The People's Right to Representative Government

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. That is exactly what I wanted to explore with you.

First of all, all of those public service workers, whether they are at work or not at work, continue to face the uncertainty of whether their paychecks will arrive when the car payment is due or when the rent is due or when they need to buy another round of groceries. They don't know if those checks will be there.

I think that there are some people out there across our country who are watching this shutdown, and they are saying, Well, at least we are saving some money by not paying hundreds of thousands of workers across the country--Federal employees--who are not yet able to return to work.

In fact, isn't it true that, under the Tea Party faction rule here in the Republican Party, they have passed a resolution through this House to pay every one of those hundreds of thousands of Federal workers to stay idle--to pay them not to work--at a time that they could be delivering the services they were hired to provide so that then the taxpayer has to pay them to stay idle and cannot receive the benefits of the many varied services that these public service workers would like to provide?

Ms. HANABUSA. The gentleman is correct that we as the House of Representatives unanimously passed that bill that we would pay the furloughed workers. You are also absolutely correct that, because the government is still shut down and because the Republican position is to open up government piecemeal, with no concurrence on the Senate's part, that that is exactly what is going to happen.

Many of these Federal workers feel like, Why can't we go to work? We are getting paid to work. Why isn't that happening?

I believe that that is clearly a disservice, not only to the workers, themselves, but to the people of this great Nation. It makes no sense.

I yield to the gentlelady from Florida.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Last weekend, I left. I went to Florida. Many people in church came up to me, and they wanted to know about this. These are not Federal employees; they are contract employees. So, therefore, they do service for the Federal Government, but they will not get paid; is that correct?

Mr. DOGGETT. That is correct.

The other thing that happens: suppose you have a cafe across the street from a major Federal installation. Suppose you have a dry cleaners or a service station or an auto repair. Your business has fallen through the floor because that workforce is not there, not only to do the public's work, but to do business with you.

There is not any plan from this irresponsible Tea Party caucus to reimburse the many small businesses around America as well as the contractors to whom you referred. There is not any plan to give them a dime. So they will suffer at the same time they pay Federal workers not to work and not to deliver the services that they were hired to provide and are willing to provide.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Lockheed Martin indicated that they are going to lay off over 3,000 employees. There are many companies that do work with the Federal Government, but because the Federal Government is shut down, they are going to furlough their employees, and they are not going to be paid.

Mr. DOGGETT. That is one of the reasons I feel that, with every hour that we go through this government shutdown and with every hour that we get nearer to a default--an historic default on the full faith and credit of the United States--we are jeopardizing our security. As to your comments regarding Lockheed, we are talking about the national security of the United States, and I am also talking about the economic security of your fellow church members and of our veterans.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. We had the Secretary of the VA come to our committee. He indicated that by the 1st of November, if he did not have his appropriations, over 5,000 veterans and their families and their spouses would not get their benefits in the mail.

Mr. DOGGETT. I view that as a real disgrace.

This week in Texas, in San Antonio and in Austin, as we attempted to call the Veterans Administration about problems some of our veterans were having, they said they had turned off their equipment and that they had furloughed some of the representatives we work with--I am sure that happened in your areas also--so that we cannot be the advocate we want to be for our veterans.

Additionally--I think it is around a fourth or a little over a fourth of our Federal workforce who are veterans. They are people who have served our country and have put their lives on the line, and now they are serving our country in a different way. Those are some of the families who are being paid not to work, and all of them, whether they are at work now or not, are left with great economic uncertainty about when they will get paid.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. The list goes on and on.

For example, we have furloughed most of the HUD employees, so we are going to have more homeless veterans. The list goes on and on. Cemeteries. We have furloughed cemetery employees. The other issue is, if we default on Thursday, then the Social Security payments will not be made.

These people in this House of Representatives want to operate by management. For example, yesterday, I heard over the news the number of cows that had died--or had been killed--because of a storm. We came back the next day and did the farm bill. Because everyone has been furloughed, they can't even provide the assistance they usually provide. We are going to tackle this, but there is a whole array of services that we are not picking up. For example, when you look at the number of, let's say, people who work at the universities, their checks say the universities, but they are really working for national foundations or the Mayo Clinic.

Mr. DOGGETT. You are talking about things like cancer research or someone who is working on childhood disease.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Or on Alzheimer's research. So all of this work is brought to a halt for no good reason.

Mr. DOGGETT. For no good reason.

That is why it is outrageous that we could be here on this Saturday and that the Republicans have recessed the House until Monday night. They know that this default is approaching. They have outlined no plan to avoid default. They had one coming up on the floor 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they could not get agreement among their own Members about how to avoid default. Now at a time when you--like all of us who are here--have signed a petition to reopen the government and are prepared to address the default issue right here, they have gone home.

Mr. Cantor was here on the floor a few minutes ago. He is the only one under the rules--the Republican majority leader--whom they will permit to offer the motion to continue the operation of the government. That is why we turned, as you know, to this petition of all of us coming together. We are approaching now--are headed toward--200 Members of the House. We only need about 17 or 18 Republicans to come join us so we can reopen this House and then move to address the default issue.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. The sad issue here in the House is that the minority has no rights.

Mr. DOGGETT. Because they were specifically, as you know, cut off in the rules. The rules of the House, which have existed for so many years, would have given the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentlewoman from Hawaii, or any of our colleagues who are here now from across the country the right to say, Mr. Speaker, let us vote on continuing the operation of the government.

Now, why would they deny us that traditional right as Members of the Congress--all Members, Republicans and Democrats--and give Mr. Cantor, as the Republican majority leader, the sole right to do that?

I say it is because of fear. They are fearful that this House will continue the government operations, and they can no longer hijack the country the way they have hijacked the Republican caucus and jeopardize the security of our families.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. In the Veterans' Committee, members kept alluding to the Senate, the Senate, the Senate. Let's be clear, the Senate passed the bill, and I thank God for the Senate. They passed the bill and took the House number, which was unacceptable to all Democrats, unacceptable, took those low numbers in order to pass a continuing resolution so we could have discussions. But what happened to the House? They are missing in action because there is no leadership on the Republican side.

Mr. DOGGETT. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for the opportunity to join with her on this because the numbers she refers to is back during the summer--and Speaker Boehner acknowledged this last Sunday on ABC. There was an understanding reached between the House and the Senate that Democrats would compromise and agree to a level of government services that we think is totally unacceptable.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Would you repeat that again, sir.

Mr. DOGGETT. There was an understanding, that he acknowledged, reached between the House and the Senate that we Democrats, in order to keep the government functioning, would agree on, for a time this fall, to accept an unacceptable low number that we know won't deliver the level of services that we need for Head Start, for education, and for cancer research.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, are you saying that the Democrats in the House held their nose and voted for the Republican irresponsible numbers?

Mr. DOGGETT. We have said we will do that now if it will keep our government open and protect our families and avoid default, open the government. And it is that motion, not a motion to give us all that we have asked for, but a motion to take the Republican budget number and put it in place as a compromise, and I might say not a very good compromise, not a favorable compromise.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Say it again. Say it again. We lost on the compromise.

Mr. DOGGETT. We agreed to do that. The Speaker indicated that he had agreed to that, and then this Tea Party faction took control, the shutdown caucus.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, a conversation. Can we have a conversation. Can you repeat what you just said again. A conversation. You mean to tell me that the Speaker had a negotiation with the House and with the Senate on the Republican's low levels? That it was unacceptable to the Democrats in the House, we held our nose and voted, would be willing to vote for it if they bring it up in order to move forward and get a conversation going?

Mr. DOGGETT. Absolutely.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we just want a conversation.

Mr. DOGGETT. I want to yield back to the gentlewoman from Hawaii and in doing so thanking her for this time. The reason that it is alleged that they would not continue to stand by the agreement that was made between the House and the Senate for this bad number was they wanted to shut down the Affordable Care Act and our opportunity to get health insurance for millions of Americans. And as the gentlewoman from Hawaii knows, they have failed utterly and completely to do that. They are now in search of some other rationale, some rationalization, some justification for keeping the government shut down.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, just one other question. I want to know how many times did the Republicans pass their bad bill in the House and then send it over to the Senate, and they think that the Senate is supposed to pick up their bad bill? How many times did they pass it--44?

Mr. DOGGETT. They have passed little partial bills many times.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I am talking about on the health repeal.

Mr. DOGGETT. Oh. They have sent that over there, I guess, 40 times to repeal.

Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I think it was 44.

Mr. DOGGETT. Forty-four? One can lose count because they do every time you turn around.

But I thank the gentlewoman from Florida and the gentlewoman from Hawaii. This totally unjustified shutdown must end, and we must stand for American families to avoid the insecurity, the threat to them that grows by the hour.

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