Department of Defense and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. SIMPSON. There is a way to avoid the consequences of a government shutdown that the government from Virginia (Mr. Moran) spoke about just a few minutes ago, and that is to pass this CR, put it on the President's desk so that he will sign it. And I believe he will sign it.

The gentleman from North Carolina said this could have been avoided. He's absolutely right. This could have been avoided. It could have been avoided when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate and the Presidency last year by actually passing a budget or passing an appropriation bill on the floor of the House.

Guess what? That never happened. You left us with this mess. And now you complain about the way we're trying to clean it up.

The gentleman also said this is an ideological position on which the Republicans will not yield. He's right. And that ideological position is, this country is in a fiscal crisis, and we are going to get our house back in order. If that's the position that we're being criticized for, I welcome that criticism.

Mr. Speaker, nobody wants this government to be shut down. And frankly, there is absolutely no reason to close down the government. The smart thing to do would be to pass this 1-week CR that saves the taxpayers $12 billion and addresses the dual goals of addressing the fiscal crisis that we're in and averting a government shutdown.

It also funds our troops for the rest of this year. It enables our congressional leaders and the White House to dot the I's and cross the T's on the final spending bill for 2011. That would be the smart thing to do.

Many of the spending reductions contained in this CR are spending reductions that the President has submitted to Congress in either his FY11 or FY12 budget request. Almost $1.3 billion of the spending reductions come from my own subcommittee, the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. And these are spending reductions that will probably be in any final agreement that is made between Republicans and Democrats.

So the $12 billion is not extreme. It will be in the final agreement, whatever that agreement is. There is absolutely no reason why the Senate cannot pass this bill and send it to the White House. I believe if you put it on the President's desk, he will sign it so that our troops are funded.

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