certain districts are going to actually get some good benefits from obamacare, but other districts, the more rural districts, are going to have a harder time with it because there is only one health care provider. host: so a carpenter, running out of time. the house is about to come into session. guest: we are going to see mixed effects because states have different ways of implanting the law. the choice not to expand medicaid by republican- controlled state legislatures is going to cut off services for a lot of people or prevent them from getting services. host: zoe carpenter writes for "washington journa --writes for "the nation." thank you for talking to our viewers. guest: it's been a pleasure. thank you. host: the house will take up debate over the continuing resolution. for now, live coverage of the house. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker.

the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., october 2, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable glen thompson to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john the a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2013, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip imited to five minutes each, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock, for five minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. yesterday, the president charged that the government shutdown is the result of a,

quote, ideological crusade to deny affordable health care for millions of americans. i'd begged the president to read his correspondence and listen to the millions of americans who are losing their affordable health insurance as a result of obamacare, who are seeing their health care premiums skyrocket or their hours cut back at work or who are losing their jobs or the health plans they liked and that he promised they could keep. here's a sampling of the emails and letter i received last week from people who've come face to face with the ugly reality of obamacare. a woman from el dorado county, california, writes, last month i received a letter from the human resources manager at my place of employment that states i'm going to receive a 23% pay cut as a result of obamacare. they say they're required by the employer mandate to provide insurance for every employee or face a fine. my 23% pay cut is equal to

$22,000 and will financially devastate my family as i'm the primary income of our family. i tried to explain that i have insurance through my husband's employer in blue cross blue shield and i do not need another plan. however, they said obamacare does not have an option for married employees who are paying for coverage through their spouse's employer. i even offered to pay the $2,000 employer fine instead of being subject to the $22,000 pay cut, but they said that's not an option. a man from the town of pioneer, california, writes, i received a letter from my insurance carrier that as of the end of this month they will drop all individual plans in our state because of obamacare. a woman from markleyville writes, obamacare is already affecting me and my ability to obtain diabetic testing supplies. please at least defund it. better yet, repeal it, and then go to work on real reforms that are necessary. a man from sonora writes, i

just received my projected health care costs from this coming year from kaiser. the premium will be increasing by 43.8%. health care's becoming increasingly unaffordable. the current health care fuel and power cost is destroying our economy. wages are going down and the cost of living is rising. if the current trend is not reversed, our country and all will look at financial and economic ruin. a man from amador county, who is in the durable medical equipment writes, obamacare has already killed our industry and soon your telephone will be ringing off the hook with disgruntled patients that cannot get product. a woman from nevada city writes, please repeal obamacare. the health insurance for our family went up more than $450 each month. it's not possible for middle-class citizens to pay for that. from farmington, california, a woman writes, i've worked in the health care industry as a registered nurse for over 25

years and have already seen its negative impact in the, just in preparing to begin working with it. also, my husband and i have noticed the increasing of prices in our own private health care charges. a woman from granite bay writes, as a result of obamacare, our health insurance costs have tripled. our co-payment has doubled and the deductible has also gone up. also, my primary doctor retired. the next one closed his practice, and my present doctor will close her practice if obamacare is not repealed. a man from rockland writes, as a result of this legislation, my health insurance costs through my employer has nearly tripled. combined with anemic economic growth, resulting in a 1% pay raise since 2009 and a bonus cut by 2/3, increased taxes, i've effectively had severe pay cuts, and most of my co-workers as well. the a.c.a. is a burden on me, my family, my community and our

future. from auburn, california, a woman writes, i did some shopping at save mart in auburn today and talked to a woman that works there. she said the store's cutting back everyone's hours to 20 hours per week. i asked if it was because of obamacare and she said yes. this is happening all over the country and it's outrageous. mr. speaker, i'm sure that the president and our democratic colleagues are hearing these same complaints. i wonder, why aren't they listening? i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. blumenauer, for five minutes. mr. blumenauer: thank you, mr. speaker. this is day two of the republican shutdown, holding america hostage. the stated objective is their fury of what they feel is the unconstitutional affordable care act that will wreck the economy and destroy health care in america. they will not relent until the

law is defended, even if it means shutting down the government, denying people essential services, furloughing federal employees and raising the specter of default on our national debt. this is despite the fact that the health care bill passed three years ago. it was declared constitutional by the united states supreme court and was argued extensively in the 2012 elections which the republicans lost. we've now seen the first day of the affordable care act, about 10 million visits to the website, phone lines jammed, hundreds of thousands of americans, doctors, nurses, people in hospitals, insurance companies involved in making the biggest advance in health care since medicare 50 years ago. are the republicans afraid that the program will succeed, that americans will see that this effort to help 40 million to 50 million americans who are low

income or those with pre-existing conditions will actually get the help? republicans in any event should not pull the rug from underneath the people that could benefit from the law or the hundreds of thousands of people who've made significant investments and are working to improve the delivery of health care in america at great effort and expense for themselves. according to the independent congressional budget office, this is going to provide more access at less cost and lead to a deficit reduction on the order of $1 trillion over the next 20 years. in fact, the republicans in the house of representatives have taken one half trillion of these savings from the affordable care act and stuffed it in their budget to make it appear that it's more affordable. if they were serious and not hypocritical, they would remove the money from their budget that's attributed to the bill they're working so hard to defund.

while they're at it, if they're serious and not cynical, they would have a conference committee on the budget. wasn't it interesting, the 11th hour hail mary proposal late saturday night to have a conference committee on the continuing resolution despite the fact there was nothing to conference? it was defund obamacare or nothing. but if house republicans really think conference committees are such a good idea, why don't we have a conference committee on the budget? the senate has been waiting for the house republican leadership for six months to approve conferees, so maybe we can see if we can reconcile some of these differences. if my friends were serious and not cynical about saving money, they would bring their own spending bills to the floor. remember, it's been over two months since they abruptly stopped the appropriations process with the treasury-h.u.d. bill still in

limbo. just walked off the floor halfway through the debate. the remaining eight spending bills appear to be so bad under the ryan budget that uses those evil obamacare savings that even their own members don't seem to want to vote for them. finally, if they're serious and not cynical, they should absolutely take the debt ceiling blackmail off the table. there's no reason to threaten to destabilize not just our economy but the global economy by pretending for one minute that america won't pay its bills. we will, but to threaten we would do otherwise invites chaos. this is day two of the affordable care act, the sun came up in the east, no one was forced to go to the post office for their prostrate exam, no woman had to go to the airport screening for a mammogram. no doctors have been arrested or hospitals shut down.

what did happen is people are getting better insurance with more choices at more affordable rates. i even bet that the sun sets in the west tonight. isn't it time to end the republican shutdown? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. williams, for five minutes. mr. williams: i ask unanimous consent to address the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. williams: mr. speaker, last night house republicans once again showed up and took action to stop the bleeding of harry reid's government shutdown. president obama has already bullied the house by threatening to veto these important bills to protect our nation's veterans, keep d.c. schools and services open and preserve and reopen our national parks. by voting against these bills, house democrats turned their nation's veterans.

the honoring of america's veterans act would ensure disability compensation, pensions, the g.i. bill and other critical benefits that are threatened bihari reid's shutdown. today, we will give the democrats another chance to vote in favor of veterans. this is not a partisan issue. it's an american issue, and we must pass this legislation today. house republicans are here. we're ready to negotiate. mr. speaker, i would suggest the president should cancel his trip to asia and come negotiate with us. simply put, in god we trust. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. gutierrez, for five minutes. mr. gutierrez: thank you so much, mr. speaker. we've all heard that later today an immigration bill will be introduced in the house of representatives in order to keep the issue moving forward. i plan to sign onto that bill.

it will be part of the senate compromise with a bipartisan house border security bill. i will sign on because i want to assert that the democratic party is ready to move forward on immigration reform. the bill that democrats will put forward is not a perfect bill. it's a product of negotiations, compromise and bipartisanship. having spent many long hours working with ted kennedy and john mccain, jeff blake on bipartisan bills, 204, 205, 206, 207, i know you can't get everything you want when you engage in bipartisan effort. but today with sharply divided politics, bipartisanship is the only way to get anything done. the american people are sick of the u.s. congress, totally divided and can't seem to come together. yesterday, puerto rican, korean war veterans and mississippi and iowa veterans of world war ii had to break down barricades to visit monuments on the

national mall that celebrate their sacrifice and honor. it should have never had to come to this. and in immigration, i think we have a chance to work together to get something done. the afl-cio and the chamber of commerce came together on an agreement on immigration. they moved forward with the union founded by cesar chavezes that been fighting for them for 45 years. "the new york times" and "wall street journal" editorial pages, their editorials calling for congress to address immigration reform are so similar you could be charged with plagiarism. our colleagues understand that our current illegal immigration system is broken. many understand that creating ways for people to come legally are necessary to spark our economy, reunite families, maintain our values in the united states. they understand that the path to law and order is to have a functioning legal immigration system that our people come

with a visa and not a smuggler. many of my republican colleagues understand that we cannot secure the border unless we secure and combine border security with the legal avenue for people to come here. and they understand that we cannot establish law and order without getting the millions of people here into the system, on the books, paying taxes and legitimize their stay in the united states. including citizenship for those who choose to embrace this country, just as every wave of previous immigrants have had the choice. and many of my republican colleagues realize that the best way politically and practically to achieve full implementation of things like everify and an entry-exit system, the effective way to enforce our law is to allow for legal immigration. we can and must do the legalization, border security and all of the enforcement together. with the introduction of a bill, you'll see the unity and commitment of my party, the democratic party, but i believe it is only after we merge from this very dark tunnel of

partisanship and budget bitterness that we can find a way for leaders in both parties to move forward, work together and get the speaker to give us a vote. but the clock is ticking. two million people will have been deported by this administration, a democratic administration, by president barack obama sometime in october. believe me, the deportation machine does not pause for a government shutdown. and this saturday, october 5, 163 cities, there will be marches and demonstrations and activities to push this congress and especially the republican leadership to allow a vote on immigration reform. i will march in chicago, meet with evangelical leaders and join people fanning out across districts saturday. and then tuesday, october 8, i invite all my colleagues to join the tens of thousands of americans for a concert and a rally to make sure this chamber

knows the truth and that is that the persistent and consistent pressure to pass an immigration bill in red states, blue states, purple states has not subsided and is stronger than ever. i ask you all to come and join me and our immigrant community from across this nation. mr. speaker, i will show you the faces of families who want this congress to put aside our party differences and to act for the families of america, for the millions of american citizens that need a fair and just immigration system. come and join us in your city on october 5 and if not come and join us here in the capital of the united states on october 8. the people will be speaking. thank you, mr. speaker. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair now recognizes the gentleman from alabama, mr. rooks, for five minutes. the ooks: mr. speaker, federal government is shut down thereby damaging america's

economy generally and the tennessee valley's economy in particular where thousands of defense, nasa, and other federal government employees have been furloughed because the president in his discretion designated them nonessential. i hope my remarks add clarity about the shutdown it caused and the efforts to fund the government. city, county, and state governments across america passed one bill called a budget that funds services for their fiscal years. in contrast, washington uses a three-step spending process. first, washington should pass a bill that is called a budget yet does not, in fact, spend a dime. rather in washington the word budget is more like a game plan. it is much like a football coach's playbook. it lists the team's plays but does not in and of itself gain a single yard. second, washington should pass authorization bills that describe the programs the federal government is to operate. for example, the nasa authorization bill authorizes

nasa to work on the space launch system so that america can have a human space flight program. like budgets, authorization bills spend no money. third, washington must pass appropriation bills to actually spend money on the programs authorized. if congress fails to pass appropriation bills, then congress uses continuing resolutions as crutches for our failure. there are 12 appropriation bills that collectively fund the federal government. so far this year the house months ago passed appropriation bills for national defense, energy and water, homeland security, military construction, and veterans' affairs. if the senate passes these appropriation bills, then each of these federal programs are fully funded and exempt from the federal government shutdown. that's correct. exempt from the shutdown. unfortunately, the senate inexpoliticsably refuses to vote

on any of the 12 appropriation bills. senate intransigence is why we are here today debating a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the federal government. for emphasis, continuing resolutions are the worst way to fund the federal government. by definition continuing resolutions are for a short period. speaker boehner's c.r.'s for 2 1/2 months. senate majority leader harry reid's c.r. is for less, 1 1/2 months. each c.r. kicks the can down the road and forces america to quickly face yet another shutdown risk. each c.r. means federal agencies cannot plan long-term and contracting officers are restricted in their ability to let contracts for services and goods provided by the private sector to the federal government and american citizens. generally speaking continuing resolutions fund at prior year spending levels, which means spending does not change to reflect changing priorities, circumstances, and challenges.

