[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, here we are again, facing the 
possibility of a government shutdown. It is one of the most foolish 
acts possible. What we have seen in the past when this occurs where 
there are some people who decide they want to force the government to 
shut down.
  It only hurts our employees, and it hurts the public, having a denial 
of service in many instances. The employees are sent home. They are off 
the payroll temporarily. But what has always happened is that we always 
end up paying them because it is not their fault, and, as a result, the 
taxpayer loses twice. They lose the services, and they end up having to 
pay, essentially, public employees to take a forced vacation.
  Now, the current controversy is largely about the fate of almost 
700,000 undocumented young people who were brought here as children. 
This shouldn't be a matter of major debate. We can take care of the 
immigration issues if we allow the process to work.
  Remember a couple years ago the Senate passed a bipartisan 
immigration reform bill--not perfect, maybe a C-plus on the scale, but 
it would have fixed the problem in the short and intermediate term. 
Unfortunately, the House leadership never allowed us to vote on it, 
probably because they knew it would pass.
  Now we are facing anxiety again. We have had people arguing about 
what vulgarity the President used or who is acting in good faith, but 
the fact is that we have a proposal from Senator Durbin and Senator 
Graham, a bipartisan proposal, that met the broad outlines that the 
President earlier talked about that looks as though it will pass the 
Senate, and we have a strong possibility of passing here in the House.
  Now, there is some controversy. People are suggesting Democrats want 
to shut the government down. Absolutely not. My Republican friends are 
in complete control of the House and the Senate and the White House, 
and they can, as they did recently with the short-term extension, pass 
it themselves. But if they want to work with us, they ought to include 
us in this effort.
  I would suggest that we stop governing behind closed doors and having 
the majority party cater to a small handful of people who are making 
demands that would not be acceptable to the broad House and probably 
aren't even acceptable to most Republicans. Let's bring the best 
approaches forward.
  It is pretty simple. Allow the House to vote on the Graham-Durbin 
proposal. I understand there is one from our friend Mr. Goodlatte, 
Congressman McCaul. Bring them forward.
  There are legislative processes--queen of the Hill, king of the 
Hill--where you can have multiple votes on issues that are related, and 
at the end there is one that is left standing that represents the 
majority.
  I would suggest that there is no reason to play games with the 
integrity of government services, play games with our employees, and 
play games with providing key services to the public; and, most 
importantly, stop using almost 700,000 young people and millions of 
their family members, their employers, and their fellow workers as 
pawns.
  Let's bring the proposals forward, allow an up-or-down vote, and 
resolve this rather than threaten the possibility of wasting money, 
wasting services, and further frustrating the American public. They 
deserve better. This is a simple resolution that was in our capacity 
this week.

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