Economic Harm of the Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the majority party's latest idea is to create a supercommittee to figure out how to reverse their Republican shutdown of government. Frankly, Congress doesn't need another committee. It only needs the Speaker to unlock the Tea Party chains put on regular committee order and their function in this House. Let the Appropriations Committee do its job as mandated by our Constitution. It can and will get the job done.

Though it is not my first preference, we can begin by allowing a vote on a clean continuing resolution, that is, allowing the Senate bill which contains the Republican budget mark of $986 billion to move forward. Though the Democrats have expressed deep dismay at that number as it is not what Democrats had sought in discretionary accounts, it speaks loudly to which party is willing to compromise. And then if the majority party does not like the Affordable Care Act, use your real power in the regular committee structure that you control to change it. But closing down the entire government is a sledgehammer when what you need is merely a needle and thread.

Meanwhile, the Republican shutdown is wreaking havoc on our economy. More and more working Americans and businesses are getting singed. How can this be good? The Republican shutdown costs the American people $12.5 million each hour and $300 million a day. As of today, the GOP shutdown has already cost the American taxpayers over $2 billion. Is that responsible government?

The Republican shutdown has caused rising uncertainty about our economy. It has already placed a downdraft on our economic markets and job creation. Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell another 160 points. This is part of a recent precipitous slide which has seen the financial market lose nearly 400 points this month alone. Overall, the trend is strongly in the wrong direction--down.

The International Monetary Fund, as a result of the Republican shutdown, cut its growth forecast for our economy by 0.3 percentage points to 2.9 percent for this year and 3.6 percent for next year. This surely will cost the American economy more jobs going forward.

The sapping of U.S. growth will be felt globally, as U.S. economic sluggishness impacts other nations. Global markets continue to fall as well, wondering what will happen to the value of our Treasury bonds. Chaos and uncertainty trigger poor markets. We sure don't need any more of that medicine.

There are over 800,000 Federal workers who have been furloughed as a direct result of the shutdown. They are worrying about whether they can pay their bills, pay their mortgage. NASA, for example, had to furlough 97 percent of its more than 18,000-person workforce due to the closing of the government.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, only 100 of 3,150 civil servants have not been furloughed. An additional 10,000 contractors with the Johnson Space Center will face being furloughed.

According to a local FOX affiliate, the NASA Glenn Research Center in Brook Park, Ohio, near Cleveland, which I represent, has essentially furloughed nearly all its 3,000 employees at NASA's key propulsion center. This absolutely punches down the local economy as well as the national.

The Republican shutdown has also caused many more contractors who do detailed work for our government to lose their jobs. Defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin have had to furlough thousands of employees because the shutdown has halted awards and payments to those companies.

The Republican shutdown hurts government agencies and weakens our national security. There are currently no death benefits given to families of soldiers killed in action; medical treatment for those in the military has been scaled back; and furloughs are creating backlogs for VA disability claims.

Mr. Speaker, just bring the clean continuing resolution that has the Republican budget number in it to a vote. Reopen our government. Use the regular committees to work out any difficulties you have with the Affordable Care Act. And, please, put America's economy back on an even keel.

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