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




                         CONTINUING RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I have a heavy heart about this issue, as I 
know many of my colleagues do. In fact, I haven't bumped into one of 
the 432 of us who is enthusiastic about the situation that we are in.
  I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is most 
troubling to me is the decision to define success as passing a CR that 
the Senate is dictating. I don't say that because it is the Senate. My 
constituency back home doesn't care about CRs. A CR is a continuing 
resolution, as you know, Mr. Speaker.
  The only time--the only time--a continuing resolution comes to the 
floor of this House is when the House has already failed to do the job 
it was supposed to do. That is passing appropriations bills, Mr. 
Speaker. That is appropriating through 12 different bills, one step at 
a time, making those decisions about spending priorities for the 
Nation.
  It is fascinating to me, Mr. Speaker, because it has been years--
years--since this House has gone through that process not through any 
fault of this House, but because we have absolutely no activity on the 
Senate side. Again, it somehow is getting defined today as if you do 
things ``piecemeal'' that you are somehow doing something wrong. Again, 
that is regular order. Doing things one bill at a time is normal. That 
is what is supposed to happen. You are supposed to make individual 
decisions on individual bills.
  Last year, the House passed seven different appropriations bills, Mr. 
Speaker, one step at a time the way the government is supposed to be 
funded. The Senate passed one and, thus, the process broke down. No 
appropriations bills were passed. We have been funding the government 
through these continuing resolutions. Well, here we are again: this 
year, Mr. Speaker, the House has worked on five appropriations bills; 
the Senate has passed zero--zero.
  So we are here where we are today because the Senate hasn't been able 
to move anything at all. It is with a heavy heart that I hear my 
colleagues say we could reopen services for veterans, but we are not 
going to do it because we have a better plan that we ought to do 
everything at once. If we can't help everybody, we don't want to help 
anybody.
  I don't believe that is actually the sentiment of my friends on the 
other side of the aisle. In fact, Mr. Speaker, in June of this year, we 
came together--we came together--in this House, only four votes against 
a Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. Four votes in this entire House 
of Representatives voted ``no.'' Everyone else voted ``yes.'' That 
bill, which fully funds all of our veterans services, in fact, pluses 
up the funding for our veterans services not for 3 months, not for 3 
weeks, but for the entire fiscal year. We passed that in June, Mr. 
Speaker, and it sits in the Senate dusty today having received no 
attention since June.
  I don't know about your constituents, Mr. Speaker, but my 
constituents want us to get something done. They understand there are 
things that we disagree about, but isn't there more that unites us than 
divides us? I tell you that there is. I am absolutely certain that 
there is. If the only way we can find it is to move one small piece of 
legislation at a time, that may not be the most efficient way to do it, 
but if that gets the job done, let's get the job done.
  Mr. Speaker, I am tired of excuses and I am tired of the blame. The 
Rules Committee is going to report out a rule today that is going to 
bring these provisions back to the House for an opportunity to open up 
those parks that my colleague was talking about just a few minutes ago, 
an opportunity to serve our veterans, an opportunity to deal with the 
important research at NIH, and on and on.
  Let's find those things we agree on. Let's get something done. We can 
do it, Mr. Speaker.

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