in sum, continuing resolutions are inherently inefficient, waste tax dollars, and retard proper federal government operation. hence, i have had historically voted against less than year-end continuing resolutions in hopes of forcing congress to do the compromising necessary to pass authorization and appropriation bills. this work will not be done so long as the continuing resolution crutch protects congress from failure, which brings us to today. the senate, white house, and congress agree on roughly 99% of the appropriation bills. let me emphasize that. the senate, white house, and congress agree on roughly 99% of the appropriation bills. the solution therefore to our impasse is simple. congress and the white house should fully fund the 99% we agree on, end the government shutdown, and work out our differences on the remaining 1%. instead, the senate and white house use a federal government

shutdown to coerce the house of representatives into spending money america does not have on a socialized medicine program that does not work and that a majority of americans do not want. yesterday i spoke with house leadership and i urged them to pass bills that, one at a time, fund the 99% of the federal government that we agree on. i think the house leadership -- thank the house leadership for doing exactly that yesterday and today. each bill we pass exempts yet another part of the federal government from the shutdown. i urge my friends across the aisle to stop using the 99% as a hostage to stop punishing citizens across america in their effort to coerce the house of representatives into funding the 1% we have a legitimate disagreement on. i urge my friends across the aisle, to join us, join america, to compromise, yes, to compromise and pass as many funding bills as we can to minimize and eliminate the harmful effects of a federal

government shutdown. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. quigley, for five minutes. mr. quigley: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, the time has come for reason. no longer can we afford to allow a small segment of this congress to drive the debate. it's not just the tail wagging the dog, it is the tip of the dog's tail wagging the entire body politic. the time has come for those in the middle to come together and take back the wheel from those intent on crashing this congress into a ditch. as i stand here today, the government of the united states is shuttered. shut down by nothing more than brinksmanship. small business loans are not being processed. the center for disease control flu prevention program is being halted. the national institute of health is no longer accepting kids into a cancer research program. some food safety operations have

ceased, and clean up at 00 toxic waste sites has been suspended. it wasn't always this way, though. there was a time when we had regular order. there was a time when budgets were proposed. funding levels and priorities were debated. differences were hard out, and bills were passed to fund the government. even when regular order broke down, we were always able to at least pass a continuing resolution to continue funding the government. not this time. this time an effort to repeal a law that was passed by both houses, signed by the president, approved by the supreme court has shanghaied all federal spending -- shank hide all federal spending. shanghaiednk hide -- all federal spending. to think we can repeal obamacare and to think we can is not rational the budget chairman paul ryan, we have to stand the right side of public opinion, shutting down the government puts us on the wrong side. my colleague, senator kirk, said

let's not shut down the government just because you don't get everything you want. the list goes on and on. chris christie, mitt romney, u.s. chamber of commerce, and many more all oppose efforts to shut the federal government. yet we continue down this dangerous path. when i first came to this congress, congressman kirk, now senator kirk, told me everything that gets done here gets done in the middle. now is the time for the reasonable middle to come together and reject the strategy that says if i can't win, ill'll just kick the ball in the woods. sorry. not only is shutting down harm -- the government harmful to my constituents and economy, it doesn't solve the problem. it doesn't address the budget deficit. if we really want to get our fiscal house in order, let's fund the government and bring back a balanced, big, bipartisan deficit deal to the floor. we did it before and we can do it again. i along with only, only 37

colleagues voted for the cooper-latourette budget which mirrored the bipartisan simpson bowles plan. where were those so concerned with debt then. if the fiscal watchdogs on the other side of the aisle really want to solve our budget woes, let's get together on a big budget deal. and let's do it now because every day we waste in this useless limbo land is one less day we have to address the very real and very harmful problems facing this country. we have got to pass comprehensive immigration reform, a farm bill, a infrastructure funding bill, a re-authorization of the elementary and secondary education act, ream gun reforms, tax reform, and numerous other much needed legislation. but without doing the basic work of congress like passing a budget, we can't address the real issues facing us. as long as we continue to look in the rear-view mirror, a law passed three years ago approved by the supreme court, we will fail to navigate the real

obstacles before us. we need to keep our eyes on the road and come together to solve the real challenges that lie ahead. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. mica, for five minutes. mr. mica: thank you, mr. speaker, my colleagues. when you think you have seen it all, just stick around here for another day. yesterday and one of the most appalling events i have seen in our nation's capital was the closing of the world war ii monument putting up barriers, world war ii memorial putting up barriers to stop our veterans from accessing that open space area. how offensive could you be? how much more pain do you want to inflict on the american people? now, here's the group that closed the white house, this president closed the white house

and said he didn't have money to open it to the public. i would suggest, first of all, first of all, maybe we need to parks w interior director and fire those folks or furlough those folks that can't leave public spaces and memorials opened to the public. what an offense. when i thought that was offensive yesterday morning, i came to the house last night and saw again another horrible offense. we passed -- republicans passed a measure to make certain that our military were paid and our service men and women in harm's way were taken care of financially. we saw also the need afterwards to help our veterans. and last night in one of the most offensive actions of the house, the other side of the aisle turned down an opportunity to keep our veterans whole. how offensive could you be? but they want to inflict pain.

i'm telling you, folks, i have been around here a long time. i have never seen an operation like this. the chief of staff in the u.s. senate, ronald wage would pick up the phone, he -- ronald reagan would pick up the phone, he would call me to talk about things, would he call the senators, he would work with representatives. he would bring them in and have communication. even bill clinton, after i voted to impeach him, would work with you to get things done. and we got things done. we had a shutdown then. this isn't the end of the world. there's 17 shutdowns. some good came out of that shutdown. it was a horrible thing. we don't need to repeat them. we don't need to have this one. but we did balance the budget. we balanced the budget with a republican congress working with a democrat president. there's no need for this offensive approach. that's being taken. not working, not communicating.

this can and should be resolved. members of congress have that important responsibility and can't negligent it -- neglect it. this is much more difficult than just a shut down, a temporary shutdown. we are talking about a permanent shutdown of the federal government. you think having a few of the federal services eliminated or suspended temporarily is tough? in a few weeks the government will run out of money. why? because these folks will talk to you about a budget, they didn't pass -- they haven't passed a budget since 2008. the only way we got the other body, the senate, to pass a budget was to pass a bill to embarrass them that said no budget, no pay. this is the group that had control of the house, the senate, and the white house. they couldn't even pass a f.a.a. bill, 20 extensions. a transportation bill. they couldn't pass a budget. and here they are criticizing

us. we came to work and we worked until 12:30 and to sunday morning. they were absent without leave. they never even came to work, the senate, on sunday. they came to work on monday at 2:00 in the afternoon. and then they rejected every offer. we offered three times the compromise. and then we said, let's sit down. we have been holding yesterday a conference. no one showed up. you have to show up. the president has to be the president. let me take a little of this malaysia money, open the white house, open the memorials to our veterans. use some of that money that he's gaming the system trying to inflict pain on our veterans and our citizens. there is no reason for this. good people, good intention can come together, make this government work, make it better, pay our bills, and be responsible and bring this

out-of-control spending under control and get our government being accountable and responsible. that's what the american people want. they are tired of the blame game. let's get america going in a positive direction. i know we can do it. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the up to the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. bera, for five minutes. mr. bera: mr. speaker, it's day number two of a government shutdown. the american public is watching and they're not happy with what they're seeing. mr. speaker, you're the leader of this body, the house of representatives. you're the speaker of the house. this is a house that's made up of both democrats and republicans. we need leadership at this juncture. mr. speaker, you're the one person who could bring it and you are not showing that leadership. you need to help us move forward. now, i'm here to work.

i'm a freshman, and i came here with the mandate to get washington working again, to get people working again and that's what i intend to do. mr. speaker, you got to reach out to democrats and invite us in to bring our ideas forward. you're the one person who can do it. i'm talking for my colleagues. on the republican side. i'll talk to the republicans right now. we want to get the country moving forward but we can come up with the best idea possible, there's one person that can bring that legislation to the floor. mr. speaker, that's you. we need leadership at this juncture and the country is watching. enough with the washington politics. and now we hear that you may shut the government down to play more washington politics for 17 days to tie this to the faith and credit of the united states of america? you're the one person who's requesting to do that, mr. speaker -- who's going to do that, mr. speaker, and don't

take us down that path. too many americans are suffering. we need leadership at this juncture, mr. speaker. there is a clean funding bill on your desk. bring it to the froor. bring it to the floor -- bring it to the floor. bring it to the floor and let us have a chance to vote up or down. give us a chance. it will keep government open for six or 10 weeks but give us a chance to vote on it up or down. if the republicans don't like it, fine. they'll vote against it. but give us a chance to bring it to the floor. and it's not a bill that democrats like, but we understand it will keep the government open and it will give us a chance to do what we were elected to do, pass a real budget, put a budget together. mr. speaker, enough is enough with the washington politics. now you're going to continue playing politics and bring little pieces of legislation here and there forward when what we need is a big plan in leadership. bring the funding bill to the

floor. let's continue to pay our debt and let's keep moving forward. because people are hurting. mr. speaker, i'm a doctor. and the oath i took has two critical elements. to do good. mr. speaker, right now you're not doing any good. you're not doing the american public any good. and to do no harm. and the failure of this body, the failure of you to bring that legislation to the floor for us to vote on it is doing irreparable harm. you know, as a doctor, do you know what's happening to the n.i.h.? do you know that they have to turn patients away, patients who have no place else to go? this is their last-ditch effort to get in there. that isn't what we do in america. mr. speaker, you're the one person who can bring this legislation to the floor and do it. now, i'm a doctor and do you know what's happening in the c.d.c.? we're about to enter flu season. god forbid we have an epidemic of anything.

they're laying off almost 70% of their staff. this is putting america in harm's way. mr. speaker, do what my oath says as a doctor, do good and do no harm. right now you're doing the exact opposite. let's get washington working again and let's put the american people first. we, the people. this is the united states of america. united. that means we got to come together as a country and put the people first. mr. speaker, the american public is watching you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair now recognizes the distinguished gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, for five minutes. mr. thompson: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, this morning one of my colleagues across the aisle said very accurately, he was quoting another elected official, that everything that gets done gets done in the middle. i happen to believe that the

only type of legislation that really passes and lasts is that is done in a bipartisan way. that's why i commit myself in every bill i author and i work on and i reach across the aisle and i find a friend to be the lead co-author and we build support on both sides of the aisle. mr. speaker, based on the comments of my colleague and my own personal beliefs, you know, i believe that's why this health care law is so flawed and has so many flaws in it. because it was not done in that spirit. it did not honor that principle. it was done unilaterally in the most partisan way and shoved upon the american people. and it is public acknowledged that it has flawed. the majority of americans are demanding fixes of the flaws in the health care law, flaws that are acknowledged by republicans and democrats alike. so instead of protecting perhaps the president's legacy,

it's time to come together. republicans are only seeking to commonsense fixes to decrease costs and increase access and fixes that are bipartisan and common sense. last night i was very disappointed on this house floor. i voted to protect our veterans , to protect the citizens of the district of columbia who are prevented from -- last night we had a bill that just allows them to use their own money, money they pay in taxes, to the municipality that they contribute through the parking meters and the fines they pay just to be able to use their own money and also to open our monuments and our parks to the american tourists. and the american heroes, the honor flight folks coming in each and every day, world war ii, part of the greatest generation, and yet it was defeated by votes from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for political purposes. and i know politics within the beltway, but what -- that -- those were bipartisan solutions

to help key individuals. mr. speaker, it's trouble that the senate leader has prevented consideration of even the most commonsense changes to the president's health care law, including one that has bipartisan support and previously passed its own chamber. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in both parties are already overwhelmingly rejecting the medical device tax. yesterday, 37 house democrats voted with republicans to vote to repeal the tax. 270-146. in march, the democratic-led senate voted 79-20 to repeal the tax. the senators from my own home state of pennsylvania, one democrat, senator bob casey, one republican, senator pat toomey, supported the bill. in fact, senator casey was its chief author and sponsor. the medical device tax repeal was part of the house continuing resolution. it was blocked consideration by leader reid. for the past two weeks, the house has tried to prevent the

shutdown and protect the american people from the president's health care law. the senate has decided to drag its feet and reject these reasonable proposals. ere is a right way and appointing conferees. that's appointing negotiators, republicans and democrats and to sit down and work out our differences. that's elementary civics. they prevented regular order from proceeding. i was elected to reform government and i'll continue fighting on their behalf. congress must act now to end this shutdown and get to work on the many challenges facing this great nation. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: i thank the gentleman. the chair now recognizes the distinguished gentleman from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern, for five minutes. today is day two of the republican government shutdown. it is day two of the republicans throwing a temper

tantrum because they don't have the votes to overturn the affordable care act. they have chosen to hold the federal government hostage in order to placate a small reckless extreme faction of their conference. it's shameful and it needs to stop. already national parks are closed, head start facilities are beginning to close and paychecks to federal employees could be delayed. if closing head start facilities wasn't bad enough, shutting the government down could do great harm to pregnant women, infants and children. that's right, mr. speaker, pregnant women, infants and children will begin feeling the impacts of this government shutdown as funding for the w.i.c. program against to lapse. there are nearly nine million pregnant and breast-feeding women, infants and children on w.i.c. nine million low-income people who receive healthy food and nutrition education from this important and vital program. w.i.c. is a critical program that provides food and nutrition counseling for low-income pregnant and breast-feeding women as well as for newborns and infants.

