[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 15070]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    OMB MEMORANDUM ON OPERATIONS DURING A POTENTIAL LAPSE IN FUNDING

  (Mr. WALBERG asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Speaker, I would wholeheartedly concur with the 
preceding speaker that we need wisdom, we need guidance. We don't want 
to shut this government down, and certainly we don't want to play 
politics--at least many of us--with our constituents' services.
  Sadly, we've seen too many pictures of that in recent days with the 
memorials and monuments being chained off. That's wrong.
  This morning, my staff and I came across a document from the 
executive office of the President's Office of Management and Budget 
with a Q&A dealing with planning for agency operations during a 
potential lapse of appropriations:

       Question: What if the cost of shutting down a Web site 
     exceeds the cost of maintaining services?
       Answer: The determination of which services continue during 
     an appropriations lapse is not affected by whether the costs 
     of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services.

  Mr. Speaker, that gives me concern. Indeed, the sites that we've 
checked on like the National Park Service, NASA, E-Verify, and the 
Department of Agriculture have been shut down for political purposes. 
That needs to stop.

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