[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14623]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I heard the same thing on the Republican 
side of the aisle: Why doesn't the President compromise?
  The bottom line is that the President is always willing to negotiate 
on the issues of the budget, as are the House Democrats. But what we 
are seeing from the GOP is that they just want to kill the Affordable 
Care Act. That's what this is all about. They do not want the 
Affordable Care Act to proceed.
  I know for myself that in my district there are plenty of people who 
just can't wait until October 1. They don't have insurance, they want a 
good benefit package. It makes absolutely no sense to link the budget, 
which has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, and 
say, Well, we want to kill that because we don't like it.
  We had an election last November. Less than a year ago, President 
Obama said he was going to continue with the Affordable Care Act, and 
his opponent said, no, he would repeal it, and the President won. This 
is over. The Republicans should not continue to come back and insist 
that there be changes, repeal, defunding of the Affordable Care Act. 
That's not the way this government operates.
  No one on the Republican side of the aisle has asked to sit down with 
the Democrats, and no one on the Republican side of the aisle has 
suggested they'll do anything, but they have to repeal the Affordable 
Care Act. That's what this is all about, and it should not be, Mr. 
Speaker.

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