[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15401-15402]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is day 7 in a bizarre, new twist on the 
Republican Tea Party trip down the rabbit hole. On Saturday, the House 
of Representatives voted unanimously to pay retroactively every Federal 
employee, those who are working, Capitol Hill Police, those who are 
being kept from working, like the aviation safety inspector I talked 
with yesterday. He was

[[Page 15402]]

quite concerned about what might happen with a long lapse in aviation 
safety nonpartisans, but he's not allowed to work. That's a bit 
bizarre. He's thankful that he will someday be paid for not working, 
but he would rather be working, actually.
  How is it in this weird world that the Mad Hatter Tea Party explains 
to their people back home, Well, we've shut down government sort of. 
We've shut down the services, but we're going to pay people for the 
work they're not doing. We're going to let the Social Security 
applications pile up and not be processed. We're going to lock people 
out of the national wildlife refuges during hunting season. We're going 
to keep the crabbing fleet grounded in Alaska because we can't issue 
their permits, and we're not going to continue to do the surveys for 
the fishing season off the northwest coast.
  We've withdrawn all of that. All of those people are sitting around 
at home, frustrated by law, can't even access their official email, but 
they're going to be paid. And the Republicans say, We made it good. 
We're going to pay them.
  What about the American people getting the services?
  It reminds me of Wimpy J. Wellington from Popeye, who says, I'll 
gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Somehow, Tuesday never 
came, and repayment was never made. In this case, perhaps someday, when 
they stop their games, we will repay people. But what about the people 
who have automatic withdrawals, and they're living paycheck to 
paycheck, and their mortgage is coming due today or next week? What are 
they going to do? I see the credit unions offering zero percent loans. 
That's very nice of them. Wouldn't it be better if we actually put 
those people back to work and we paid them, and you declared victory?
  You have victory within your grasp, and you're refusing it. Is it 
about ObamaCare? You know that was an impossible goal. That victory is 
not within your grasp. If it's about the deficit, which is what 
Gingrich put the government out of work for, then you have victory 
within your grasp, because Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid 
agreed weeks ago to a 6-week continuing resolution, which is what has 
customarily been done around here for the 27 years I've been here when 
the two bodies can't agree on a budget. We don't shut down the 
government every year. Out of 27 years, twice have we got it done in 
time. So in 23 of those cases, we've continued. In this case, Senator 
Reid agreed to continue running the government at lower levels of 
spending, a major reduction back below the 2010 levels. All Speaker 
Boehner has to do is bring that bill to the floor of the House, and it 
will pass.
  There are enough Republicans who told the press that they would vote 
for that. They can declare victory. They cut the budget yet again. 
They're not off on this fruitless errand of trying to stop ObamaCare 
from going into effect, which went into effect last week. By the way, 
234,000 Oregonians have accessed our Oregon Web site, which is working 
quite well, thank you very much. In the States that are cooperating, 
it's working well. In those bonehead States that said they wouldn't 
cooperate and wouldn't help their people and are actually prohibiting 
people from being helped like, Florida, no, it's not working so well. I 
wonder why. Go figure.
  Let's not continue this, and let's begin to deal very quickly with 
the issues before us because we have looming a deadline that you can't 
make good later. You can't make it good later. You can't tell the 
people of the world, all those to whom we owe hundreds of billions of 
dollars and the Social Security trust fund and others, Oh, we'll make 
it good later after we default on the debt someday. Interest rates will 
jump up; houses become more expensive; the housing market probably 
crashes again; auto sales grind to a halt; credit card interest rates 
go to even more extortion levels. The damage you will do by credibly 
threatening to default on the debt of the United States of America for 
some clearly undefined goal will not be undone for generations. You 
can't go there.
  Declare victory temporarily. You got your lower levels. Bring a bill 
to the floor today. Let us vote on it. The Speaker said on the weekend 
he doesn't have the votes. Let's check that out, because we really 
think he does have the votes; and it's making him not look too good 
that he actually accepted the deal before he rejected it and now says 
he doesn't have the votes. That's an interesting kind of conundrum, and 
we can prove it very easily.
  Bring the bill up today. Fund the government. Pay people to actually 
work.

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