[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 15171-15172]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           VOTE ON A CLEAN CR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, good morning, and good morning to my 
colleagues. I think that a greeting always sets the tone for 
conciliatory and direct and honest interest in bringing people 
together.
  There are many of us that come from different segments of this Nation 
and therefore have to respond to our constituency, and I respect it and 
if I might use a term that we use sometimes, I get that. But I rise 
today to call upon our higher angels and the recognition that this is 
America's country, and to disabuse my colleagues and my friends on the 
other side of the aisle on some of the misinterpretation that they have 
represented in the dialogue and debate on this floor.
  Numbers are showing that 60 percent of Americans don't want to have a 
government shutdown just to defund

[[Page 15172]]

ObamaCare. I don't know how often that polling number has to be 
repeated and how often that number has to be noted as reflecting the 
sentiment of this country. But even more importantly than that, we're 
always told as we pledge allegiance to the flag that it is to this 
great Nation and it is because we are in fact united under one sense of 
commitment to our country.
  And so yes, the President is acting like a leader of the Nation. 
Maybe he's even acting like a parent. I'd ask the question, Mr. 
Speaker, whether or not you had two children or five children, whether 
or not you would say to two of them: You're my favorites, you're going 
to get everything, you're going to eat every day, and the rest of you, 
you can fend for yourself.
  That is the very nature of the piecemeal debacle that the Republicans 
are putting on the floor. I would have asked them, they could have done 
this in regular order 6-8 months ago in this House. They are in charge. 
They did not do that. They have not finished all of the appropriations 
process. But we have in fact compromised, Democrats, the President, by 
putting a continuing resolution on the floor of the House that is the 
exact number that the Republicans in the House and the Senate wanted. 
And so in 31 minutes on this floor, they would have the opportunity to 
introduce that legislation, have it pass by a majority of this House 
and have the President of the United States sign it.
  But instead of that, they want headlines like in the Houston 
Chronicle that has a mother, Talisha, asking: How am I going to feed my 
children? Because they're going to be cut off in the month of November 
for the funding for food stamps, even though it has suffered a horrible 
blow by this House of Representatives with a cut of $40 billion, but 
with the House not ceding to the will of America, a government 
shutdown, they won't be able to get that minimum support, so a mother 
says: How am I going to feed my children? And then, of course, someone 
else indicates what is going to happen to mothers with newborn babies 
and others. That is the problem that we face today.
  Let me talk about the NIH. I am a cancer survivor, and I am very 
concerned about those who are dependent upon research. Just a few weeks 
ago, I was engaged with a number of children who are impacted by the 
disease. I represent the Texas Medical Center and MD Anderson and the 
Texas Children's Hospital. Why would I want to vote against the NIH? 
But this own body has already cut $1.55 billion because we have already 
been under sequester which is a devastatingly odious process, and it 
already accounts for the loss of 1 million jobs and already some $2 
trillion-plus being cut from this budget. Already, the economic pundits 
say that's the absolute wrong way to go because it does not create 
jobs, it takes away jobs. But I will tell you that Mary Woolley, 
president of Research!America, says:

       On a micro level, this particular approach of allegedly 
     funding parts of the NIH does not work. We are concerned that 
     an incremental approach to the shutdown disrupts lifesaving 
     research by other Federal agencies.

  Benjamin Carr, the director of public affairs for the American 
Society of Biochemistry, also disagrees with this piecemeal funding, 
and Chris Hanson as well.
  Now the leader in the other body has been charged by doctors, people 
showing up in a doctor's uniform at a press conference, saying he said 
something negative about children with pediatric cancer. He did not. 
What he said is he responded to Senator Schumer's comment that we 
shouldn't do a piecemeal type of approach, and he agreed with that. 
``Why should we do that?''
  And so we should not be going against each other, we should be going 
toward each other. NASA is concerned about monitoring of the space 
station, and the Affordable Care Act is working. So, Mr. Speaker, I 
offer an olive branch as well. That olive branch is let's stop calling 
each other names, and let's start working on behalf of the American 
people and vote on a clean CR.

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