[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15493]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, the Republican mantra of the day is 
that the President won't negotiate. Give me and the American people a 
break.
  The President sat down with Republicans many times, and I think he 
tried harder and longer than he should have to reach bipartisan 
agreements. The cuts they produced hurt my and many other communities.
  A popular definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing over and 
over and expecting a different result.
  The Biden task force, the Simpson-Bowles, and the Domenici-Rivlin 
Commissions were bipartisan and produced nothing. I recall the Speaker 
walking out on one of the talks.
  In the temporary CRs, Budget Control Act and lifting the debt ceiling 
in the last Congress, Democrats compromised on important programs, and, 
frankly, there's no place left to cut.
  As the President said yesterday, ``I don't know why Democrats right 
now would agree to a format that takes off the table all the things 
they care about and is confined only to the things the Republicans care 
about.''
  To go to the table with a gun to our heads in a decidedly one-sided 
negotiation would really be insanity.
  We need to, as Chaplain Black prayed last week, ``stop the madness'' 
and restore sanity in this House. Mr. Speaker, you can do that today by 
bringing a clean CR for a vote and lifting the debt ceiling so that the 
United States can pay its debts.

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