Providing for Consideration of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee for yielding, and I thank Ms. Slaughter for the extraordinary leadership she has shown and the work she has been doing.

Mr. Speaker, the people want their government open. A government of the people and for the people and by the people ought to be open. They want their dedicated Federal employees, who have been unfairly furloughed, to go back to work. They want to end the shutdown that is having negative consequences for our economy and for our national security and for the confidence of Americans that their government can work.

The only way to do so is by passing a clean, get-the-government-open funding bill to keep the government open while we discuss, negotiate, put forward our positions, a longer term agreement on the budget.

The Senate has acted, and acted responsibly, by passing a bill that will keep the government operating. They passed that bill with a number that was suggested by the Republican Party, Mr. Speaker. Now we have the opportunity to do the same thing right now and end this shutdown. Get the people's government back to work.

There are a growing number of Republicans who say they would vote for a bill which is so-called ``clean,'' not with any of the poison pills that have been on it time after time after time. I tell them that this is your opportunity to back up your words with actions. Don't just say, ``Let's end the shutdown.'' Vote with us in just a few minutes to end the shutdown.

On Wednesday, Majority Leader Cantor said this:

We're trying to get this government open as quickly as possible.

``As quickly as possible'' is in about 5, 10, 15, or 20 minutes. That's ``as quickly as possible.'' I don't know if it's as quickly as probable, because I'm not sure that the majority leader means those words or that his party means those words, but we're going to have an opportunity to vote on it.

I say to my friend from Virginia, here is our chance to do so. To the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), Mr. Cole's colleague, who said about the shutdown that he and his Republican colleagues have imposed: I would like to end it this afternoon; I say we can do it--he's right. In just a few minutes, Mr. Lankford is going to have the opportunity to vote that way. It's either empty rhetoric, or he means what he says.

Let's do it. Let's open government. Let's get the people's public servants back to work for them. Right here, right now, we can end this shutdown today, this afternoon, in just a few minutes.

We don't differ. As I understand it, everybody on both sides of the aisle says they don't want to shut down government. Mr. Cole says that. Ms. Slaughter says that. I say that. We have the power, in a few minutes, to put people back to work for all of our constituents.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion--the previous question, we call it, jargon for saying ``let's move on.'' If we vote ``no'' on the previous question, we can put a bill on the floor which will put the government back to work this afternoon. Mr. Cole knows we can do that. I don't know that Mr. Cole will vote to do that. I think Ms. Slaughter will vote to do that. I will vote to do that. Mr. Andrews will vote to do that. Others will vote to do that. If they do, if they match their actions with their talk, then we can open this government in just a matter of minutes.

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