it is a key program that helps pregnant and breast-feeding women stay healthy through proper nutrition and prevents many health issues. in about a week funding for w.i.c. will dry up, fooding for food and nutrition education for low-income women and their children will be eliminated. some states will see their funds dry up right away and some, like massachusetts, have budgeted in a way that will allow them to patch funds together to prevent major shortfalls, only for a couple of weeks. now, i come to this floor week after week to talk about how we can end hunger now. a few weeks ago, this house of representatives cut snap, formerly known as food stamps, by $39 billion. year after year, budget committee chairman paul ryan tries to block grant snap, a $-- $130 billion cut in the program. a few years ago the agriculture appropriations subcommittee, chaired then by the gentleman

from georgia, mr. kingston, attempted to cut w.i.c. by hundreds of millions of dollars. now, there's a pattern here of trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, on the backs of the hungry. there's a pattern here of saying to people who are struggling to make ends meet that they just don't matter. the republicans who are forcing this government shutdown, those republicans who are cheering on a government shutdown, like cheerleaders at a pep rally, are inflicting real damage on real americans. and those on the front lines are unfortunately poor women and children. now, we're not going to end hunger now by painting a target on their backs and using them to balance our budgets. income disparity is currently at its greatest gap since the great depression. hunger is not getting any better in this country. yet, the republicans in the house think it's ok to take food away from hungry people, including veterans and kids just because they don't -- just because they don't like those programs. that cut in food stamps that we debated and voted on couple

weeks ago would throw 170,000 of our veterans off the program. veterans. men and women who have served our country in battle, they will be cut from the program. what they are doing is wrong. it takes my breath away, mr. speaker. ending hunger requires real leadership and not letting some right-wing zealots eviscerate the federal government. what is happening here is cold. it is heartless, it is unconscionable. we should be working to end hunger now instead of shutting down the federal government. low-income women, infants and children of this country deserve a hell of a lot better than they're getting from this republican-led house of representatives. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, mr. holt, for five minutes. mr. holt: thank you.

mr. speaker, the health care mr. speaker, the health care marketplaces are finally opened. the only complaint is people are so eager to learn more about their options to sign up that too many people logged on yesterday. to hear my colleagues from across the aisle describe this day, you might expect to look out the window and witness the beginning of, as ghost busters once put it, 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. perhaps these warnings were overblown. the start of the affordable care act resulted in exactly zero people locked out of their offices with their paychecks on hold. by contrast the republican shutdown has furloughed 800,000 federal employees. exactly zero people yesterday were deprived of their annual flu shots because of the affordable care act. in fact, obamacare has made preventive care for things like

vaccines free without co-pay to insured patients nationwide. by contrast, the republican shutdown has forced the c.d.c. to halt its annual seasonal influenza program just as flu season is getting under way. because of the affordable care act, actsly zero -- exactly zero infants yesterday were deprived of healthy food and nutrition information. by contrast, the republican shutdown has put at risk the entire women, infants, and children program, which provides some nine million americans with the support they need to feed their children. the republican shutdown has also brought to a stand still critical lifesaving biomedical research be conducted at the n.i.h. and n.s.f. exactly zero people yesterday went untreated because of the a.c.a. for food-borne illnesses. by contrast, the republican shutdown as forced the f.d.a. to cease many of its food safety operations. the affordable care act has not

ushered in an era of doom and gloom that the republicans promised. instead, it has offered hope and opportunity for good health care coverage. here's the reality, the a.c.a. is helping my constituents who previously found health insurance out of reach. the access provided by a.c.a. is long overdue. rather than seek delay, we should be embracing it. for years i have been hearing from people like nicole from lawrence who wrote -- writes, not about the fear of the a.c.a., but rather quote, the fear that the health care of your family will bankrupt you and that your lack of resources will leave you and your loved ones vulnerable to sickness and death, end quote. now, i also hear optimism. optimism that comes from the options that can now be found in the new marketplace. just ask mary from princeton who wrote me earlier this week. please do not allow the

implementation of obamacare to be delayed. i have been waiting and waiting for a time when my adult children would be able to afford health insurance. she goes on to say that the health care marketplace has given her, quote, the opportunity to review plans with them and to assist them to choose the best plan. and there's the single mother from scotch plains who wrote me, quote, i'm a registered republican and i'm embarrassed by all that has been happening for the last few days. the tea party and some republicans keep yelling they are speaking for the people. well, they are not speaking for me or anyone i know. obamacare must be given a chance. i have been without coverage since my cobra ended two years ago. i was unable to get ream coverage at a reasonable rate. i don't want charity, i'm not looking for a handout, i want affordable health care. i have been praying i stay healthy and patiently waiting for the affordable care exchanges so i can finally try my luck there. please, please don't let the tea party take this away from me and so many others who need it, end

quote. now, i wish my colleagues across the aisle would accept this as the good news that it is. i wish they would accept that their stories of doom and gloom for obamacare were wrong. but instead we are learning that the dire stories were not a prediction, they were a threat. the tea party confronted with the prospect of a duly passed law that's been upheld by the supreme court have thrown a temper tantrum, they have taken hostage the federal government, they sabotaged self-government, all to prevent americans from gaining access to affordable health care. let's make the health care law work as well as possible. let's together make our other government services necessary services work as well as possible. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from california, ms. lee, for five minutes. ms. lee: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without

objection. ms. lee: thank you. mr. speaker, here we are day two of the republican shutdown. now, the tea party extremists are really achieving their goal of dismantling government. their shutdown is step one. it's no secret that the tea party republicans came here not as public servants but to destroy and decimate our government. now millions of families, children, seniors, federal employees, and our economy are paying the price. the republican refusal to back off of their extreme ideological demands has taken our country down a very dangerous path that will surely push mlts more into hunger and poverty. -- millions more into hunger and poverty. throughout the state of california families are already feeling the impact of the republican government shutdown. the california women infant and children program is on the brink of turning away low-income pregnant women and new mothers if this shutdown continues. how ruthless can you get?

the california national guard, largest in the nation, is forced to furlough technicians and aviation mechanics even as the fire season is still upon us. and throughout the state of california, eighth graders like my constituents from oakland who wrote to me yesterday are canceling field trips to national parks and monuments which are closed to visitors. what are they going to do now? and to add insult to injury, republicans have shut down the government because they are obsessed, obsessed with destroying the affordable care act which is the law of the land and which the supreme court upheld. most americans continue to see how senseless and wrong it is to shut down the government because you want to deny health care to millions. two wrongs don't make a right. despite the republican government shutdown, health care exchanges established under the affordable care act has successfully opened for enrollment and now millions of uninsured americans are just

three months away from having the health care coverage they so desperately need. california, the first state to commit to establishing its own exchange, launched the covered california exchange. covered california's exchange includes health care options for individuals and small businesses. in my congressional district alone, there are nearly 100,000 uninsured constituents and the opening of the exchanges mean that they are one step closer to health care coverage that can literally, mind you, literally make the difference between life and death. hostage taking really is a deplorable tactic. members of congress are elected to make sure our government functions. time and time again democrats have reached across the aisle to try to negotiate a budget plan that is fair and that ensures that the government pays our bills on time. yet instead of working together to do our jobs, republicans continue to double down on the tea party plan to destroy and

decimate our government. instead of working on a serious option to reopen the government, republicans' latest strategic -- strategy now, this is cynical, that's to exploit our veterans and exploit the people of the district of columbia by voting on piecemeal bills that will not end impacts of a shutdown that extend across the country. mr. speaker, of course we support our veterans and of course we support our national parks and of course we support the district of columbia to use its locally raised funds, but let's not use them to score political points to advance an ideological agenda. how do republicans this week they vote to allow the district to use its discretion of local funds on shutdown, that they created, yet next week block the same funds from being used for saving reproductive health care services or badly needed exchange -- needle exchange programs to fight hiv-aids. again, this is so cynical and it is so wrong.

the american people deserve a functioning government. this hostage taking must end. yield the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. meadows, for five minutes. mr. meadows: thank you, mr. speaker. i come here today perplexed by what i see unfolding here today. my colleague just said that two wrongs don't make a right. and indeed she's correct. but today this fight is really starting to get to be more political and we are not focusing on the people. yesterday in this very chamber, mr. speaker, we put forth three different bills. one that would pay our veterans and make sure that those

benefits continue to flow. and what did the democrats say? they said no. one would open up our parks and monuments to be that economic stimulus once again. what did the democrats say? they said no. and then even in the district of looked, mr. e we speaker, at truly putting forth and allowing them to use some of their funds to pay the teachers and do some of the operations, i can tell you i don't get any votes from the district of columbia. for me that is not a politically expedient thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. and so what did we do, mr. speaker? we put forth a bill and yet what do the democrats say? no. i am so troubled that what we are seeing over and over again is this bantering back and

forth, and yet we are willing to open up parts of the government and continue to do that every single day until we get everything restored. this is not about obamacare. obamacare's a mandatory spending. this is about getting the government back opened in a responsible way. what we are doing is working very hard trying to work in a bipartisan way to do that. so, mr. speaker, i rise today to just say that it is time that the senate comes back to the negotiating table and starts to negotiate on behalf of the american people that they represent. we have a responsibility to our veterans, to those that serve in the reserves. so today we will see more opportunities in this very chamber to fund those things that are precious, near and dear

to all of us. and i ask, humbly ask my colleagues on the other side to join us in a bipartisan effort to start working for the american people and representing them. with that i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from arizona, mrs. kirkpatrick, for five minutes. mrs. kirkpatrick: mr. speaker, partisan games have serious consequences. one of the many consequences is in my arizona district where the grand canyon national park is closed and our local economy is taking a direct hit. instead of acting responsibly and funding the government with a clean bill, on monday night the house g.o.p. acted recklessly. it is a bill that they passed

monday night so weighed down with partisan baggage that they knew it would lead to a government shutdown. and yet they chose this approach intentionally. the price of these part dan games -- partisan games is high, and the american people are now stuck with the tab. some estimates have the shutdown costing our nation about $300 million every day. in arizona and across the country, this hurts our working families, small business owners, veterans, and seniors. this hurts our tribal communities. i have 12 native american tribes in my district. all of these folks need and deserve to have elected leaders working to help them not hurt them. and after what happened on monday, we must now do the urgent work of funding and reopening our government. but instead the house g.o.p. is

stalling with more games, introducing piecemeal bills that pick winners and losers for funding. last night they tried to do it with piecemeal bills for veterans and for national parks. i will always fight for our veterans. i am proud to serve them in my work on the veterans' affairs committee. the first piece of legislation i passed this year will help our veterans who are stuck in the v.a. backlog, and i will always stand up for our national parks. i am grateful to live near the grand canyon, a national treasure. my district has many of these wonderful destinations. i recently introduced a bill that will protect and expand the casa grand ruins national monument in southern arizona. my support for these issues is clear, but the real way to support our veterans and support our parks is to reopen the government. and if piecemeal is their solution, then what about making

sure social security's offices are opened to help our seniors? what about making sure programs to help women and children are up and running? and what about our indian health services which serves the 12 tribes in my district? we need to restart everything and protect our economy. taking a piecemeal approach to the shutdown is like driving down a dead end street. . the house g.o.p. knows this and yet they will not vote on a clean c.r. we are wasting precious time. we need to reopen the government and protect our economy. our local economies in arizona are taking a direct hit. yesterday, on day one of the shutdown, in my district bus loads of tourists and hundreds of visitors were turned away from the grand canyon national

park. these folks had waited a year or more for their turn to go on a river rafting trip in the grand canyon. there are folks whose wedding, planned long ago, had to be scrapped yesterday. the grand canyon national park generates more than $1.2 million a day in visitor spending and that spending, like the government, is now shut down. i represent several other national park attractions, including the petrified national forest park, the grand canyon ruins national monument and the montezuma national monument. these are some of arizona's most important economic drivers. we can't afford to hang a closed sign out in front of these destinations. this shutdown will devastate the small communities in my district. i call on my house colleagues to stop the games and get to work to restart government. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlewoman yields back. the chair recognizes mr. woodall for five minutes. mr. woodall: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the time. i have a heavy heart as many of my colleagues do. i haven't bumped into one of the 432 of us who's enthusiastic about the situation that we're in. i tell you, mr. speaker, the most troubling thing to me is the decision to define success as passing a c.r. that the senate is dictating. i don't say that because it's the senate. i say that because my constituency back home doesn't care about c.r.'s. c.r., continuing resolution, as you know, mr. speaker, and the only time, the only time a continuing resolution comes to the floor of this house is when this house has already failed to do the job it was supposed to do and that's passing appropriations bills, mr.

