.
People like Jill and the rest of the employees there, leading up to
this, they had to take 6 furlough days. Already, that was a cut in
their pay of what they are used to bringing home. That was already a
cut in their pay. On top of that, they haven't received pay raises
going on 4 years now. We want to encourage people to go into public
service in these jobs that are helping people and helping our military
in this case.
You had mentioned the armored reinforcement that is built right in
the heart of my district at the Rock Island Arsenal. What that did was,
early in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military men and
women were driving in Humvees that did not have armor reinforcement,
and they were sustaining horrible injuries and death. The workers at
the Rock Island Arsenal, the foundry and the manufacturing sector of
this, actually developed these and produced these to save countless
lives. So the work that the people at the Rock Island Arsenal are doing
is meaningful work, it is lifesaving work--and look how they have been
treated as a result of this.
I appreciate you also bringing up the fact that in light of this
government shutdown, we in our office have restructured things because
we are public servants. We are here to make sure we are doing
everything we can in light of this atmosphere. We have five offices in
our district in Illinois, and we have our office out here. That is six
offices altogether. What we have done is we have opened our office an
hour early and we stay an hour late. And every single one of our
employees, including myself, are all answering telephones, doing
casework, and talking to the people who call in about their concerns
about what is happening in the government and what they can expect
next.
What I have learned from this, and something I will continue doing
well after the government shutdown, is I will continue answering the
telephone calls and reaching out to people because I never want to lose
sight of why we are here. You understand it. Our colleagues understand
why we are here. That is to serve people. Government can be a force for
good.
Where government is in the way, I don't know anybody here who doesn't
want to fix that. We want to fix anything that is broken or bent or
just needs some tweaking. We want to fix that. We also know that
government can be a force for good. That is why we run for office. That
is why we are out here in Washington, D.C. That is why it is so
disheartening what a few people in Congress have done to this country.
It is time to move to this next level now.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlelady from Illinois, and thank you for
reaching out so clearly for your constituents.
I now call upon the gentlelady from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).
Ms. BONAMICI. I want to thank my colleague from Hawaii for yielding
some time and for this opportunity to talk about the harmful effects
and the hidden injuries of this unnecessary government shutdown.
My colleague from Illinois was just talking about the human
consequences. We also have to talk about the economic consequences to
our constituents and to this country on day 12 of a completely
unnecessary government shutdown.
I really appreciate this opportunity because our constituents want to
hear and we need to get the message out there about the harm that is
being caused by this. And like my colleague from Illinois, I spent a
good part of this week on the telephone talking with constituents out
in the great State of Oregon. I have to tell you people are concerned,
they are anxious, and they are frustrated.
I spoke with our National Guard. There is so much uncertainty out
there among the National Guard members about when they'll be paid. Many
of them are unable to work. They are anxious.
Our community action organization that is designed to help low-income
people, they are worried. They are already struggling, some of these
families. They don't know if they will be able to continue getting the
assistance they need.
Our Head Start organization--if you really want to make a difference
in a child's life, early childhood education makes that difference. Our
Head Start programs are being threatened.
Just a while ago here in this discussion, somebody mentioned health
care research. I talked to one of our supervisors of health care
research at the Oregon Health & Science University. It is clear and
obvious that health care research is not something that can be put on
hold and picked up again when the government figures things out. So
much is at stake here with the researchers who have dedicated so much
time on their research projects and are at a halt because they might
need something like NIH approval that they can't get. They are
extremely concerned, and here we are on day 12.
I have to say that the government shutdown is not just affecting
Federal employees and their families, or even those directly connected,
like government contractors. It is also hurting private sector
businesses, and that is what I wanted to highlight in the next couple
of minutes.
There is a business in my district, Leupold. It is in Beaverton,
Oregon. They have about 700 employees, and they manufacture specialized
optics. That is 700 employees in Beaverton, Oregon. Right now they have
$10 million in orders that they can't ship. They can't ship them
because they need export licenses because they sell their scopes and
their binoculars and other products overseas, and they get that
approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and
Security. So if we can't resolve this government shutdown, they are
soon going to lose those sales to foreign competitors. That hurts our
economy, it hurts the employees who work there, and it hurts the
business.
Here is another example. Oregon, you might know, is well-known for
craft beer. There are a lot of great small businesses, and those people
work really hard to brew a great product. In Hillsboro, Oregon, in the
district I am honored to represent, Three Mugs Brewing Company is all
set to open. They are paying their rent, they are paying their
utilities, their business expenses, but they can't start brewing
because they need approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade
Bureau. They approve the labels and recipes for brewers. So here is
this great small business, an entrepreneur ready to start, and they
have their store, they are paying their rent and expenses, and they
can't start brewing their beer because of this unnecessary government
shutdown. It is time to end this right now, and we could end it today.
