Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida. As the gentleman said, we discovered right now that the government is still shut down because our Republican colleagues want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, when in fact we could open the government right now by passing the bill that's in our possession.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about negotiation because the President and the Democrats in Congress have been trying to have a budget negotiation with our Republican colleagues all year long. In fact, in March, the House passed its budget, and in March, the Senate passed its budget. And just like the textbook says, you're then supposed to have a negotiation between the House and the Senate to negotiate your differences to reach a compromise. What happened? The Speaker of the House refused to appoint negotiators from the House. We tried three times to get a vote; each time the Speaker said ``no.''

In the United States Senate, on 18 occasions, in fact 19 now, the Democratic leader and Senator Murray tried to get consent to have a budget negotiation between the House and Senate. On 18 occasions, Senate Republicans said ``no.'' They didn't want to talk. They didn't want to negotiate. So the clock ticked until we got down to government shutdown. And then what happened?

The Speaker of the House and the Senate Democratic leader had a negotiation. On Sunday on national television, the Speaker of the House told the country that he had a negotiation with Senator Reid. They had gotten a deal. But guess what? The Speaker reneged on the agreement. Why? He told us that, too. He couldn't sell it to a reckless faction of his own party. He wanted to allow that faction of the party to run the country and shut down the government.

Now what are our Republican colleagues saying? That they're not going to let us pay our bills on time unless we adopt the Republican budget agenda.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleagues--and I think this is an important question for the country--if the President of the United States said that he would veto a debt ceiling bill, that he would veto legislation to pay the country's bills on time unless Republicans adopted the President's budget and the President's agenda, our Republican colleagues would say he'd lost his mind. Our Republican colleagues would probably start impeachment proceedings. And yet, that's exactly what they're doing. They're saying that they won't take responsibility in joining us to pay our country's bills on time unless we adopt the Republican budget agenda unless we say let's get rid of the Affordable Care Act, unless we do everything their way.

Again, if the President was to take that position, you would say he was off his rocker. So now, our Republican colleagues are coming up with a fake committee where it actually sets the rules.

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

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the gentleman.

So after all this refusal to negotiate, you now want to set up a fake committee on deficit reduction where you refuse to even include the idea of reducing the deficit in part by shutting down tax breaks for big oil companies because you don't want to use one penny of revenue, even from closing tax loopholes, to reduce the debt and deficit. I hear from my colleagues how important it is to reduce the debt--and it absolutely is--but apparently it's not important enough to shut down one tax loophole for special interests.

End this sham. Vote on the Senate bill. Open the government.

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