speaker. that's appropriating through 12 different bills one step at a time, making those decisions about spending priorities for the nation. it is fascinating to me, mr. speaker, because it's been years, years since this house has gone through that process. not through any fault of this house, but because we have absolutely no activity on the senate side. again, it somehow is getting defined today, if you do things piecemeal that you're somehow doing something wrong. again, that's regular order. doing things one bill at a time is normal. that's what's supposed to happen. you're supposed to make individual decisions on individual bills. last year the house passed seven different appropriations bills, mr. speaker. one step at a time. the way the government is supposed to be funded. senate passed one. and thus the process broke down

, no appropriation bills were passed and we are funding the government through these continuing resolutions. here we are go again. the house has passed five appropriation bills. the senate passed zero. zero. so we are here we are today because the senate hasn't been able to move anything at all. it is with a heavy heart that i hear my colleagues say, we could reopen services for veterans but we're not going to do it because we have a better plan that we ought to do everything at once. if we can't help everybody, we won't help anybody. i don't believe that's the sentiment of my friends on the other side of the aisle. in fact, mr. speaker, in june of this year, we came together, we came together in this house. only four votes against a veterans affairs appropriations bills. four votes in the entire house

of representatives voted no. everyone else voted yes. and that bill, which fully funds all of our veteran services, in fact, pluses up the funding for our veteran services, not for thee months, not for three weeks, pu for the entire fiscal year, we passed that in june, mr. speaker. and it sets in the senate dusty today having received no attention since june. i don't know about your constituents, mr. speaker. my constituents want us to get something done. they understand there are things we disagree about. but isn't there more that unites us than divides us? i tell you there is. i'm absolutely certain there is. if the only way we can find it is to move one small legislation at the time, that might be the most efficient way to do it, but if that gets the job done, let's get the job done, mr. speaker. i'm tired of the excuses and i'm tired of the blame. the rules committee is going to report out a rule today that's

going to pring these provisions back to the -- bring these provisions back to the house floor. an opportunity to open up those parks that my colleague talked about a few moments ago, an opportunity to deal with the veterans, an opportunity to deal with the important research at n.i.h. and on and on. let's find the things we agree on, let's get some things done. we can do it, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. moran, for five minutes. mr. moran: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, this republican outrageous of congress' responsibility and it didn't need to be this way. in fact, if the house leadership were to call up a clean continuing resolution appropriations bill today, it would pass. there are sufficient number of votes from both sides of the political aisle to pass the measure. so far, however, the house

republican leadership has refused to do so, afraid of extremists within its own caucus. the so-called ted cruz tea party faction whose demand is to shut down the government until the affordable care act is either repealed or delayed. and so the american people's government has shut down. 90% of the most of the environmental protection agency have been furloughed. 84% of the employees at the department of interior, all over the country, but mostly in the western states, have all been furloughed. 70% of the employees of our essential intelligence agencies have now been furloughed. recipients of the women and infants care program, the most vulnerable mothers and children, have had their

livelihooded jeopardized. the national institutes of health have had to turn away 30 children with cancer from clinical trials. this house must end this shutdown. this debate isn't even about the budget. the president and the senate have already agreed to trillions of dollars of cuts set by the so-called ryan republican budget. even though this draconian budget will endanger basic government operations, it will disinvest in our children's future and it will trigger even more federal employee furloughs and possible riffs. rather, this shutdown is about a measure that strengthens insurance coverage for the roughly 260 million americans who have insurance. it will also eliminate

pre-existing conditions and lifetime limits and makes health insurance available and affordable to roughly 40 million uninsured americans through state exchanges where insurance companies compete to provide coverage and through expansion of the medicaid program. the affordable care act is the law of the land. it has been affirmed as constitutional by the republican dominated supreme court. and by a five million vote majority of the american people with the defeat of the presidential candidate who promised to repeal it less than a year ago. regardless of where one may stand on the issue of the affordable care act, a.k.a. obamacare, our democratic process for enacting laws and setting policy should not be held hostage to the threat of a government shutdown. it sets a terrible precedent for the future.

my republican colleagues continue to demand concessions with serious long-term consequences in exchange for funding a spending bill for just a relatively few more days, another 45 days or so, they want long-term concessions at their preferred inadequate spending levels. what unreasonable demands will be made when this latest c.r. expires in two months or one month? these attempts to overturn the democratic results of the last election by threat-making and hostage taking must end now. we should do our job. fund the government, and we should remove the looming threat to the global economy in the form of the expiration of the debt ceiling which will occur just in a couple of weeks. not content with the economic destruction and hardship brought by their government shutdown and their refusal to let the government play its

historic role, to stimulate a strong economic recovery, house republicans continue to threaten the full faith and credit of the united states. as president obama noted, in the tables were turned and you had a republican president and democratic speaker, as you did during the reagan administration, neither speaker o'neil nor the american people -- o'neill nor the american people would tolerate what's going on today. and in fact, that's the ituation that we have today, a broken congress, a situation where the american people's voices aren't heard or represented. it's time for us to heed the american people and let the majority of this congress -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. moran: let's stop the extremism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. moran: let's pass this continuing resolution clean along with the business of the government. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from north carolina, ms. foxx, for five

minutes. -- mr. thank you, in chairman. i know that the american people are watching what's happening in washington these days with a little more than a passing interest, and i'm sure they is er sometimes about where the truth, because they hear folks on one side of the aisle saying one thing and folks on the other side of the aisle saying another thing. en i talk to people at home, and i do my best to explain the situation in washington right now, i try to point out the fact that we have deep philosophical differences in this body and in the senate. parts of our two legislative branch of

government, the house and the senate, and the philosophical differences are pretty strong in both parties. they really stem from the beginning of the country, and our founders felt very strongly, the majority of them, that the federal government should be weak. we obviously had just come off of getting our independence from britain, and we wanted to not have a king and we wanted t to have a strong central government. i think the founders were right. and the founders, in the constitution, outlined the duties of our respected branches of government. they enumerated them. people talk about enumerated powers. and they made those powers very few for the federal government,

and they emphasized that with the 10th amendment and it said, if we didn't tell the federal government to do this in the constitution, then we don't want the federal government to do it. we leave those responsibilities to the states and to the individuals. you know, we've gotten along very well, we did get along very well following the constitution for a long time in this country. and then we came about in the 1930's with an era of great involvement by the federal government. in my opinion, in the opinion of many of my colleagues, overstepping its bounds by getting involved in things that are not mixed in the constitution. -- mentioned in the constitution. bring us forward to the 1960's, a period of great activism in this country, when many more programs were begun. in the opinion of many of us, again, had absolutely no place in the federal government.

we should not be doing things like running the education of this country out of the federal government or running health care out of the federal government. so what we have here is the result of these deep philosophical differences. 's what's to say that playing out here. and those that are opposed to the federal government running health care in this country do so not out of pettiness, not out of meanness, not out of lack of concern for our fellow citizens but because we want to diminish the role of the federal government in our lives. o we believe once you turn health care over to the federal government, you basically turned the lives of citizens over to the federal government, and that is not a good place to be. our colleagues on the other side of the aisle also act as though no act of congress has ever been

repealed. my goodness, we spend a good part of our days here repealing bad legislation that somehow or other got passed before. so what we are doing, what we have been doing for the last few days, is making every effort we can to repeal or delay what is called the affordable health care act, which we are finding out is absolutely not affordable. so that's what we have been doing. but we have been unsuccessful, so we are trying to keep the government opened. we have passed bill after bill after bill out of the house to keep the federal government opened. we have failed in doing that in a large way so we are working at doing it in minor ways by passing individual bills. and that's what we are here to do today. i just came out of the rules committee. we have these bills on the floor yesterday, three of the five, that we are going to vote on

today, and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted against paying our guard, paying the national guard. even though the president sort of quietly saturday night signed a bill to continue to pay our troops. that was a bill the president said he would never sign. he wouldn't compromise. he wouldn't negotiate. and yet he did that. now we want to keep our national parks opened. we want to pay our national guard and reserve people. we want to provide local funding for the district of columbia. and we want to keep our promises to america's veterans. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new york, mr. jefferies, for five minutes. mr. speaker, i

rise in this institution after spending six years in the new york state legislature. it was a very meaningful experience for me, notwithstanding the fact that the legislature in new york is sometimes derided as one of the more dysfunctional bodies in the country. but after witnessing the last few days here in the house of representatives, it's clear to me that there is no more dysfunctional place in this country than the house of representatives under the current majority control. this is a manufactured crisis that has unnecessarily plunged us into a painful government shutdown. a shutdown that will harm the american people. the house majority has placed

children in jeopardy, tens of thousands shut out of the head start program. the house majority has placed seniors in jeopardy, unable to benefit from the meals on wheels program, partially funded by the federal government. the house majority with its government shutdown has placed expectant mothers in jeopardy. individuals unable to get the nutritional assistance that might otherwise be available. you placed veterans in jeopardy, mr. speaker. the house majority has placed families in jeopardy. more than 800,000 hardworking civil servants cast out on to the streets. unable with uncertainty to determine when they may be able to pay their bills. the house majority with this government shut down has placed

the economy of the american people in jeopardy, enough is enough. i'm trying to figure out who actually is in charge. mr. speaker, are you in control of your conference on the other side of the aisle? is it the tea party that is in control of the house of representatives agenda? is it outside agitators? the junior senator from texas who barks out orders on the other side of the aisle. and then they are executed in lockstep by the extremists here in the house of representatives? mr. speaker, who is in charge? who's responsible on your side of the aisle for marching us down this dangerous path? i have abouts will struggling to try to figure out why are you so angry about the affordable care

act? what is it that you're so upset -- are you angry about the fact that tens of millions of previously uninsured americans will have access to health care? are you upset about the fact that the law will prevent scramings -- discrimination against individuals, including children with pre-existing conditions? are you angry about the fact that the medicare part d doughnut hole will be closed and seniors all across america will have access to moreau bust prescription drug coverage? -- more robust prescription drug coverage? are you angry about the fact that young people in a difficult economy can stay on their parents' health insurance plan until the age of 26? what exactly are you -- are you angry about the fact that small businesses will have access to tax credits, as much as 35%, in order to insure their employees

in a manner that will help these small businesses grow and prosper? enough already. the affordable care act is the law of the land. it was passed by a duly elected congress in 2010 with the great leadership of nancy pelosi and arry reid. you have lost legislatively, mr. speaker. the affordable care act was determined to be constitutional by the supreme court of the united states of america in an opinion written by chief justice john roberts, an individual nominated by george w. bush. you have lost legally. and then the president of the united states of america was re-elected last november in an electoral college landslide, you lost politically, mr. speaker. enough already.

why are we in this situation? i would simply ask that we pass a clean c.r. and get back to doing the business of the american people. the speaker pro tempore: the chair now recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. pittenger, for five minutes. mr. pittenger: thank you. mr. speaker, we were elected to be representatives. to represent our districts. to represent our constituents. to listen and to respond. mr. speaker, i have been listening. i have been listening to phone calls. i have been reading emails. i have been hearing what my constituents have to say. i can tell you, mr. speaker, they are deeply concerned. they are concerned with the direction of our country.

yes, they are concerned with a body that can't seem to come together. that can't seem to listen to each other. one of them wrote me just today said, i have watched with great interest the ongoing debate between the house and the senate regarding the federal health care law. quite frankly, i was of the opinion that an absolute stand by the house of representatives to defund obamacare was an inappropriate step as compared to less drastic measures. however, in the mail today i received a 92% proposed increase from blue cross blue shield for our current plan for 2014. the explanation of the increase all boiled down to the changes in the insurance markets required as a result of the full implementation of obamacare. you can easily understand why we are astounded that this is the best health care direction that our country can embark upon.