I, along with my colleagues here, we signed a petition to open
government today. We could end this shutdown now, because across the
State of Oregon, as well as across this country, our constituents are
more than ready for this government to be back open.
I try, I struggle to understand how they must view this from across
the country. We are here in Washington, D.C. We have been here day
after day after day ready to open up the government and get the
employees back to work, but what must we look like? I thought of an
analogy. So there is an accident about to happen, and those nearby can
prevent the accident, but they don't because they can't agree how to
prevent the accident. So the accident happens, and now the victim is
bleeding. The victim has been bleeding for 12 days. Guess what? There
is a disagreement about what kind of bandage to put on the victim. That
is how absurd this must look to the United States of America. This is
an unnecessary government shutdown. It has been 12 days now. Let's get
the government open. We can do it today.
I hope the Speaker calls us back today for a vote. The votes are
there. We can pass a continuing resolution. Let's pass that resolution,
open up the government, and continue the conversation about how to
build our economy, get our budget conference committee going. We can do
that today, and I hope we do.
I want to thank again the gentlelady from Hawaii for giving us the
opportunity to really highlight how this unnecessary government
shutdown is hurting our constituents and our economy.
[[Page H6565]]
{time} 1215
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank very much the gentlelady from Oregon, who
clearly is in her district looking and hearing what her constituents
are saying. I will always remember Beaverton, Oregon, and her 700
constituent employees of that company that is unable to ship, because
that is really what this is about. We initially reacted to the
immediate impact of the Federal employees, but now we are beginning to
see, as the gentlelady from Oregon pointed out, that it is more than
just the immediate employees, contractors who deal with the Federal
Government; it is also the people who need the Federal Government
because of their businesses. So the gentlelady from Oregon has brought
forth an amazing story, as well as given us further insight into how
this really Republican government shutdown has hurt everyone.
Now I would like to call upon the gentlelady from Florida (Ms.
Frankel).
Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. First I would like to thank the esteemed
Representative from Hawaii for sharing this time with me.
Mr. Speaker, I once again rise and join my colleagues in urging you
to allow us to vote to reopen government. I have been up here before
day after day. I have taken a nuanced approach, quoting the wisdom of
the popular children's author, Dr. Seuss, but today the Dr. Seuss
gloves come off.
It is no wonder, no wonder that a recent poll of Americans show that
Congress is less popular than hemorrhoids, toenail fungus, dog poop,
and cockroaches. Like millions of Americans, I want to put my head out
the window and shout that this standoff is idiotic and this reckless,
irresponsible shutdown has got to stop.
Mr. Speaker, as I speak, the Earth is in turmoil. Iran is building a
nuclear weapon; in Syria, a civil war is killing thousands of women and
children; in Nairobi, terrorists attacked innocent shoppers in a retail
mall; and in Europe, major countries are going bankrupt.
So what does the greatest Nation on Earth do to set an example for
the rest of the world? We hang a sign that says, ``Closed for
business.'' And as we try to emerge from a recession that hurt so many
of our constituents, we proceed to throw 800,000 patriotic Americans
out of a job, leaving them without income to pay their mortgages, their
car loans, their children's tuition. Oh, but that is not all. We stop
the funding for Head Start for millions of children and slow down
benefits for veterans who risked their lives and their liberty for our
freedom.
Mr. Speaker, this government does not belong to the United States
Congress. This government belongs to the people of America, and they
are demanding, rightfully so, that we open our government today.
Mr. Speaker, let us vote today.
Mr. Speaker, if this Congress delays any longer, I respectfully
suggest that even the Ebola virus and twerking will overtake us in the
polls, and it will be well-deserved.
Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you to my good friend, the gentlelady from
Florida (Ms. Frankel). As she always has the capacity of bringing
things down to the basics, I would hate to admit that we would be less
popular than the Ebola virus; but knowing the gentlelady from Florida,
she probably has a basis for what she has said.
Mr. Speaker, my Special Order time is running down, and I would just
like to say, after listening to all of the people who have spoken--the
gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from California, the gentlewoman
from Florida, the gentlewoman from Oregon, and the gentlewoman from
Illinois--and all of their stories that they have shared and the
concerns of their constituents, you have got to start to ask the
question, why, and what does the Republican majority, Mr. Speaker,
intend to gain--to gain--from this shutdown?
