[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14950]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE SEEN IT ALL, STICK AROUND FOR ANOTHER DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mica) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, when you think you've seen 
it all, just stick around here for another day.
  Yesterday, one of the most appalling events I've seen in our Nation's 
Capital was the closing of the World War II Memorial, putting up 
barriers to stop our veterans from accessing that open space area.
  How offensive could you be?
  How much more pain do you want to inflict on the American people?
  Now, here is the group that closed the White House. This President 
closed the White House and said he didn't have money to open it to the 
public.
  I would suggest, first of all, maybe we need to get a new parks 
director and fire those folks, or furlough those folks that can't leave 
public spaces and memorials open to the public. What an offense.
  When I thought that was offensive yesterday morning, I came to the 
House last night and saw, again, another horrible offense. We passed, 
Republicans passed a measure to make certain that our military were 
paid and our servicemen and -women in harm's way were taken care of 
financially. We saw, also, the need, afterwards to help our veterans.
  And last night, in one of the most offensive actions of the House, 
the other side of the aisle turned down an opportunity to keep our 
veterans whole.
  How offensive could you be?
  But they want to inflict pain.
  I'm telling you, folks, I've been around here a long time. I've never 
seen an operation like this. The chief of staff in the U.S. Senate--
Ronald Reagan would pick up the phone, he would even call me, as a 
chief of staff, to get things going in the Senate, talk about things.
  He called the Senators. He would work with Representatives. He would 
bring them in and have communication.
  Even Bill Clinton, after I voted to impeach him, would work with you 
to get things done, and we got things done.
  We had a shutdown then. This isn't the end of the world. There were 
17 shutdowns, and some good came out of that shutdown. It was a 
horrible thing. We don't need to repeat them. We don't need to have 
this one.
  But we did balance the budget. We balanced the budget with a 
Republican Congress working with a Democrat President. There's no need 
for this offensive approach that's being taken, not working, not 
communicating.

                              {time}  1030

  This can and should be resolved. Members of Congress have that 
important responsibility and can't neglect it.
  This is much more difficult than just a temporary shutdown. We're 
talking about a permanent shutdown of the Federal Government. Do you 
think having a few of the Federal services eliminated or suspended 
temporarily is tough?
  In a few weeks, the government will run out of money. Why? Because 
these folks will talk to you about a budget. They haven't passed a 
budget since 2008. The only way we got the other body--the Senate--to 
pass a budget was to pass a bill to embarrass them that said, no 
budget, no pay.
  This is the group that had control of the House, the Senate, and the 
White House. They couldn't even pass an FAA bill. There were 20 
extensions. A transportation bill. They couldn't pass a budget, and 
here they're criticizing us.
  We came to work, and we worked until 12:30 into Sunday morning. They 
were absent without leave. The Senate never even came to work on 
Sunday. They came to work on Monday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And 
then they rejected every offer. We offered three times to compromise 
and then we said, Let's sit down. Yesterday we had a conference. No one 
showed up. You have to show up. The President has to be the President. 
Let him take a little of this Malaysia money--he's not going to 
Malaysia--and open the White House, open the memorials to our veterans. 
Use some of that money that he's gaming the system, trying to inflict 
pain on our veterans and our citizens.
  There is no reason for this. Good people of good intention can come 
together, make this government work, make it better, pay our bills, and 
be responsible and bring this out-of-control spending under control and 
get our government accountable and responsible. That's what the 
American people want. They're tired of the blame game.
  Let's get America going in a positive direction. I know we can do it.

                          ____________________