Yet this Rule Denies any Real Substantive Debate on One of the Most Important Issues Facing our Military.

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge people to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will allow the House to consider the Van Hollen resolution, which calls on Speaker Boehner to proceed to a conference on the budget. It is time for the majority to follow regular order by immediately appointing conferees to negotiate the 2014 budget conference agreement with the Senate.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, just to build on what my colleague Mr. Van Hollen was talking about, the reason we are so frustrated over here is that it seems that the Republican leadership is hellbent on doing nothing--on stopping everything. We have 16 legislative days left until the end of the fiscal year.

You've only passed three appropriations bills. Notwithstanding the fact that the House passed a budget and the Senate passed a budget, there has been no conference on the budget. We have a debt limit looming, and I hear rumors that you're trying to figure out what pound of flesh you can obtain in order to avoid our defaulting on our financial obligations. This is not the way to run a government.

I would just plead with my colleagues on the other side that you need to get serious about sitting down and negotiating our differences. One of the things about a conference is you don't get everything you want, and they don't get everything they want.

As to these appropriations bills that you are bringing to the floor, their allocations are so low that they are unamendable on the House floor, and they would do great damage to our economy. This THUD bill I don't think will ever see the light of day any more than I think the Ag approps bill, which we gave a rule to, will ever see the light of day. Within that THUD bill are cuts in the Community Development Block Grants, which you cut in half. The devastation on cities all across this country and communities all across this country would be so bad. People are going to lose jobs. The gentleman from Maryland talked about the furloughs and about people losing their jobs because of the sequester, and you sit back and say, Oh, it's not our fault.

This is the body that voted for it. I mean, the people of this House voted for it. I didn't, but the majority of my friends on the other side voted for sequester. It is now the law of the land. That's part of what Congress did. Congress has to change the law so we get our economy back on the right track, and one way to begin is to do what you're supposed to do and go to conference with the Senate on the budget.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I don't have a problem with what's in this rule; I have a problem with what's being left out of the rule.

We have some serious issues to discuss: the NSA surveillance program, limited debate in this rule. We need to talk about Syria and whether we're going to get sucked into another war. Multiple amendments were offered. All of them were denied, except one that basically reinstates current law.

There are issues about Egypt that ought to be discussed on the floor. And when I hear my colleagues say these are sensitive issues, we shouldn't talk about them on the floor, then where should we talk about them? This is the appropriate bill to talk about those things; yet many of these amendments were not made in order. That's why an open rule would have been more appropriate.

In terms of debate, I don't know why we have to limit debate on the NSA down to 15 minutes a piece. Everybody is concerned about this.

I will just close, Mr. Speaker, by again urging my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so that we can offer an amendment to allow Mr. Van Hollen's language to be made in order that the Republican leadership agree to go to conference with the Senate over the budget.

This sequester and these budget numbers that you are bringing to the floor on these various appropriation bills are destructive. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are hurting this economy. This gamesmanship that my friends on the other side are playing is doing great damage to this country.

We have to stop this. We have to be grownups here and do what we're supposed to do. The most important thing that can happen right now, given the fact there's only 16 legislative days left to the end of this fiscal year, is for my friends on the other side of the aisle to go to conference on the budget and work out a deal so that we don't have these devastating cuts that will impact every city and town in this country, that will throw tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people out of work, that will do further damage to our infrastructure.

National security means the quality of life that people have here in the United States. It means whether they can have good health care or good education, whether they have good and safe roads to drive on. It means whether they have a job. National security begins right here at home; and the numbers that my Republican friends have been bringing to the floor, in terms of allocations for these appropriation bills on domestic spending, would be devastating to this economy.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule. We should have an open rule where we can talk about all these major issues that are confronting our Nation and the world.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source