[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14858]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1100
                         LET THE MAJORITY VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Garcia) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Speaker, this dog does not hunt. The cow has left the 
barn. This is absurd.
  I rise today to urge Congress to put aside partisan politics. We are 
playing a dangerous game that the majority of Americans agree is time 
to end.
  While certainly Congress needs to fix the Affordable Care Act--of 
course. I've signed on to several of these bills; we want to make this 
work. But what is true is that this is behind us. We can neither go 
back nor start again. We need to fix what we have.
  Instead of finding commonsense solutions, all we are doing is letting 
people go home and not respond to those needs. In Florida alone, 90,000 
folks are going to be sent home.
  Not passing the legislation closes critical parks that are essential 
to tourism and hurts agencies that are essential to driving trade and 
commerce. This is ridiculous, and it is beneath the dignity of this 
body.
  We've heard a lot of things from the other side here. I understand 
messaging so that we can make the argument, but what needs to be done 
is we need to sit. I sat with my colleagues on the other side just 
yesterday. You can see the angst in their eyes. But unfortunately, they 
have been taken hostage by extremist elements in their party.
  The time has come to put these guys aside and come to a deal. We can 
fix a lot of these problems. We've cut government spending. We can do 
more of it. We can make government more efficient. We can fix the 
sequester and give agencies more flexibility.
  We agree with all of that on this side. We just need our colleagues 
to step up and push aside these extremist elements, this ``Taliban'' 
that is in America's core for some reason. It's time to act. It's time 
to fix this problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask you to please step forward. There are many of us 
that want to find a solution. We need to let the majority work its 
will. That is what the Founders intended for the House of 
Representatives. It is the voice of the country. It is the popular 
voice. Please let the majority vote.

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