[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14954-14955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Moran) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, this Republican shutdown is an outrageous 
abdication of Congress' responsibility. It didn't need to be this way.
  In fact, if the House leadership were to call up a clean continuing 
resolution appropriations bill today it would pass. There are a 
sufficient number of votes from both sides of the political aisle to 
pass the measure. So far, however, the House Republican leadership has 
refused to do so, afraid of extremists within its own caucus--the so-
called Ted Cruz Tea Party faction--whose demand is to shut down the 
government until the Affordable Care Act is either repealed or delayed.
  So the American people's government has shut down. Ninety percent of 
the employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have been 
furloughed. Eighty-four percent of the employees of the Department of 
Interior all over the country, but mostly in the Western States, have 
all been furloughed. Seventy percent of the employees of our essential 
intelligence agencies have now been furloughed. Recipients of the 
Women, Infants, and Children program, the most vulnerable mothers and 
children, have had their livelihoods jeopardized. The National 
Institutes of Health have had to turn away 30 children with cancer from 
clinical trials.

[[Page 14955]]

  We in this House must end this shutdown. This debate isn't even about 
the budget. The President and the Senate have already agreed to 
trillions of dollars of cuts set by the so-called Ryan Republican 
budget even though this draconian budget will endanger basic government 
operations, it will disinvest in our children's future, and it will 
trigger even more Federal employee furloughs and possible RIFs.
  Rather, this shutdown is about a measure that strengthens insurance 
coverage for the roughly 260 million Americans who have insurance. It 
will also eliminate preexisting conditions and lifetime limits and 
makes health insurance available and affordable to roughly 40 million 
uninsured Americans through State exchanges where insurance companies 
compete to provide coverage, and through expansion of the Medicaid 
program.
  The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. It has been affirmed 
as constitutional by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court and by a 5 
million vote majority of the American people with the defeat of the 
Presidential candidate who promised to repeal it less than a year ago.
  Regardless of where one may stand on the issue of the Affordable Care 
Act--aka ObamaCare--our Democratic process for enacting laws and 
setting policy should not be held hostage to the threat of a government 
shutdown. It sets a terrible precedent for the future.
  My Republican colleagues continue to demand concessions with serious 
long-term consequences in exchange for funding a spending bill for just 
a relatively few more days, another 45 days or so. They want long-term 
concessions at their preferred inadequate spending levels.
  What unreasonable demands will be made when this latest CR expires in 
2 months or 1 month? These attempts to overturn the democratic results 
of the last election by threat-making and hostage-taking must end now. 
We should do our job, fund the government, and we should remove the 
looming threat to the global economy in the form of the expiration of 
the debt ceiling, which will occur in just a couple of weeks.
  Not content with the economic destruction and hardship brought by 
their government shutdown and their refusal to let the Federal 
Government play its historic role to stimulate a strong economic 
recovery, House Republicans continue to threaten the full faith and 
credit of the United States.
  As President Obama noted, if the tables were turned and you had a 
Republican President and a Democratic Speaker, as you did during the 
Reagan administration, neither Speaker O'Neill nor the American people 
would tolerate what is going on today.
  In fact, that is the situation that we have today--a broken Congress, 
a situation where the American people's voices aren't heard or 
represented. It is time for us to heed the American people, to let the 
majority of this Congress determine public policy.
  Let's stop the extremism. Let's be responsible. Let's pass this 
continuing resolution clean and go on with the business of the 
government.

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