Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment, Continuing Appropriations Resolution, and Providing for Consideration of Pay Our Military Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gen tle lady for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, there is supposed to be an orderly, thoughtful process around here. Just in case any of my colleagues were asleep in high school civics the day they taught how a bill becomes law, let me go over it slowly.
The House holds hearings and markups in subcommittees and committees, brings a bill to the floor, debates it, votes on amendments, and then votes on final passage. The Senate does the same thing. Then, the House and the Senate meet in a conference committee, agree to a final package, vote on that, and send it to the President for him to either sign or veto.
Does any of this sound even vaguely familiar to my Republican colleagues? Because they did a ``Schoolhouse Rock'' cartoon about it and everything.
Instead, here we are, just a matter of days--hours, really--from a Republican-caused government shutdown. Here we are with yet another completely unnecessary, deeply harmful, politically motivated crisis.
My Republican friends have made it clear that they will not vote for a continuing resolution unless that bill strips funding to implement the Affordable Health Care Act, or ObamaCare. But here's the problem, Mr. Speaker. Mitt Romney tried to make that same argument in the 2012 election. And he lost badly--by 5 million votes. Republicans tried to argue against ObamaCare in the Senate elections. And they lost. They tried to make those same arguments in the House elections, and they lost by about 1 million votes. Thanks to some ingenious redistricting, though, they were able to keep their majority.
And now they're trying to use that narrow majority to undo the results of the 2012 election. But guess what, Mr. Speaker? It isn't going to happen. They don't have the votes. The numbers do not add up. The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. It's been in effect for 2 years, and it's going to stay that way. If Republicans don't like it, they can make their case to the American people in 2014.
But instead of facing that reality like thoughtful, serious grownups, the Republican majority continues to throw temper tantrum after temper tantrum, threatening to shut the government down, default on the Nation's bills, and throw the economy into a tailspin. It's absurd. Unfortunately, it's hurting real people. A Republican shutdown of government would actually cost us more money, Mr. Speaker.
The Senate has already acted. They passed a clean continuing resolution that keeps the government funded through November 15. Now I don't particularly like that bill because it keeps in place the Republicans' beloved sequester, which is not only unreasonable but it is doing real harm to our economy. But apparently that's not good enough for the extremists in the Republican Conference. They would rather drive this economy off a cliff than make a reasonable compromise.
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Instead, they have unveiled a bill that includes two major changes to the Affordable Care Act, including a 1-year delay in the implementation of that law. Senator Reid has made it clear that the Senate will not consider any of these changes, and it's clear the Republicans simply want to shut this government down.
So that's where we are, Mr. Speaker.
In closing, I would just urge my Republican friends, Please don't do this. I have to believe that there are
enough grownups on the other side of the aisle who are willing to stand up and say, Enough is enough. In the meantime, we should reject this rule, reject the underlying bill, and get back to work.
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