[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5277]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, our soldiers on the front 
lines all over this world understand what a fight is about. If you have 
ever visited them in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have values. They know 
about their grandmothers and grandfathers, and they know about their 
families back home with their children. They know what they are 
fighting for. They will understand that we are here fighting for 
values.
  This government shutdown is not the blame or the fault of the 
President of the United States or the Democrats in the House or in the 
Senate. There has been an offer of $73 billion. It is a question of 
whether or not you want to solve this problem on the backs of 
grandmothers and granddads, on the backs of the families of the 
military persons who are on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Do you want to throw college students right out on their rear that 
are right in the middle of their school term by canceling their Pell 
Grants? Do you want to tell mothers taking their children to the clinic 
that there is no more Medicaid for them? Do you want to turn the lights 
out and close the door and say: America, we don't have any more values.
  I do not want to shut this government down. You are not going to shut 
it down on my watch, if we can work together. I am going to stand and 
fight for values, and we're going to pull together. We will stand and 
we will survive. However, let them shut the government down, if the 
Republicans refuse to compromise. Shut it down. Shut it down. But the 
Democrats are going to stand for the values of protecting the most 
vulnerable in America, and we will win.

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