i encourage you to take whatever opportunities come your way to stop this disaster that is looming. e financial impact on people where not a drain on the government will be immense. here's another one, mr. speaker. i just received a letter from blue cross blue shield informing me that my current coverage has been outlawed by obamacare and the premium for my family will increase by 400%. if i switch to a legal coverage option, this increase is over $9,000 a year. i don't care if you have to risk shutting down the government or defaulting on the debt. it's just postponing the inevitable default of obamacare is allowed to exist. mr. speaker, we are not here because we want to shut down the government. we have made every effort possible. we have gone to great lengths the extra mile to the other side to present to them alternatives,

to present to them ways that we could come together and agree. we had three proposals there on the table. now we have offered to go and sit down and talk. that's what our body does when we come to disagreements between the house and senate we are formal agleement, and we meet, we confer, we bring in negotiators, we talk, we try to reason this out. we do this in our families, don't we? that's what's done in this body on a normal course of business. however, mr. speaker, in our efforts of trying to bring resolution and sound reasoning to this process, we can't get a response. they said, no, we don't want to talk to you. we don't want to reason. we don't want to hear what your constituents are saying. we don't want to hear the problems. we just want to ram this through. where is that in a

representative government? where is that in being responsive to the american people? mr. speaker, if we really want good policy, then i have to believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle truly want good policy, then we need to take politics out of this. we need to take self-service out of this. we need to come together like adults and sit down and talk this through and come up with a reasonable solution that would bring the best outcome for the american people. that's what our hope is. we invite still today the leadership of the senate to come and to sit down in a conference with us to negotiate with us, to lay out their concerns and their thoughts. let's be adults. let's do the right thing for the american people. thank you. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from alabama, miss

sewell, for five minutes. mr. speaker, i take to the floor with a heavy heart. a heavy heart that is disappointed, frustrated, and frankly outraged by our government shutdown. once again we have let partisan politics, we put it ahead of the needs of the american people. and as i stand before you this morning, millions of americans are already suffering the consequences at the hands of a dysfunctional congress. the legislative process that has resulted in this shutdown reflects a negligent -- neglect of the responsibilities that we were sent here to meet. the house majority had a chance to avert the government shutdown, but chose political brinksmanship over responsible

compromise. in order to avoid the shutdown, earlier this week the senate sent the house a bill, a compromise spending bill, which accepted the republicans he' lower funding levels. instead of allowing a clean funding bill to come to this floor, the house majority once again attached unreasonable amendments which has no hope of gaining bipartisan support. now house republicans want to partially open the federal government. cherry picking winners and losers. this is no way to run a government. think about it. if we and all of the small businesses and big businesses out there would run their institutions the way we run this congress, our economy would be in shambles. now, i hate to play the blame game, mr. speaker. but this government shutdown is solely the responsibility and

the creation of house republicans. we have tried to compromise, but republicans time and time again ave put on the floor redebating, using america's tax paying money to redebate again and again the affordable care act. now, people say that house democrats in the senate and the president should compromise on this. you cannot compromise when the other side is not willing to accept that the affordable care act is the law of the land. it has been debated, it has been voted on, it has been found to be constitutional. let's get on with the american people's business. now, i think if we all ran our

households and our businesses the way this congress is now put, ning, well, simply it's unacceptable. we know better. we know that it's irresponsible and reckless to make the american people pay when we don't get their way, when we don't get our way. we were sent to congress to represent something bigger than ourselves. we were sent to represent the american people, all of the people, all americans, not just the privileged few. we represent every military family and every veteran, from the homeless veteran in birmingham, alabama, to those serving overseas right now. we represent every child in this great country of ours, from the child who will eat free lunch today because of the snap program to the child here in d.c. who is enrolled in the head start program. all americans.

we were elected to be representatives. we need to start earning the title of being a representative by representing all of the people. it's unacceptable that we are the rest mber while of government is shut down. it's unacceptable. i urge, mr. speaker, that you bring to this house floor a lean funding bill, unencumbered by unreasonable amendments, bring a clean funding bill to the floor and i guarantee you that both republicans and democrats would pass that bill and we would open back up the federal government. it's important that we put our partisan politics aside and truly start representing the american people that sent us here. let's be representatives of all the people. thank you, mr. speaker.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from tennessee, mrs. blackburn, for five minutes. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the opportunity to address my colleagues today, and indeed to being in the middle of a government shutdown is something we did not want and we do, my colleagues and i, continue on our side of the aisle, continue to invite the senate colleagues and their conferees to sit at the table while the senate negotiates. we want to make certain that we work out the issues of our nation's fiscal health. you know, we have to remember currently we're borrowing $2 billion, $3 billion a day to keep the doors open. this is something we cannot do. it is not fair. it is not fair to future generations. it is not fair to our children and grandchildren. it is not fair to the small business people who have dreams of being a business, watching

that business grow, watching those dreams come true. it is not fair to the future of our families. so to our senate colleagues, we ask them to join us and to negotiate these issues. that's a lot that's been said about obamacare. some say it doesn't have anything to do with the budget, but you know what, mr. chairman, it has everything to do with the budget. because of the amount of growth that is taking place in this program. i think we all remember that originally obamacare was to be a health insurance access program. let's give a pathway for uninsured americans to have access to health insurance. a laudable goal. something there was agreement on. but where it ran off the rails, if you will, was in the projections of the costs far exceeding what anybody thought it would be, when it began to

make cuts, $600 billion worth of cuts, $600 billion worth of cuts in medicare, taking money out of medicare, money that the federal government is taking out of wage earners' paychecks and putting it over into the pot that says obamacare and using that money to redistrict, to stand up the obamacare program. there's a problem with that. there's a problem when there are mandates that are made on our hospitals, on our physicians that are paying them less. here's a problem when there is $819.3 billion new taxes, specifically embedded in the bamacare legislation, the law, $819.3 billion of new taxes that are going to come out of the paychecks of workers and be

ut into the obamacare pot to implement that law. now, the impact is dramatic. even though the president has given 1200 waivers and special favors, even though he's chosen to make 19 delays of the program for people in entities that have gone to him and said, hey, we would like a delay or we would like a waiver, the list goes on and on and on. it is individuals like my constituents who are dealing with the full impact of this. here are a couple of the emails that i have received. marsha, please stop obamacare from happening. this a small business owner in one of my cities. it was great for me to have insurance through the cover 10 program for small businesses. it's affordable.

there's no way i can afford obamacare. my insurance cost is going up five times more than what i pay now. we cannot afford this program. a small business owner who went to a check cashing facility, got $400, started a business, now has five locations, 45 employees, wants to grow this usiness and cannot because 40-hour workweek, 50 employees, t would cause him to have to shutter the doors of his five locations and do something different for his 45 employees. that is the impact that this law is having on a regular daily basis. another constituent with a child with type 1 diabetes.

they have utilized their employer's reimbursement account. $5,000 that was there. now it's going to be limited to $2,500. they are looking at how unaffordable affordable care act is going to be for them. the list goes on and on. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. mrs. blackburn: i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis, for 3 1/2 minutes. mr. davis: thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. speaker, my colleague, dr. bill cassidy, republican from louisiana, and i introduced a the tisan bill, h.r. 2734, garrett lee smith memorial re-authorization act, on july 19 of this year. this legislation would re-authorize the garrett lee smith memorial act to help state and local governments and

universities to continue to provide and develop suicide prevention programs. this current bill is budget neutral and would revise and extend provisions of the original act signed into law by president george w. bush in 2004. it is named for former senator smith, republican of oregon's 22-year-old son, garrett, whose life was ended in september, three. every year over 38,000 americans die by suicide, and many more treated for self-inflicted injuries that result from suicide attempts. as you may know, suicide still remains the second leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24 and results 4,800 lives lost each year,

according to the centers of disease control and prevention. also, this same agency reported in grades nine through 12 in public and private schools in the united states found that 15% of students reported seriously considering suicide. 11% reported creating a plan, and 7% reported trying to take their own life. according to the 2010 american college health associations national college health assessment noted that 45.6% of the students surveyed reported feeling that things were hopeless, and 30% reported feeling depressed. the garrett lee smith memorial act re-authorization grant program has assisted 35 tribes, 45 states and 85 institutions of higher education to develop

suicide prevention and intervention programs which are often the first line of defense for those with this troubling disease of mental illness concerns, who are distraught and aren't certain about what to do. again, h.r. 2734 is budget neutral, and i come to the floor to ask all of my colleagues to co-sponsor the garrett lee smith memorial act. we can disagree on some things, but i don't think we need to disagree on this. please sign up as a co-sponsor, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from indiana, mr. stutzman, for five minutes. mr. stutzman: thank you, mr. chairman. and i come to the floor today, mr. chairman, to share what i lieve is a lack of

cooperation in washington, d.c. mr. chairman, i come from indiana as a farmer who served n the indiana legislature at times where we had divided government. and my believe is the only way you can solve a problem between when you have -- when you have issues is to -- is to talk. when you have one party who's at the table and is willing to discuss the problems that we face and you have another party who refuses to come to the table, we're not going to get anything done. the gentleman from new york was a little bit ago, who in charge in the republican conference? is the speaker of the house or the tea party faction? well, i tell you who i believe is in charge and that is our speaker with the authority from

the american people who elected each of us to come to washington to represent them and to fight for them and to fight against an overaggressive federal government, $17 trillion of debt and to fight a health care law that only intrudes more and more onto american lives. and as i think about history and the fact that we have been here before, we have been in a government shutdown before, and under those circumstances we had president ronald reagan and who was a republican and we had speaker of the house tip o'neill. well, speaker of the house tip o'neill shut down government seven different times, seven different times during president reagan's time in office, but president reagan

didn't just sit at the white house and refuse to talk. he didn't go out traveling around the country pointing the finger back at congress. he invited tip o'neill down to the white house and sat down over a cup of coffee and talked the problems out. that's what leadership does. leadership brings people to the table and finds a way to get the problems resolved. you know, we here in the western hemisphere, we work, whether it's in business, whether it's in our pamly budgets, whether it's in our family problems, we try to find a way that both sides can win because that's how we're going to walk away from the table feeling like we were successful and that we didn't break the principles that we believe in, that we're going to find a way to work together and it's going

to be a win-win for both parties. but right now we're seeing that it's going to be a win-lose situation where president obama and senator harry reid are going to say we're going to win and republicans are going to lose, because we have sent over four different compromises, four different proposals to the senate, and what does the senate do with them? they table them. they put them on the table and say we're not even going to negotiate. we're not even going to talk. . is that what tip o'neill did? is that what president ronald reagan did? even after seven times the government was shut down because what were they fighting over? speaker tip o'neill was actually fighting for the fairness doctrine. it wasn't over bigger government spending or more government spending or $17 trillion of debt or a massive, much larger health

care program. it was over an ideology. so if we can't even come to the table and talk about the problems that we face today, washington is going to continue to be broken for a long time. i hear the frustrations from my colleagues about the furloughs, and i sympathize with that because i have constituents in the third district in indiana who are going to be furloughed, who are furloughed, but at the same time the miles per hour people have been -- there have been many americans who have been furloughed without pay who don't have work because of the uncertainty that obamacare has had on this economy. and i believe that it's time that we stand up for the american people rather than for the american federal government and start looking out for the people in this country and saying, we are with you. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair now recognizes the distinguished gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. marino, for 3 1/2 minutes. mr. marino: i'm certainly not going to be 3 1/2 minutes at this point and i had some notes, but that's what i usually do when i get up with notes, go away and speak from the heart. i have been watching this and it's very frustrating. first let me say there is no one who should go without health insurance. i have a daughter who has a disease for which there is no cure. none whatsoever. she will be lucky to live to her late 20's. so it's critically important that there be a method by which we can get some help to pay for treatment not only for her but for every child out there and every human being. aside from that, i go to the gym every morning about 6:00 and i

work out with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and on my side of the aisle. the camaraderie is extraordinary . we joke with each other. we help each other in the weight room. we spot each other. we talk about our families. we even talk about politics. but it's civil. and i would really like to see the whole floor see how we operate and the american people, to see how we communicate with one another in that gym in the morning. i'm asking that every person be civil. we have been called, republicans have been called, nazis, terrorists, people that don't want to take care of children and seniors. that's wrong. we have ideals. we can have a belief. but we need to be civil about it , and we need to give an example and show an example to the american people that we are adults, that we can have different views and that's what

a democracy is about. we don't have to make it personal. we don't have to gran dies it to get a -- grandize it to get attention to call names. i'm saying to my colleagues, i'm reaching across. i have not done that, i will not do it, i will criticize my colleagues if they do it, but let's use this moment to show to the american people that we can have a dialogue, we can have arguments, but to keep it civil because when the dust is settled, america is going to be better for it and congress is going to be much better for it. i yield back. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house s in

piecemeal beginning with national parks and museums, veterans' programs, the d.c. government, national institutes of health and the national guard. these bills will be brought up this afternoon on the house floor. they are going to be returning for their legislative session in about 10 minutes here and they'll begin debating the rule for these bills and they'll begin voting around 1:30 p.m. eastern time, starting with the rule and then continuing on with those pieces of legislation. by the way, the white house has threatened to veto them if they re to make them their way to the president's desk. and president has invited leadership in both the house and senate to meet with him this afternoon around 5:30 p.m. eastern time and according to speaker boehner's office, he's

accepted the invitation. the president has also invited minority leader nancy pelosi nd over on the senate side invited senate minority leader harry reid and mitch mcconnell. get your take on day two of the government shutdown, what are your thoughts, have you seen the impact where you live? phone numbers are on your creen. chat.tter, go to #cspan democrat, you're up first here. what's your take on the government shutdown? caller: i believe it's ridiculous that the republicans are doing this. i think they're doing this for political gain. it's wrong. it threatens the american

people because they're basically seeing, you know, defund obamacare and then, you know, we'll fund the government. and that's just wrong because they voted for it. they voted for this piece of legislation. i think it's a great piece of legislation. i think over a period of time the going to save the american people money, taxpayers money. it's going to save on lower costs of health care and a lot of other things. and it's just -- need to wake up, i think republicans for the last 10, 12 years in this country have been messing this country up. in the bush administration, whether it was the war in iraq, afghanistan, that's where the majority of our debt comes from, and now here we are, obama comes in and he puts things on the table to -- that's tried to correct things like health care is one of them. he did a great job. yet, they won't let him implement it. they're trying to fight him all the way tooth and nail. i don't know how we'll do with this $17 trillion debt because

bush ran this up so high. >> let me get you to respond to a tweet here from one of our viewers who says this -- caller: well, we're refusing e proposal because basically telling us to get rid of a piece of legislation or defund a legislation that they already put in orwell' shut the government down. i think that's an unreasonable proposal. why can't they just come to the table and vote to fund the government for the next two months or whatever the proposal is exactly and then we can sit down at the table and talk and work out the kinks in obamacare? obama has already made that known to congress and the senate. he's already told them, listen, throughout time we can sit down at the table, we can talk about