Let's also look at H. Res. 368 that we passed on October 1 regarding
the amendment to clause 4 of rule XXII that says, any motion pursuant
to clause 4 of rule XXII relating to House Joint Resolution 59--and we
all know that is the CR--may be offered only by the majority leader or
his designee. You add this on top of everything else, the inability for
people to come forward on behalf of their constituents to ask for
unanimous consent to bring House Joint Resolution 59 to the floor, not
being able to do that, and the fact that we have a petition, a
discharge petition that people are signing up for because that is the
only alternative, is this the message we want to give to the people of
the United States, that not only does the House of Representatives shut
down government because of a minority group within the Republican Party
that is the majority, but in addition to that, you have taken away the
ultimate form of representative government, which is that each and
every one of their elected Representatives has a right to come before
this body and to make a motion and to be heard? But instead we have
shut that down on October 1 as well. That should be even more
problematic to the people of this great Nation, that a motion and a
rule such as that was passed. And, Mr. Speaker, I remind you, nine--
nine--of your own Republicans couldn't even stomach that and could not
vote for that.
So why are we doing this? Why? It began with, well, we will go along
with the continuing resolution that the Senate sent back on the
condition that we first defund ObamaCare. We had delays of ObamaCare.
We had repeals of ObamaCare, and that sort of lasted for last week and
then it stopped. No mention of ObamaCare. No mention at all of
ObamaCare.
Then what did we start to do? We started to pick and choose and
cherry-pick which part of government we wanted to open up. And you knew
that was DOA, dead on arrival in the Senate. But yet, Mr. Speaker, you
decided well, maybe the optics would be better. But it hasn't been
better. It has not been better.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has come out against not only the
failure to address the debt ceiling and saying that the United States
cannot default; they also said you shouldn't allow the shutdown. And
big businesses have also said that. Banks have said that. People that
the average person probably associates more with the Republican Party
than they do with the Democrats, and they are saying do not do this.
Yet it is being done. It is being done.
The people in Hawaii will know this concept, and the concept is save
face. You know, we have a saying back home that what people sometimes
need to do is save face. And I think that is what it comes down to. The
polls, Wall Street Journal polls are slamming the Republican position,
Mr. Speaker. You are being given but a 24 percent favorable rating. So
what does that say to you? It says the people are not with you. The
people do not support this crazy--I don't know what to call it. I would
like to say it is a plan, but I can't see anyone being behind a plan
that makes the people of this great Nation suffer.
You heard the story of Jill. You heard the story from the gentleman
from California who talks about he knows people are suffering PTSD. You
have heard the fears of not being able--not being able--to know when
you will be working and when you are not going to be working.
Yes, we in the House passed, we passed 3223--I believe that number is
correct--that says we will retropay. But that doesn't give them their
paycheck because a continuing resolution hasn't passed; and it hasn't
passed the Senate, though we believe the Senate will be with it, and we
also believe the President will sign it into law. But for those people,
yes, it is like an empty promise, the same empty promise that they
believe we had when everyone said we are not going to shut down
government. Why would we shut down government? And here we are, this is
the 12th day of the shutdown, day 12, and do we have anything to tell
them? No.
Instead, we emphasize the fact that their Representatives who want to
see a vote, because we believe that there are members of the Republican
Party who will support a clean CR and a voting to open up government at
the level, at the level of funding which the Republicans wanted, Paul
Ryan wanted, but we are not even able to do that because of a
procedural move.
Procedural moves are what the people of this great Nation dislike the
most, because they feel that it is some kind of hidden deal and we are
not being transparent and we are also not giving people true
representation. To abdicate the ability to bring something to the floor
as important as the government continuing to operate to one person or
his designee is exactly what
[[Page H6566]]
the people do not want. And that is what we are dealing with, Mr.
Speaker. We are dealing with this shutdown for no basis, because you
have abandoned ObamaCare now. There is no ultimate plan.
We have the looming debt ceiling crisis, which is what Wall Street is
even more concerned about than anything else, and what we should all be
concerned about, because the full faith and credit of the United States
should never be in question and should never be in jeopardy because we
can cause a recession worldwide with that action. There is no plan.
There is no plan.
You wanted to show that you could shut down government, Mr. Speaker,
so you won. You shut it down. But now, now you must plan how to open
it. And that has been always the criticism of our great country, that
we always lack exit strategies, and this is another example of a lack
of an exit strategy. You win the shutdown, but how do you open up? That
is the question, Mr. Speaker. And that is the question that only you
can answer to the people of this great Nation. And only you can answer
to the people of this great Nation why, why you have taken away the
ultimate form of representative government by abdicating the right to
bring this most critical measure to this floor to one person or his
designee.
I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________