Providing for Consideration of Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this cynical and reckless rule and the underlying funding bill. This is neither a serious nor a good faith effort to address the fundamental responsibilities in our budget. Instead, the majority is trying to hamstring the government. They want it to be broken, and they want to make it seem like it cannot address real problems. That is why now they are committed to pushing us headlong into a government shutdown whereby they would leave the American people on their own in what are difficult, difficult economic times.

This rule does not responsibly address our budget in any way. Instead, the majority is using the resolution to ensure that their dangerously low funding levels are the ceiling for future budget negotiations, and to try for over the 40th time to thwart the law of the land and to derail the Affordable Care Act, which denies affordable health care to families.

We passed the Affordable Care bill in the House of Representatives. We passed it in the United States Senate. The President signed the bill. The Supreme Court upheld the bill. But now this crowd wants to stop it by not providing the money to fund it and they want to repeal it.

The American public says: don't repeal the Affordable Care Act. Don't do that. Let's implement it. And, yes, if there are fixes to be made, let's do that. Because right now children, their parents can no longer be told by an insurance company we won't provide insurance coverage for your child that might have asthma, or autism, or anything else because we have regarded that in the past as a preexisting condition. It is no longer a preexisting condition. Quite frankly, what they want to do is to turn your health care insurance coverage back to the insurance companies that can say no. I say to them: get over it. It's the law of the land. Let's implement it and make the changes.

And while this majority plays games, the deep and dangerous across-the-board cuts which they are trying to enshrine in this bill are threatening our economy, our health, our well-being, and the future of American families.

Both the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argued that these across-the-board cuts will cost us as many as 750,000 jobs. That's not all.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, more than 57,000 children losing access to early learning through Head Start, you can't make that up. When you've lost that Head Start slot, that child can't go to school; that learning opportunity is done. That is about the future of that youngster.

They would cut off biomedical research that saves lives. I'm a cancer survivor. They would cut off the research that provides us with the opportunity to save people's lives in this Nation.

They cut money for the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration. Instructional services are being sharply reduced. Education cuts. There are similar cuts in place to every other national priority we care about--court systems, food safety, transportation, you name it. Instead of fixing these cuts, the majority is trying to make it worse for American families.

This resolution is not a serious attempt at addressing the budget; it is an ideological charade. Its purpose is to shut down the government and leave the American people on their own. I urge my colleagues to take no part of this and reject it.

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