GOP Dysfunction

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my Republican colleagues to please don't shut down the government. Let's work together. Let's put politics aside and do what is best for the American people.

   By the end of this month, we are expected to negotiate a responsible budget agreement, but threats from the rightwing extremists are taking us off course once again.

   I recently wrote an op-ed challenging Republican threats to women's healthcare coverage, as I refuse to stand on the sidelines when our country's daughters, sisters, and mothers are under attack.

   Instead of, once again, holding women's health care hostage in order to pass a biased agenda, we need to come together to pass a responsible, bipartisan budget to address our Nation's most pressing problems.

   Now, residents in the Dallas/Fort Worth area are concerned about getting some congestion off of our freeways and doing things like making sure that the American public has good, well-paying jobs and protecting our businesses.

   They want us to pass a balanced and responsible budget that averts another government shutdown. We cannot expect to repeat the same mistakes and think that it is going to yield different results.

   The American people are counting on us to focus on what matters: jobs, education, and fixing our country's crumbling infrastructure.

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