OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(a) of Rule XIII with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Relating to Senate Amendment to Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 28, 2013
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Budget and Spending

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts yielded to me, but I don't know what they've got cooking over there.

What I do know is this, Mr. Speaker--and this is abundantly clear: unless we take up the Senate bill, unless we take up what the Senate has passed, we will be in a situation where whatever is put on the floor and passes will have to go back to the Senate. And Harry Reid has indicated we don't have time.

So unless we take up the Senate bill, we are going to head for a shutdown. That means the Republican majority has just shut down the government.

Now we still have time. Reasonable heads can still prevail. But if we do anything other than keep the government open until November 15 vis-a-vis the Senate bill, the Republicans will have done what they did 17 years ago: shut the government down.

This is extremely irresponsible, Mr. Speaker. It's extremely irresponsible because people on Social Security who need to call and get their questions answered--and who might need to get some real responsive answers--won't get them because there won't be people there to man the phones.

Veterans' services will be slowed down, as well as national parks, medical research, and all types of people working for the Federal Government will have a painful payday. They'll have time when they're in suspended animation. No matter what is going on, their lives will be turned upside down, as they don't know what is going to happen.

So we're not taking up the Senate bill, apparently. We don't know what we are taking up, but we're not taking up that. And that is irresponsible and wrong.

Why are we doing this? Is there some big reason? The reason was the deficit. You recall, Mr. Speaker, August 2011, the Republicans threatened to break the debt ceiling and default on America's full faith and credit because of debt and deficit. We're not even talking about that today. It's all now about ObamaCare.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward