Relating to Considerations of Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, this is a joke that we are having this debate at all at this particular time now that it's midnight and the government is officially shut down.

My Republican friends say they're coming here to try to keep the government open. They're here, and they're presiding over a Congress that has now shut the U.S. Government down. After 6 months of refusing to go to conference on the budget--18 times I've been told the Republicans objected to going to conference on the budget with the Senate--now they say they want a conference committee. It's too late. It's past midnight now. The government has been shut down. This is both cynical and disgraceful. Republicans have shut down the Government of the United States of America.

I would say to my Republican friends that you own this. This is your shutdown. This represents an absolute failure of your leadership. Real people in this country--your constituents--are going to be hurt by your inability to do your job.

Now, the funding levels in the continuing resolution are unbelievably low. They are at your beloved sequester levels. You should be declaring victory that the Senate actually agreed to your low numbers, but that's not enough. You had to overreach. You had to add in the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act and 1,000 other things that were pet projects of the Tea Party right wing in your party.

The fact of the matter is you knew all along that the President would never sign a bill that dismantled the Affordable Care Act--nor should he--nor would the Senate go along with that, but you did it anyway. You are shutting down this government because you didn't get your way. You didn't get your way, so you're shutting down the government.

I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that elections in the United States of America still do matter. Your candidate for President lost badly, and this was his No. 1 issue--to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Your Senate candidates lost badly. In fact, you lost seats in the House, and the Democrats got a million more votes than you did in House elections, but because of some very clever redistricting, you were able to hold on to the majority.

The American people rejected your call to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and the American people overwhelmingly do not want you to shut this government down, which you just did 2 minutes ago.

This is the people's House. We are supposed to be doing the people's business. We are not supposed to be doing the business of some right-wing Senator from Texas who somehow wants to run for President and wants to get the Tea Party all excited. You are supposed to represent your constituents. We all are. Our constituents--the people of this country--do not want the United States Government to shut down.

This is a failure of your leadership, and I would say there is one way for us to kind of make things better at this point, which is to let us bring a clean continuing resolution to the floor--a clean bill, a clean CR. Even with those low levels that I have some problems with, I guarantee you that it will pass with Democratic votes and Republican votes. We can reverse this shutdown now by bringing a clean continuing resolution to the floor. Please do it. Please don't shut this government down.

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