Continuing Appropriations

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we need to bring this government shutdown to an end, and the way to do that is for the House of Representatives to pass the bill for a $986 billion budget to run the government for 1 year which John Boehner and the Republicans in the House of Representatives asked the Senate to pass. That is the number they wanted. That is not the number the Democrats in the Senate wanted.

They wanted $986 billion to run the government for 1 year. That is the budget we sent over. They will not pass that budget. So now we have a situation where we should be negotiating over health care, over environmental issues, over other issues because the budget has been passed--but, no. They are going to hold the entire country hostage.

Consider where our country stands right now. When George W. Bush left office, the Dow was at 7,900. It is now above 15,000. At the height of the great Bush recession, unemployment peaked at 10 percent. It is now at 7.3 percent. Our deficit has been cut in half. We are making progress. But we are not there yet. Many Americans continue to struggle.

As our country climbs back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the tea party Republicans are sending America into reverse. The tea party Republicans shut down the government. They are putting our economic recovery at risk. They are signaling to the world that America cannot perform the most fundamental job of government--passing a budget.

In the alternative, the tea party Republican universe they have created here has the tea party demanding that we fund health care research while simultaneously trying to end health care coverage for millions of Americans; to pay for our troops but sideline the intelligence agents who keep us safe from terrorist attacks; and claim to defend the Constitution but shut down the building where it lives and breathes. This tea party Republican logic is tying our country in knots, and it makes no sense.

Although the government shut down at midnight this past Monday, the seeds of the shutdown were sown years ago. This shutdown is the product of more than a decade of disdain for the democratic process waged by the tea party Republican party that is increasingly out of the mainstream. When the Republican Party started losing congressional seats, they redrew electoral maps in their favor and passed laws to suppress American voters they had alienated. And when a historic bill was signed into law to finally make health care a right for millions of low-income Americans, a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that opened for business on Tuesday, the response of the tea party Republicans was to shut down the entire government.

At the core of this tea party Republican ideology is the idea that the democratic processes our country runs on can be dismissed, that they can be manipulated, that they can be contorted to cater to the privileged at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable, and the disenfranchised of our country.

This isn't about the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party. This is about tea party Republicans versus democracy itself. The essence of American democracy has been our ability to govern by majority rule while respecting minority rights. Our system is inherently designed to enable compromise and avoid the divisiveness of ideological extremists.

I know about these tea party extremists. I served in the House of Representatives with them. They live by the Republican tea party paradox: They hate the government so much that they have to run for office in order to make sure the government doesn't work. And now there is a new Republican tea party paradox: They want to pay Federal employees not to work while blocking the legislation that will put them back to work. The Democrats are fighting to open the government so Federal employees can return to work and can earn their pay, not pay them for not working. That is the new Republican paradox.

The tea party Republicans have a three-step plan. No. 1: Deny democracy. Tea party Republicans ignore the fact that the Affordable Care Act passed the Congress, was signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court. Tea party step No. 2: Manufacture a crisis. The tea party Republicans shut down the government and put our country on the brink of default, because they refuse to accept the fact that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land and the American people reelected President Obama. Step No. 3: Turn out the lights. Just shut down the government.

What is at stake if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? Without the Affordable Care Act, for women everywhere in America the agenda will go back to being a preexisting condition. They could be charged higher insurance rates because they are women. For families everywhere in America, the threat of personal bankruptcy will return, caps on insurance benefits will be reemployed, and medical bills will once again lead to personal bankruptcies. For a young college graduate struggling to find a job, their parents' plan is no longer an option. For a low-income family who has spent years taking their kids to the emergency room instead of regular doctor appointments, it will mean more late nights in emergency waiting rooms.

Who else will be harmed if the tea party Republicans continue to refuse to expand the Medicaid Program in their respective States, the expansion that is a key part of the Affordable Care Act? The answer is two-thirds of the country's poor, uninsured African-Americans and single mothers, and more than half of the low-wage workers in the 26 States where Governors have turned down Federal funds to expand Medicare.

