[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14961]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       PASS A CLEAN FUNDING BILL

  (Ms. TSONGAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Ms. TSONGAS. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government is shut down today 
for one reason: we in the House have been denied any chance of voting 
on the clean funding bill passed by the Senate.
  Four times now, House leaders have demanded that we dismantle a 
democratically enacted and Supreme Court-upheld law as their ransom, 
but not once have they allowed us to vote on the Senate's bill.
  This recklessness has real consequences. At military installations in 
my home State of Massachusetts, thousands of civilian employees who 
support our Nation's servicemembers have already weathered furloughs. 
Now they and their families are being punished yet again.
  The path forward is clear: vote on the Senate-passed CR and send it 
to the President today, put the government back to work, negotiate on a 
long-term budget, and work together to fine-tune the Affordable Care 
Act. With yesterday's opening of the exchanges, we saw the tremendous 
need and response.
  I urge the Speaker to do the responsible thing: bring us a vote on a 
clean funding bill.

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