[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9798-9799]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CANCEL THE AUGUST RECESS

  (Mr. GALLAGHER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. GALLAGHER. Mr. Speaker, I stood before you in this very spot not 
long ago urging this Congress to do the work of the American people 
that the American people sent us here to do. Yet, 2 months later, not 
much has changed. Distrust in government is still at an all-time high, 
and it is not hard to see why. Our Federal debt continues to approach 
$20 trillion. Our Tax

[[Page 9799]]

Code remains broken and burdensome. Threats continue to rise abroad. 
And here at home, by the way, our veterans are still not getting the 
care they deserve despite the progress that we have made this week on 
that issue. From my perspective, this is unacceptable.
  Despite the fact that Congress, by any metric we devise, is not doing 
the basic job the American people sent us here to do, in 7 weeks, we 
are going to adjourn on a month-long vacation without reforming the Tax 
Code or getting our appropriations done. And just 30 days after 
returning from the August recess, if we don't make some hard choices, 
the government may shut down, cutting our constituents from access to 
the programs they depend on for their livelihoods.
  My message is simple: let's work through the August recess because in 
what other job would you grant yourself a month off if you hadn't 
gotten your work done?
  I know we need to get back home to meet with our constituents, but 
more than anything else, I believe our constituents sent us here to do 
our job, to work together to fix problems, rather than punt them to the 
next generation.
  So, please, let's stay here and let's do the work for the American 
people.

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