Let's take Texas, for example. Texas currently has the highest concentration of uninsured Americans in our country--6 million people. Many live in poverty. Under the Affordable Care Act, every State has a choice: It could give the poor and sickest and neediest of its citizens health care coverage through expanded Medicaid paid for entirely by the Federal Government or it could say, no, thanks, and leave these poor people, these uninsured people, in a state of uncertainty. Texas turned down cold more than $100 billion in Federal funding over the next decade, denying health care coverage for the 1.5 million Texas residents who live in poverty.

That is what the tea party Republicans are fighting for--to not take the money to ensure that the poorest people get health insurance. That is what it is all about. That is what they are fighting for. They believe they have a right to say, no, we are not going to cover these poor people. No, we are not going to give them insurance. That is their right--they should have the freedom to deny all these people that health insurance. And 26 other States, all with Republican Governors, did the very same thing. Every State in the Deep South but Arkansas said no.

There is an ancient Greek proverb that says the world will know true justice when those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have been harmed. You can see all across America people are angry. People who have not been harmed are angry about those who are being harmed by what the Republican tea party is doing here in Congress. That is why everyone in America wants this shutdown ended.

They know that eliminating the Affordable Care Act would gravely harm the poor in our country, the children, the working families. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans suffered from such severe economic problems. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty today. That is $23,000 a year for a family of 4. The poverty rate for African Americans is 27 percent, for Hispanics it is at 23 percent. There are almost 50 million people in our country at risk of not having enough food. Sixteen million children live in poverty in the United States as we stand here today. There are more than 11 million Americans out of work, 13 percent unemployment for African Americans, 9.2 percent for Hispanics, and it is too high for Whites, for Asians, for Native Americans--for everyone in our country.

Behind each of those numbers is a name, each of those statistics is a story, each of those figures is a face and a future that is at risk.

Behind each furlough is a Federal worker who has a vital job not being done. Somewhere in Georgia in the midst of the flu season there is an employee of the Centers for Disease Control who is at home instead of stopping a flu outbreak at a local elementary school. Somewhere in Florida is an FDA employee who was shut out of his job inspecting fish imports for toxic contamination while a mother shops at the local grocery store picking up salmon for dinner. Somewhere in the gulf coast there is an oil rig safety officer catching up on their chores at home instead of stopping the next potential BP spill before it happens. Somewhere in Boston a doctor has now put on hold a clinical trial to bring a new treatment to children born with a rare form of heart disease while a mother in Milwaukee holds her sick newborn, wondering if a cure could ever be found. Somewhere in Massachusetts a civilian military employee tasked with developing the best in protective gear for our soldiers is barred from entering his military base while abroad a soldier takes fire on the front lines. And here at the Capitol there are police officers who threw their bodies in between the public and a threat just this week, doing so without even receiving a paycheck.

This government shutdown is just a preview of coming attractions. If Republicans force us to default on our debt, millions of jobs could be destroyed. We could go from a shutdown of our government to a meltdown of our entire economy.

We won't be blackmailed, we won't be threatened, we won't back down, we won't give up. We will stand and we will fight. We will fight for the families who have dreamed of the security of health care, we will fight for the Federal workers who deserve a paycheck, we will fight for the working families reaching for the American dream. Because--make no mistake--what is at stake here isn't just health care, it isn't just a functioning government, it isn't just the stability of our economy. What is at stake is the future of our democratic system. Because you can shut down the government, you can engage in revisionist history and revise the rules to fit your ideology, but the American people will rise up--and they are rising up--to say put America back to work. They will not let the tea party Republicans stop the progress of our country. They are going to demand justice. They are going to demand that the shutdown end and the spirit of the American people be recognized.

What we need to do is to get the government back to work for the American people. The Senate has to send the House a bill that will end the shutdown. The House should schedule the vote for this bill immediately. It will pass. We should not be cutting the National Institutes of Health, which is working to find the cure for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's and other diseases that devastate.

We should not be keeping our civilian defense workers off the job. We should be coming together to create jobs to build better futures for all Americans. We should make sure America pays its bills and does not default on its debts. We need to raise the debt ceiling. Now is the time. Let's get to work.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source