Sense of House Regarding Any Final Measure to Extend Certain Expiring Provisions

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, we're here because for the last year the majority could have come down here and we could have had this debate all this time. But at the 11th hour after they signaled to the Senate, work it out, get a deal together because we have not done it, the Senate did work that deal out. And now that it has come back, our friends in the House majority have said ``not good enough,'' conveniently after the Senate has gone home.

It feels like a setup. I don't question motives, but it feels that way. And it goes to the heart of the matter: Is the government here of the people, by the people, for the people and for the benefit of the people? Or do people basically have hostility to government and want to make government look dysfunctional at every turn?

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, there was an agreement in the Senate. It was coming over here, and it looked like government was going to prevail and that we had gotten our act together and worked it out. But before that ever happened, the people who stand in opposition to good government broke that deal apart. The people who believe that government should be shrunk to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub could not possibly let a deal for the American people go through, and they've smashed that deal.

And right now, this year, the clock is running out. The Senate has gone home, and our friends on the other side of the aisle are playing a dangerous game with the lives of 160 million Americans.

It's a shame and a disgrace. We ought to pass this bill the Senate sent over here and stop messing around with the livelihood of Americans.

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