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




                           PUT POLITICS ASIDE

  (Mr. O'ROURKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, 43,000 El Pasoans are Federal employees. 
This is the fifth highest concentration of Federal employees in the 
Nation. Many of them work at Fort Bliss. Others are Border Patrol 
agents or customs officers at the busiest ports of entry in the 
country. All of them are facing uncertainty because they're being 
furloughed or working without pay.
  I have spoken to many of them over the past week, including Army 
officers who are worried about what this shutdown is doing to the 
morale of the soldiers they command and veterans employed at William 
Beaumont Army Medical Center who cannot go to work to care for our 
wounded warriors.
  A woman whose husband must go to work, but doesn't know when he will 
get paid provided this advice to us:

       Do your job, just as my husband has to do his.

  Mr. Speaker, the solution to this crisis is right before us. Bring 
the Senate-passed government funding bill to the floor. It will pass 
this House, and the government will be open tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, please put politics aside and do what is right.

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