, you know, the bad things that are in the bill, in the affordable care act, and then we can correct them over a period of time and, you know, the things that are messed up mountain bill haven't went into effect yet. it's like we'll correct them when they come into effect. >> all right. that was independent. democrat, david, niagara falls. go ahead, david. caller: we're dealing with a continuing resolution that was passed 18 times for president reagan. and 14 times for president bush with no problems. it has nothing to do with x.l. pipeline or delaying or defunding obamacare. the united states people are getting sick and tired of republicans' games and there's going to be a point shortly if they don't do something and stop this insanity, people are going to get their guns out of their closets and go on the

streets. is that what they want? is that what the republicans want? they haven't done one thing to help obama since he's been in there, five years. the black man sleeping in the white house is driving people crazy. >> the offer to the other side, as we told you, five pieces of legislation that would fund, as they say, critical parts of the federal government. that includes national parks and museums, funding to the d.c. government, the national guard and reserve, the research or life-saving cures at n.i.h. and veterans' programs as well. but the president has vetoed that. in the veto threat the administration said, instead of opening up a few government functions, the house of representatives should reopen all of the government. and that is the message that the president is expected to bring to the leadership when they meet with him at the white house this afternoon. "the washington post" -- "the washington post" has a count

going on the idea of what is known as a clean continuing resolution. that is fund the federal government without tying it to the affordable care act. and this from the fix's website, from "the washington post," the number on the republican side in the house is approaching 17 that are in favor of supporting a clean c.r. out of the house provided, of course, that all 200 democrats vote for it and house speaker john boehner were to allow a vote on it. and let me just show you, here are the 14 house republicans that are supporting a clean continuing resolution. it includes rob wittman, scott rigell, frank wolf, other veterans. and then there are three -- that brings it to 17. then "the washington post" notes 216 were not sure in those house republicans would break with the party to support a clean continuing resolution.

robert, republican caller, what do you think? caller: i think they ought to the or that one way or other. let them have a chance of whoever wants to vote for it, vote for it. whoever wants to vote against it, vote against it. and get on with business. i did not want president obama to be in office. i voted against him because i didn't like some of the stuff that he had going for him. but he is our president now regardless of which party he is with. and the obamacare is law. it has been passed. it's law. and the house of presentatives should not try to defund that. it's law. they should -- they are supposed to honor the laws and

work with every law that's on the books. and i am probably i won't even vote for republicans the next time. i've been on the republican ticket, but if they don't stop this, it's their fault that it's like this, because they're trying to stop obamacare. i don't know whether it's going to hurt us. i don't care whether it's going to hurt us in one sense of the word. in the other sense of the word i do care, but it's law, and we have to abide by our laws, whether they are democrats, whether they are republicans or whoever got the laws in, we have to abide by those laws. i am a law-abiding person. >> ok. caller: and whenever -- if they wish to vote for this, if it passed, let it pass. if it don't, then they can continue on what they're doing.

then give it a chance. >> have you seen the impact of a government shutdown where you live? >> i haven't seen -- caller: i haven't seen anything yet. i am a retired person. i retired last year and i go to the center over here and i'm pretty sure that meals on wheels that we get every day will be stopped. it really hasn't had time to really show an effect on anybody yet. >> ok. here in washington, if you were here you would see the impact of a government shutdown in certain areas like the world war ii memorial on your screen. instead of seeing landmarks, you'll see barricades. they put them up along with yellow tape, not allowing folks to get close to the memorial, such as the world war ii memorial and the lincoln memorial on the mall. national museums closed, zoo.

and employees not going to work. the back and forth continues up in congress. and the latest offer by congress is to open up the national museums as well as the zoo and fund the guard and reserves and veterans' programs. they will take that vote -- those pieces of legislation up here momentarily when the house comes back into session, and we will, of course, have our coverage here on c-span. here they are, live coverage of the house. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] ouse in order. the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. you have promised, o god, that you are with us wherever we are, in whatever we are doing, to heal and to help, to give strength and make us whole.

pray that we all, and the members of the assembly especially, will be receptive to your promises and receive them with confidence and conviction, that armed by your spirit, they will be able to forge good solutions to the current impasse which promote justice, equity and truth. pardon us as we have missed the mark to this point and yet we pray that we will be faithful messengers of your word and steadfast stewards of all your gifts. may all that is done today be for your greater honor and glory, amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island rise? >> mr. speaker, i demand a vote on the speaker's approval of

the journal. the speaker: the question is on the speaker's approval of the journal. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. the journal stands approve fed. mr. cicilline: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will please rise. a sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this uestion are postponed. the pledge of allegiance today will be led by the gentleman from arkansas, mr. womack. mr. womack: please join me. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: the chair will entertain up to 15 requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i ask

unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker: without objection. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, president john f. kennedy once said, quote, let us never negotiate out of fear but let us never fear to negotiate, end of quote. house republicans are willing to negotiate. house republicans have been proactive in preventing a shutdown in passing four pieces of legislation that keep the government functioning. unfortunately, the president and senate democrats have slammed the door and have refused to come to the table and negotiate until just announced tonight. his -- this sentiment is shared outside of washington. yesterday, i received a letter from a constituent saying, quote, refusing to come to the table, obama and reid are counting on the media lap dogs to blame republicans. i understand that. washington is putting incredible pressure on the house to cave, but the american people feel differently, end of quote. we are now on day two of a government shutdown.

it's past time for washington democrats to join house republicans to work together to find a solution. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from texas seek recognition? without objection, the gentlelady from texas is recognized. ms. johnson: thank you very much, mr. speaker. the republicans have forced government to shut down, and it's a disservice to the hardworking professionals in the federal government and to the american people. our federal agents have a long history of working hard on research and education programs that return huge payoffs to the american people, both in economic growth and societal benefits. unfortunately, 97% of nasa employees are being furloughed, and all public nasa events and activities will be ended.

the national science foundation will make no payments for the duration of this shutdown. the department of energy will furlough nearly 7% of their employees, jeopardizing research done all over our national laboratories. most research activities at the national institute of standard and technology, and the national oceanic and atmospheric administration will be suspended. weather research, united states geological surveys will also shut down. as ranking member of the committee on science, space and technology, i want to highlight that our competitors in our countries surge ahead in their r&d as we shut ours down. we are closing the door to our future. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? >> ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from georgia is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i think the american people have got to be wondering, from maybe seeing some of the news reports today or yesterday why

we are closing some of these open air attractions to the american people that are coming to washington. mr. westmoreland: the world war ii memorial is opened every day, all day long, 24/7, 365. now it's got barriers up, and because members of our side of the aisle went down there yesterday and allowed some of the same people that landed on the beach of normandy to go in and see their memorial, today they were back putting up wire against those barriers. if you go down rock creek parkway where many people in d.c. come to exercise, ride their bikes, walk their dogs, every mile or so there's six or seven parking spots where people can park their car, get out, exercise, walk, they got barricades in front of them. are we nuts? they got barricades where people can't even park to go

ride. this is amazing, and i hope that whoever has given these orders will come forward and give the american people reasons why they cannot enjoy things open. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlelady from the virgin islands seek recognition? mrs. christensen: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from the virgin islands is recognized. mrs. christensen: lawmakers should uphold the laws of our land and the affordable care our s an important law for entire country. traveling yesterday it was hard to see the t.s.a., folks working as usual not knowing if and when they will be paid. my employees, like all congressional employees, are under the same cloud and the stress that comes with it. complaints began early about our virgin islands' park closures. this affects all of our small businesses from wedding planners to shop and concession

owners to tex drivers. the en-- taxi drivers. area. ire st. john the largest private employer, reduce government revenues, this shutdown if it continues final er, can nail the nail in our economic coffin. the president and democrats are willing to negotiate, but we and the american people say not like this. no piece -- no fake piecemeal fixes. we must have clean c.r. now and get our entire government back to work. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. mcclintock: mr. speaker, the center of our government is a bicameral legislative branch, two separate houses specifically designed to have a

different perspective on issues. those two houses are supposed to disagree, and yet ultimately they have to pass the same legislation to the president to get anything done. well, how does that happen? it is because once the house and the senate individually exercise their best judgment, they are supposed to meet to then resolve any differences. that is the only possible way that our bicameral system can function. without this mechanism, it's doomed to gridlock, and yet the current leader of the senate and those in his thrall have refused to do precisely that, to sit down and resolve the differences between the two houses through negotiation and compromise. their refusal to do so is at the heart of this impasse that's now shut down the government. it's time for harry reid to meet his constitutional responsibility or for the senate to find somebody who will. yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the

gentlelady from arizona seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from arizona is recognized. ms. sinema: mr. speaker, a government shutdown is an abandonment of congress' duty and it's irresponsible. we must focus solely on creating a commonsense solution that ends this shutdown. i believe members of congress need to talk to and listen to one another, even when we don't agree. i listen to my republican colleagues, and while i don't agree with them all the time, i'm open to hearing their ideas because this congress deserves the congress that finds commonsense solutions. i voted over the past week to keep the process moving forward, but the process and washington are clearly broken. nine months of cynical posturing has led to the shutdown which is hurting hardworking arizonans in my district. mr. speaker, there is no more time for games or gimmicks. we have to find a reasonable bipartisan solution. we cannot end this shutdown without house democrats and

republicans voting together. let's get to work now. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from idaho seek recognition? does the gentleman seek unanimous consent? the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> we keep hearing about how republicans are terrorists. mr. labrador: republicans have guns to everybody's head. it's sad to hear the other side talk about these things. at this point in ronald reagan's second term, for example, the government had already shut down the government six times. according to "the washington post" and according to many other different -- many other articles. and this happened under the leadership of the democratic leader, tip o'neill. precisely the opposite of what the political dynamic that exists today, former o'neill staffer and msnbc pundit, chris matthews, wrote an entire book, extolling the era when it was a time when politics actually

worked. you can probably guess how he feels today about this. but the problem is that during tip o'neill's clear, there were seven different shutdowns with the democrats. the final shutdown of o'neill's career, according to one from the national review, happened in october of 1986. house democrats had picked the fights with reagan on a number of issues, including labor, energy and welfare policy. today, democrats insist that this has never happened in history, and the reality is that history is much different. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlelady from illinois seek recognition? wowed, the gentlelady from illinois is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, it has been two days since an extreme view in congress allowed a government shutdown. ms. kelly: it's shameful that someone will allow ideological tantrums take the place of

civility and a real legislative agenda. this partisan paralysis has put us on the pace to be the least productive congress in history. we voted nearly 50 times to repeal the affordable care act even though it's been upheld by the highest court and reaffirmed by the re-election of our president. yes, i said the re-election of our president. some of my colleagues still seem to be having a hard time with the fact that he won. it's time to get over it and move on, because the most important issue for americans is the economy, and this congress hasn't even come close to passing a jobs bill. the individuals holding americans hostages with their political games claim they are doing so to have their voices heard. my constituents' voices are loud and clear, get back to the business of rebuilding our economy, restoring the american dream and rehabilitating our reputation with the american people. let's act now and end this shutdown today.

