Government Shutdown Prevention Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank my good friend for yielding me time.

Madam Speaker, I commend my fellow Member for introducing the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, and I strongly support its passage.

I would like to say real quickly that what we have seen here in the last few minutes is a colossal waste of time. You had a bunch of folks saying, Madam Speaker, that this is unconstitutional. I just want to clarify so we can move past that and my colleagues can focus their arguments where it matters.

We intend for this bill, like all other bills, to pass the House, to pass the Senate, and be signed by the President. I too am a JAG officer from the Army, and I think that the JAG officer, Madam Speaker, from the Air Force would understand that this is a constitutional bill, like the other bills that we introduce here.

Now, why are we here today? Forty-one days ago this House passed a $100 billion spending cut from the President's 2011 budget. That bill kept the government operating. We did our job here. Now, there is another House down on the other side of the Capitol and we are here because they have refused to do their job. Forty-one days later, zero bills.

We have heard some suggestions here today that maybe we ought to do across-the-board cuts. I suggest that if they have got any friends on the Senate side, that they go down there and see if they will propose a bill with some kind of cuts, because so far it is zero, zero bills from the Senate on this.

Senator Harry Reid thinks our plan goes ``too far.'' We have heard a lot of people using the word ``extreme,'' because that is a scary word. Let me tell you, the only thing extreme around here is the national debt. Do you want to see extreme? That is extreme.

Senator Harry Reid believes that shutting down the government is perfectly acceptable. In fact, we have seen with the pollsters and the pundits and Howard Dean and others that they want to shut down the government. Well, I don't want to shut down the government. I want to cut spending.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. WOODALL. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I don't want the government shut down. I want spending cut. I have a question of what a shutdown would do to our Armed Forces, the airmen and the soldiers in Arkansas that are in my district.

Senator Reid has failed to come up with a credible plan of his own. They can't cut just a few billion dollars, even though we have a GAO report that indicates $100 billion to $200 billion could be saved by getting rid of duplicative programs. If the Senate is unwilling to make the small cuts, how in the world are we ever going to be able to make the bold decisions?

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