[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14855]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    THIS IS A SAD DAY FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day for the American people and 
for American democracy.
  For weeks, I've told my constituents that I know things look bad, but 
the Republicans won't shut down the government. There's too many adults 
on that side of the room to let this happen.
  And now, after watching what happened yesterday, I can barely explain 
this to myself. The best I can say is I feel like I'm serving in the 
Nation's largest kindergarten, only we're in charge of the Federal 
checkbook and the nuclear arsenal.
  The fact that so many Republicans are holding their breath because 
they don't like the Affordable Care Act--Congress passed the Affordable 
Care Act. The President signed the bill into law. The Supreme Court has 
upheld the law.
  And yet this body keeps voting to try and repeal the Affordable Care 
Act, not just once or twice, getting the message, but 46 times. And 
it's still operational today.
  What happened last night, in the final half hour before closing down 
our government?
  The Republicans came up with a last-ditch effort: let's go to 
conference committee.
  I serve on the Budget Committee. We have been asking, for 6 months, 
to have the Republicans appoint conferees so we could have a budget in 
this country. The only obstacle between this country having a budget 
and not is the fact that the Speaker would refuse to appoint conferees 
to a budget.
  Last night, with 15 minutes to spare, the best idea the Republicans 
have, after 46 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is to have us 
go to a conference committee.
  What are the results of what happened?
  Well, one, government is shut down. Thank you, Republican Party.
  Two, the Affordable Care Act is implementing today and is the law of 
the land.
  And, three, I'm guessing the Tea Party had a pretty good fundraising 
week or two.
  But here's what happens to the people in my district. People who are 
trying to get small business loans from the Small Business 
Administration are going to be halted; $1 billion a month that happens 
is halted right now, so we can't grow the economy.
  People trying to get housing loans for rural families and low- and 
middle-income families are going to be put on hold.
  The Women, Infant and Children program for low-income, pregnant women 
will be put on hold, after this Congress has already tried to cut $39 
billion from food stamps.
  We're going to block the Centers for Disease Control from tracking 
influenza, something that could potentially have devastating impact 
across the country.
  And more than 800,000 Federal employees are going to be furloughed 
because some Republicans couldn't get their way on the 46th try.
  I served in the Wisconsin legislature for 14 years before coming 
here, and we had our differences, but we always moved on. We did our 
jobs.
  Now it's time for Congress to do our job. It doesn't matter what 
party you belong to. America deserves better.
  The adults in the Republican Party need to take the keys back from 
the Tea Party before they have to call a tow truck to take the country 
out of the ditch. It's time for the country to act, and we need the 
Republicans to get behind something that gets a budget done.

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