i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from oklahoma seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized for one minute. mr. lankford: you know, i hear from folks all the time, we need to have a reasonable proposal to be able to end this. how about this for a reasonable proposal? there are a lot of people concerned about the penalties and the effects that are coming down on them in the next year. people have reasonable questions about how this is going to happen. am i going to sign up right? am i going to have problems? let's take for the first year, just take the penalties away from penalties that if you make a mistake on filing your obamacare or if you have real problems with it, for the first year you won't have toy pay those penalties, just for the first year. also, here's something else reasonable. how about members of congress and the white house have to live under the same rules that every american does dealing with obamacare? is that a reasonable proposal? well, that happens to be the proposal that we have on the table right now. that if someone makes a mistake on their filing of obamacare or they don't want to do it this first year, they won't face

penalties the first year. all of members of congress and the white house will have to be in exchanges just like everyone out there is required. we think that's a reasonable proposal. from my colleagues that support obamacare, i'm amazed they're fighting like crazy to not be in it. at this point, we should meet face to face. i was pleased to see the president say he wants to meet. was disappointed to see he won't negotiate. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from new york is ecognized. >> instead of waging a war on cancer, the ta party is waging a war on cancer patients. mr. higgins: the shutdown will deny 300 patients a week, po of them kids, treatment at the largest research hospital in the world, the national institutes of health. these are often last chance

cancer treatments that offer the only hope for kids who are stuck with cancer. why did the tea party shut down the government because they oppose the affordable care act? s that law that says neaver -- says that never again can an insurance company deny coverage far family with a kid stubbling with cancer. under the affordable care act no family will go bankrupt because of cancer. this is the bill the tea party is furious about. they have decimated cancer research. n.i.h. used to fund 33% of promising research, now it's 16%. stopping cancer research at roswell park and across the country. i hear we may take another fake vote tonight to restore funding to the national institutes of health. this is disgusting. the bill will continue the sequester assault on cancer research. i remind my colleagues that are

for families and kids fighting cancer, the only fail you are in cancer research is when you quit, you are forced to quit because of a tea party federal government -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. >> mr. speaker, 10 months ago i came to washington, d.c. as the w employee of 705,000 people in pennsylvania. i heard about inside deals in washington, i saw some of the them when the president created breaks for certain businesses. mr. rothfus: western pennsylvanians are rightly frustrated with washington, d.c. and it seems harry reid and the senate are intent on

keeping the government shutdown so they can continue the special breaks they have for thems and their friends and allies. i'm here to deliver a message from my constituents to the senate -- no special deals. if big business and president obama's friends get a break from the health care law, so should those around the nation. it's time for the senate to embrace fairness for all, it's time to reopen the government. i thank the speaker and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from connecticut seek recognition? does the gentleman seek unanimous consent? >> i do. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. >> yesterday was opening day for the affordable care act and despite his terical predictions from the other side, you would have thought the four horsemen of the apocalypse would be riding through the streets, the headlines were more people than

expected enrolled in health insurance. one of them is a lady who said she's been without coverage for a year and a half due to a layoff. she's been holding her breath and thanking god she doesn't get sick or get in a car accident. mr. courtney: she was mape to learn she qualified for insurance. another person said she has gone to bed with a prayer on her lip for god to keep her healthy. she said now she feels empowered. these are the fargets -- targets of the shutdown effort. it's not president obama or members of congress, it's people like elie benos and mrs. ivy we need to protect by keeping this government open and allowing people to get access to health care for the first time in american history. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one

minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from indiana is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. president obama is willing to negotiate with syria's dictator. the president made a phone call last week to open negotiations with iran's new leader. but yesterday, the president held a press conference in the rose garden to talk about why he's not willing to talk to house republicans about ending this shutdown. the president should follow president kennedy's example. president kennedy famously said, we should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate. mr. messer: if we talk, we can surely find a solution that reopens the federal government and protects the american people from obamacare. but we need the president and our democratic colleagues at the negotiating table. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from massachusetts seek recognition?

>> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for e minute ms. tsongas: four times now house leaders demanded we dismantal democratically enacted and supreme court upheld law as their ransom. but not once have they allowed us to vote on the senate's bill. this recklessness. -- this recklessness has real consequences. military installations in my home state of massachusetts have already weathered furloughs. now they and their families are being punished yet again. the path forward is clear. vote on the senate-passed c.r. and send it to the president today. put the government back to work. negotiate on a long-term budget. and work together to fine tune the affordable care act who

with yesterday's opening of the exchanges we saw the tremendous need and response. i urge the speaker to do the responsible thing. bring us a vote on a clean funding bill. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from missouri seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. this morning, moments ago, i joined veterans from all over missouri's show me state at the sacred grounds of our nation's world war ii memorial tavepls memorial to the -- it's a monument to the spirit and sacrifice of our veterans. yet harry reid and president decided to slam the door on our national heroes and keeping our national treasures open. time and time again the house has voted to keep the government open and provide fairness for all americans. fairness from an administration who believes they can pick and

choose which laws to enforce while subjecting the american people to the heavy burden of obamacare. fairness from a president who think os ba macare doesn't apply to members of congress or the white house. and as a result, a partisan big -- and as a result of partisan bicker and gridlock, i have waived my salary for the duration of this shutdown. those who make the laws should live by the laws and i'll continue to fight for the people of missouri's second district. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from ohio seek recognition? without objection, the gentlelady from ohio is recognized. ms. bay ty: so often we hear our colleagues saying we come here to protect and represent the american people. the american people have -- ms. beity: so often we hear our colleague saysing we come here to protect and represent the american people. but the american people have

spoken. i say to you we cannot let you have a few of your republican members hold the government hostage because they dislike this president or they dislike the affordable care act. we cannot piecemeal this funding cycle because fairness s not letting children starve. 11 states will be not able to have grants for head start. the n.i.h. has announced that they are not going to be able to have clinical trials for hundreds of patients and 30 of them cancer, children, cancer patients. fairness is not starving small businesses. fairness is not piecemealing it. it's like asking a large family for the parents to pick three children to feed and let the others starve before their eyes. we are starving america, we are starving government, and i say to my republican colleagues, fairness is not shutting down the government.

thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> mr. speaker the 25th district of texas is home to the texas state capitol, the comanche peak nuclear plant, the dairy farms and the largest military installation in the country, fort hood, texas. it's a shame that the level of discourse has come to this. mr. williams: that my office would be the victim of vandalism. house republicans have been called drunks, kidnappers, anarchists and the list gos on. i understand this shutdown has uncertainty but this behavior cannot be tolerate. we are the united states of america and it's time for the house and the senate to come together and fig figure out this problem we have for all

americans. the sooner the better. in god we trust. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rise? mr. cicilline: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. cicilline: we're in our 37th hour of the government shutdown. 00,000 federal employees have been furloughed from their jobs. 800,000 americans who don't know how they'll pay their bills because speaker boehner refuses to stand up to the extremists in his party. a real leader wouldn't jeopardize the jobs and livelihoods of 800,000 his own. to save that's what this is about. it's time to end this by bringing a clean funding bill to the floor which will pass with bipartisan support and demonstrate to the american people we can work together to get things done. it's time for the speaker to do what's right for our country,

to reopen government, to be the speaker of the united states house of representatives. not simply the speaker of the republican party. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, right now, we have wounded warriors, veterans needing medical care, wondering if they'll receive the care they're entitled to. these are men and women who suffered for our nation to keep us safe. it's a shame that last night we couldn't agree to fully fund operations for veterans affairs. mr. pitts: the house passed a full veterans appropriations bill in june with a vote of 421-4. that bill was never taken up in the senate. if we cannot have our conferees negotiate on a full bill to open back up the government, we will act to protect the most vulnerable. today, we will again consider this bill and i hope that the dozen moifs democratic colleagues who supported this

sensible measure last night will continue to stand with us. we have to make sure that we are serving those who served us on the field of battle. wounded warriors should not be used as pawns in this political bickering. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from california seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the entlelady from california is recognized. ms. woolsey: -- >> thank you, mr. speaker. instead of working on a bipartisan solution, the speaker made the reckless and irresponsible decision to shut down our government. this did not have to happen. there is bipartisan support in the house for the senate-passed legislation. let's come together and solve this crisis now. every moment we wait, it hurts small businesses trying to apply for startup loans, it

hurts our veterans applying for pension, disability, education, and job training benefits and it could send our very fragile economy back into a recession. ms. brownley: i came to congress to create jobs, to gre our economy and move my county, ventura county, and my country forward. the speaker must allow the house to simply vote on the responsible senate-passed plan to get the government working again for the american people. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from covel seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman from colorado is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, just better than a day ago this house acted in a bipartisan manner to be able to fund government. to make sure that members of congress have to abide by the

same laws that they pass. and to make sure that individuals, just like big businesses, are going to be treated fairly under the affordable care act. and fully fund government. mr. tipton: this passed with bipartisan support out of the house of representatives. the offer is there. government can open today. senator reid just needs to pick up the phone and answer the call to make sure that we're working together in that bipartisan fashion as we demonstrated in the house of representatives to work for the american people. government can open today. senator reid just needs to pick up the phone and listen to the voice of the house of representatives. let's make sure that the laws apply -- apply to congress that we pass and all americans are treated fairly. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my

remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. >> mr. speaker, so the tea party has successfully shut down the operations of the federal government and why have they done it? they've done it becauser in' worried. they're worried about the danger that the affordable care act is going to work and that people are going to like it. they're worried about the danger that people with pre-existing conditions are going to be covered. they're worried about the danger that women are going to qualify for preventative health care services. mr. cartwright: they're worried with the danger children living at home up to age of 26 will be covered under their parents' insurance policy. they're worried about the danger that seniors will save money on their prescription drugs, as the medicare part d doughnut hole closes. what they're worried about is that the affordable care act is

going to work and people are going to like it. mr. speaker, the tea party thinks these things are dangerous so they shut down the government. but with all respect, i say to you, it is the tea party. it is the tea party itself. they are the danger. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from north carolina is recognized. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. last night, i voted to stop shutdown policies that are delaying veteran benefit applications and shuttering national parks and remore yals. but those measures failed to pass because the president threatened to veto and more than 160 democrats voted to stop them. that dumbfounds me. days ago, the president signed similar legislation to protect pay for active duty military members throughout any shutdown. why not now? surprise.

republicans and democrats have policy differences. but we shouldn't differ here. correcting problems for veterans, military families, the national institute of health and visitors to national parks, including the world war ii memorial, and north carolina's blue ridge parkway, is common sense and provides common ground for democrats and republicans to make some progress towards solving this shutdown. the president and senate's refusal to work with us to reopen the government has consequences well beyond washington. if they won't contribute to a bipartisan solution to stop the pain, we'll continue to take the lead to fix problems for the american people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from minnesota seek recognition? ms. mccollum: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from minnesota is recognized. ms. mccollum: well, here we are. the day my republican colleagues have warned about

for years, the day after obamacare. so what happened? did the sky fall? did insurance markets crash? no. of course not. instead, health care marketplaces across the nation went live. millions of americans logged on to learn about affordable health care plans. they gathered information and make decisions about what plan best meets their health care needs. yes, some glitches need to be fixed and we knew that would happen and yesterday was not the end of the world, it was the first step. tea party 46 times they attempted to shut down the affordable care act. they stopped no one from being able to make good decisions on health care plans. so i urge my colleagues, common sense republicans and democrats can come together to stop this reckless g.o.p., the grand old party, from shutting down our government. let's pass a clean c.r., and

with that i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina eek recognition? mrs. ellmers: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from north carolina is recognized. mrs. ellmers: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i have the distinct honor and privilege to represent fort bragg in my district, and i found out yesterday evening that despite passing funding to keep our military paid and to keep our military civilians paid, there have been over 7,000 fort bragg civilian employees furloughed. now, i find this very interesting there again because the president signed this very bill into law monday, and here we have a situation where i have needless, needless suffering happening in my district. i'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit a letter from chairman buck mckeeon, chairman of the house armed -- buck mckeon, chairman of the house

rmed services committee, quote, the text is not limited to pay to civilians who were previously categorized as exceptional or essential for the department of defense operations in the event of a government shutdown. we passed h.r. 3210, the pay our military act, sponsored by my colleague, mike coffman from colorado. mr. speaker, i submit the rest of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from california seek recognition? without objection, the gentlelady from california is recognized. thank you. mrs. davis: thank you, mr. speaker. not only has they chosen to shut down functions that all americans depend on, but they unabashedly targeted women. some of my colleagues are willing to gamble with the livelihoods of millions of public servants simply to ensure that women do not have access to affordable

contraception and preventative health care. they are willing to sabotage our government to prevent prenatal checkups and cancer screenings. they would risk our economic recovery to make sure that women will pay more for health care than men. the government shutdown has already taken a toll on women and children by slashing funding for vital nutritional and clinical services. we cannot allow this shutdown to be used to strip away all of the gains the a.c.a. made for women's health. do they really want pregnancy to be a pre-existing condition again? and are they willing to shut the place down to stop women from being able to pay for health care? enough, mr. speaker. bring on a clean funding bill, open the government and let it pass for all our sake. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the

gentlelady from new york seek recognition? ms. velazquez: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. velazquez: thank you, mr. speaker. the republican majority has be a vow indicated their -- advocated their responsibility. make no mistake. a small fraction of our republican party is holding our economy hostage to get our way. just 36 hours into this shutdown and the american people are already feeling the consequences. hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country are being furloughed without pay. soon women relying on w.i.c. will begin losing benefits. our national parks are closed. important vital medical research and environmental work is being delayed. make no mistake, this could all end day if leadership will allow a simple up or down vote n the senate-passed c.r.

this will all be over. but this hasn't been about budgeting. this is about a single-minded obsession with repealing a law congress passed, the supreme court upheld and that was reaffirmed by the american people in the last presidential election. the fight is over. even with the government closed yesterday, health exchanges were open and uninsured americans began purchasing coverage. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlelady from new york seek recognition? without objection, the gentlelady from new york is recognized. mrs. maloney: mr. speaker, the path to ending this shutdown now is clear. bring up a clean senate-passed c.r. for a vote. that would end this manufactured self-inflicted crisis immediately. these piecemeal attempts from our colleagues on the other

side of the aisle is recht government. the senate-passed c.r. itself is a compromise. it accepts the annual spending level of $986 billion, roughly $70 billion less than what the senate endorsed in its budget plan earlier this year. again, this manufactured crisis could end right now by voting on a clean senate continuing resolution today. according to moody's, a shutdown that lasts even three or four days will cost the .2 percentage points of the annual g.d.p. in the fourth quarter. and the consequences gets worse as the shutdown continues on our economy. this completely avoidable contraction is the opposite of policies we need to create jobs and strengthen and grow our economy. we need to pass a clean c.r. today. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: there are no more requests for one-minute speeches so pursuant

to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess subject to the

live coverage here on c-span. >> in regards to what they can talk about. >> well, there is a thing called the byrd rule and you cannot put something in a bill that neither side, neither body has in their bill. so unless one body had something that's germane to the topic, it can't be added on an extracurricular basis. however, on the senate floor, as i understand it, they could take the defense bill which mr. bishop had mentioned that we passed june 16, and they could put the entire appropriations, all the bills on that and send it back to us that way, we could move along very quickly because they would have the vehicle that they needed to put everything there and then we could have got intoon conference in august, for example. >> would the gentleman yield? my understanding --

>> go ahead. >> it's my understanding they tried to bring it to the floor but procedurally they couldn't get the 60 votes so although the senate did pass within committee, all 12 bills they couldn't bring them to the floor. >> mr. kingston, you had mentioned, in particular, me military. -- the military. it wasn't that many days ago we passed in a very bipartisan way in regards to paying our military and the senate has been brought up, but that legislation was very broad in regards to not only paying those who wear the uniform and get shot at but it covered some other areas, did it not? >> yes, civilian support and it gave the secretary discretion to decide what support was and apparently, and very disappointed, the secretary decided to use the narrowest view. i would never accuse the pentagon of playing politics.

although it does seem odd, as mr. bishop pointed out, that open air monuments have been barricaded along with parking spaces on the g.w. parkway, even though i use this park frequently because that's where the bike path is, i've never seen an attendant there in my life but apparently now this administration has barricaded a parking lot but for some reason people don't consider that petty and don't consider that cynical. but i would say it does pie peer -- appear that the secretary is using the narrowest scope of the definition to in order to maximize the discomfort for civilian employees. >> why would you, when it's broadly written, why would you want to narrowly the fine, particularly when it affects people that we're talking aboutle, all the members here are talking about people that are not getting a paycheck. why would woe we do that? >> i would say there would be

some who would question motives. i don't really know. to me that's what gets scary, the bureaucracy jumps into this game and maximizes their politics for whatever reason, but when this bill passed the floor of the house, there was absolutely no question about the intent of congress and that was to make sure that those active duty military was taken care of and then the secretary could determine the civilians, the civilian personnel who support them and they were two clauses in the bill about it, it's a very simple bill, i have a copy of it with me, but the secretary decided to take on ngress, if you will -- >> from my home state of florida, i would hope that other members of florida recognize what this does to the florida national guard.

particularly this weekend where we're looking at flood warnings within the state of florida. that this narrow interpretation now, even though we've passed this legislation, we passed legislation within the house as it relates to the dual certified technicians that affect all of us from florida but other states also, is at -- now those technicians have been refurloughed because of the interpretation -- interpretation of -- i don't know for what reasons you would do that, when you have clear guidance that you can keep them on the job, particularly as it relates to dual certified technicians that will keep us safe, the residents of any coastal community but more importantly right now we're talking about my state, the state of florida, that those thousand dual certified technicians keep the helicopters running that will be called upon to help provide

, we're seriously diminishing our ability to protect people and clearly the senate and house gave them the ability to do that i'm telling you what, i don't understand why on god's earth that they would preclude them from doing that. you know what, that's a bunch of -- this is what's ridiculous. we did give them the authority to do it. we gave them, the house and senate did that >> i think what people don't understand in terms of the games that can be played is that these dual service technicians actually might wear their uniform during the week but they are civilians and then on the weekend, they're in uniform and become members of the military. what we're trying to do today is say that we will pick up that weekend drill for national guard, but when you talk about cynicism, here's somebody who

has the discretion to make sure these folks are paid and that congress gave that authority on a unanimous basis, and the pentagon has decided to use certain people as pawns. and i do not think it's right. >> nor do i. so it doesn't matter at this point in time, but when congress has authorized the executive branch in a very broad way to help people, and that's what all these measures are that we're talking about today, but this is when it was passed, and we try to hurt people. this is truly -- these are real people that we're talking about that may need our help and we're not going to be there to provide it. now, you know, we close parks in -- my first ever act of civil disobedience was yesterday.

in removing a barrier to allow world war ii veterans to go to an open air park, an open air facility that is open 24 hours a day, it only has members of the national park service there if you want to ask a question for very short selected hours but the rest of the day you can walk through it but you know what? we made this fantastic decision to close it and i had an opportunity to greet one of the veterans who is 98 years old, probably his last opportunity to visit his memorial that he fought for and his friends died for. and we make a stupid decision and i say we because we're part of the government. we make a student decision to close down something that has never been closed. that's opened to the general public 24 hours a day without any representative of the united states government being

there and that's petty and hurtful and i just -- i can't stand that we've taken out commonsense -- common sense and good judgment in regards to the implementation of laws that have been passed or not passed here. just drives me crazy. mr. chairman, i yield back, based upon your last comment. >> the gentleman yields back his time. i appreciate his help with that, the gentleman from florida is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just wanted to clear up one thing. because there was much said yesterday on the floor by the other side about the dollar amount found in h.j.res. 72. and that somehow this bill, this h.j.res. would be compromising a bill we had passed earlier, which was the

full bifment however, i think the comparison is wrong. that's not what is before us. here's this -- there is a c.r. 10 weeks. or six weeks, depending on whose you take. for six weeks. h.j.res. 72, just extracted the -- all of the words out of that continuing resolution and put them on a piece of paper. so if you look at page 19 -- page 15, line 19 of the continuing resolution, the $2,455,490,000. if you look at the number in h.j.res. 72 on page two, line

7, the number is $2,455,490,000. the exact same amount. so the idea of telling us that somehow we're compromising, we're shortchanging, we're cut, we're not. this is the exact same thing that would be before fuss we took up that, quote, clean resolution. the same exact number. the same exact language. it's just a small part of that larger piece of paper. and package. and so i think it's misrepresenting by saying that this is a cut when it's not. we would be voting for and embracing the same exact number. now there's another part othis too. this, different than many of the others, is an increase from the 2013 level. the 2013 level is $300 million

below that. why? because we're trying to make up the difference of those who are standing in line and waiting and waiting. and so this is even an increase. but it's the same increase increase that's in the continuing resolution. so my question to the chairman that's here of the particular rt of his appropriations subcommittee is that true for yours also? >> which bill? >> i'm talking about, just your piece which would be out of your subcommittee, which would be -- which is an unnumbered h.j.res. and my question is, is it like this one? this h.j.res. just extracted the language and placed it into

a smaller bill which just dealt with that. >> it is at the current funding. >> that's all i'm asking. >> yes, it is at the current funding level which is -- >> which is exactly what's in the c.r., is that correct? >> correct. >> soing probably if we extrapolated that to all five of these, all these are portions of -- i didn't say we're cherry picking. i'm saying that saying there is a -- this is a cut or there's something wrong with it, last nothing wrong with it. if we voted on the continuing resolution, we'd be voting for every single issue on this funded at the same exact level. it's just a smaller package, something we all could agree on. and that's all we're doing. mr. chairman, i wanted to clear that up, to let everyone know, we're not talking about cuts, we're not talking about different language, not talking about something that's

shortchanging anybody, including veterans. all we're talking about is doing exactly what the continuing resolution says. in that particular -- >> would the gentleman yield? >> and this is the exact same amount. >> i would except i don't talk very often, i don't get much time, and the chairman said we don't have much time system of i want to take this time say, here it is, this is what i think, if i hear again, i might even take to the floor to say no, it's wrong, this is a cut. this is a short changing of veterans when it absolutely is not. especially when you support the c.r. >> the gentleman yields back his time. >> if the gentleman would give me a second. in fact, on page two of the bill, line five through 10, enunciated exactly what the gentleman is speaking about. the gentleman from massachusetts evidently has a question. >> i would just ask -- >> i the gentleman is

recognized. >> i wonder if the gentleman would yield to ms.low wie, the ranking member. >> i appreciate what the gentleman is asking. i'm also trying to acknowledge that we're trying to get through this and that the witnesses serve at the pleasure of this -- >> if she could keep her answer to less than 3 seconds? >> what i'd like to do is continue going. i would not try and cause on you anything that if it were reversed. i hope the gentleman will recognize that. the gentlewoman from florida is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm happy to see these bills come before us. i'm glad that the chairman -- that chairman kingston has made, has pointed out how we came together and passed the bill to fund the active military. now my stepson and my daughter-in-law were in the active military just two months ago after serving many years as marine officers.

they retired. now they're in the reserves. and lindsay was supposed to come in for duty, reserve duty, starting on monday in pensacola. she got her orders saying, you can't come. can't volunteer. you just can't come. dough was going to blanding starting on friday and he got the email saying, no thanks. two months ago, they were active duty, they would have -- it would have been ok for them but now that they're in the reserves, we're telling them, no. you can't serve your country anymore. and it doesn't make any sense that -- they're the same people that they were two months ago, two months ago they were in a separate category, they could have continued to serve their country. they want to continue to serve their country. why can't we come together just as we did a few days ago and say, let's pass pass the pay our guard and reserve act? they are just the same people,

serving our country, it makes no sense for us to pass it in the house, for the senate to have passed it, for the president to have signed it, for active duty, but we're saying to reserve and guards, you're not worthy. you're not worthy of our full support. we're going to vote against you. i resent that and i think that they resent that as well. just one point on the memorial. what a shameful day that was to barricade, as you pointed out, mr. kingston. it is an open air monument. it is there for everybody to go by. to have barricades when people in wheelchairs were not able to go through, that's shameful. i'd like to point out, mr. chairman that according to its website, the memorial, quote, was funded almost entirely by private contributions as specified in public law 103-32, the campaign received more than $197 million in cash and

pledges, support came from hundreds of thousands of individual americans, hundreds of corporations and foundations, veterans groups, dozens of civic, fraternal, and professional organizations, states, and one territory and students in 1,200 schools across the country. a privately funded memorial. open air. and yet they bothered to put a couple of barricades to make a political statement. shameful. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. i appreciate the chairman. i'm one of those one million contributors and was proud to do that the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from lewisville, texas, is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. recognizing from your comments, i'll try to keep this short but i did feel obligated to share with the committee some interesting facts about the state of texas. texas does enjoy a triple-a bond rating, if i recall correctly the united states does not. between the years 2009 and 2011, one million people came

to the state of texas to become residents. historically when a state undergoes rapid population growth, the rate of uninsurance increases. texas, during that time, saw its rate of insurance decrease. 1. million texans are in the state, in the country, without the benefit of a social security number. i don't know if there have been new changes to the rule making to the affordable care act but my understanding of the president's speech three years ago, those individuals would not be eligible for coverage under the affordable care act. 2.7 million people are eligible for medicaid but have not enrolled. i wanted to put those statistics out there so people were aware, when i hear my state discussed, sometimes in unflattering terms, there are factors that make up this number that mitigate and in fact, one of the biggest risks to texans who are