National Institutes of Health Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Mr. Speaker, first, let me just say I'm very pleased to anchor this Congressional Progressive Caucus Special Order on Iraq with my colleague from California, Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Let me also take a moment to thank Congresswoman Waters, who is the founder of the Out of Iraq Caucus. Congresswoman Waters had the vision and the determination to pull together Members of the House who really needed some space, who needed to be able to provide legislative strategies and to beat the drum to end this war in Iraq. The country owes Congresswoman Waters a debt of gratitude, and we thank you very much for that.

I also want to acknowledge Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, who retired from Congress at the end of last year, but who loomed so large during this Special Order, given her incredible leadership in working to end the war in Iraq and to bring our troops home. She is and remains our sister in arms when it comes to working for global peace and security for our children, all of our collective work.

It was no wonder that many observers called Congresswomen Waters, Woolsey, and myself ``The Triad,'' but it was actually Congresswoman Woolsey who coined this term in our formation.

We are here today to reflect back on the 10-year anniversary of the start of the unnecessary, immoral, and costly war and to remember and pay tribute to the sacrifices of our troops, those who lost their lives, the injured, their families, and their loved ones, many of whom are still grappling with the scars and the impact of the war. We are also here to reflect on the costs of this war in blood and treasure. On the costs of this war: $800 billion, 4,486 soldiers, an untold number of Iraqi civilians, countless refugees, and also on the lost opportunity costs of this war to our country.

Instead of spending $800 billion on Iraq, we could have created jobs, rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure or invested in our schools to provide every child with a 21st century education. Sadly, this list goes on and on. It is especially painful when we understand that this war never should have happened in the first place. It was a war of choice. It was unnecessary; it was immoral; and it was wrong.

Over 10 years now in the run-up to the war, there were those of us in Congress and millions of people in the antiwar movement who fought the launch of this war. We had questions about weapons of mass destruction claims. We pushed for hearings; we called for a full debate; and we called to halt the rush to war.

In October 2002, the Bush administration pushed for invading Iraq. During that time, I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I proposed an amendment, which the Rules Committee made in

order. We brought that amendment to the floor, which would have required the United Nations to continue with weapons inspections. At that time, I stated on this House floor that unilateralism is really not the answer. If Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are a problem to the world community, yes, we must confront it. We must do so through the United Nations, and we must determine whether or not there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There were 72 of my colleagues who voted in favor of this amendment, which would have led us to the same conclusion that so many soldiers lost their lives and limbs to reach-- that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We all know the tragedy that followed.

The Bush administration launched its war of choice, claimed its ``mission accomplished,'' and chose to send pallets of shrink-wrapped cash and more of our brave young men and women to fight on and on-- despite the fact that there was no real military solution to the quagmire that the Bush administration created.

It is important to remember that this war did not go unchallenged, that there was a tremendous groundswell of opposition and that that was critical in demanding its end and in helping to bring it to a close, finally, under President Obama. In Congress, this opposition was centered around the Out of Iraq Caucus, which Congresswoman Waters, whom I mentioned earlier, founded, and Congresswoman Woolsey and I helped cofound. This was in 2005. Together, we held ad hoc hearings that the Republican congressional leadership refused to hold or participate in. We held press conferences, wrote op-eds, and took the floor to sound the alarm.

Here I need to acknowledge, as I know Congresswoman Waters will-- because I know this is a very important benchmark to acknowledge--that Congresswoman Woolsey on this point delivered 441 floor speeches over the last decade to call for the war's end.

We worked with our grassroots allies, like MoveOn, Win Without War, Progressive Democrats of America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, and with great leaders like Tom Hayden and others, to help build a movement to bring our troops home.

I recall vividly when we marched here in Washington, D.C., past the White House, with hundreds of thousands of protesters in opposition to the war. These marches and rallies and actions happened all across this country. I have to say, in northern California and especially in the East Bay and in San Francisco--the entire Bay Area of California--they were really at the forefront of this effort. Of course we worked the legislative process as hard as we possibly could. There were many members of the Out of Iraq Caucus who led important legislative efforts to end the war:

I recall clearly the efforts of Congresswoman Woolsey, who offered the very first sense of Congress resolution calling for an end to the war and to bring our troops home. From what I remember, she received approximately 132, 133 votes for that resolution, but that was another defining moment;

There was a resolution that I offered very early on to repeal the doctrine of preemption--that's preemptive war. In other words, let's start a war to prevent a future war, which the President claimed in waging the war in Iraq;

There was the McGovern amendment, led by Congressman McGovern, who led on the effort to bring a responsible end to the war by calling for a timetable;

Then, of course, my annual Lee amendment: to limit the funding for the safe, timely, and orderly withdrawal of our troops. What this Lee amendment was trying to accomplish was to stop the funding and to end combat operations but to protect our troops and contractors and bring them home.

One of my amendments, the Lee amendment, eventually was signed into law, which was to prohibit permanent bases in Iraq. Now that is and was and continues to be the law of the land. There were so many other efforts led by members of the Out of Iraq Caucus--from amendments, to resolutions, to letters, and to floor actions.

I want to yield now to my colleague from California and just, once again, thank her for her tremendous leadership in case she has to leave early before this hour ends.

Congresswoman Waters, thank you so much for that very eloquent and profound statement and for your kind remarks. Let me just say to you also that you have been a woman who has always believed that peace is possible and peace is patriotic. So I just want to thank you for your leadership, for being here with us, and just say how proud we are that you are our Financial Services ranking member also. Thank you.

Let me take a moment now to yield to the gentleman from California, Congressman Mark Takano, who has been way out there in terms of opposing this war from day one.

Thank you again for being here.

Immigration Reform

Let me go back now to the 10th anniversary of this unfortunate war, Mr. Speaker.

I'm going to introduce now into the Record tonight a timeline of some of what we have talked about tonight because they should be remembered and because these efforts and the efforts of the movement that ended this war finally did make a difference, although obviously not as quickly as we wanted; but we did make a difference together.

After years of speaking out and as the toll of the Iraq war stretched the patience of the American people, public opinion started turning. People began asking what were we doing in Iraq. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush administration told us. Iraq had not been involved in the 9/11 attacks, as suggested by the Bush administration.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation at the United Nations that was greatly misleading, stating that Iraq possessed extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Some of you may remember the smoking cloud that he talked about. It was just really very, very tragic. He described biological weapons factories on wheels, and estimated that Iraq had between 100 and 150 tons--no, I believe it may have been 500 tons--of chemical weapons stockpiled. All of those claims about weapons of mass destruction turned out to be false.

Secretary of State Powell's own chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, later said about his own participation in the deception at the United Nations, he said:

I participated in a hoax on the American people, the

international community, and the United Nations Security

Council.

Iraq did not present a clear and present danger to the United States. Secretary Powell and his staff, they

knew this. President Bush, he knew this. Vice President Cheney, he knew this. But they wanted their war and they deceived the United Nations and scared the American public to justify their war of choice.

I distinctly remember the day in May 2003, 10 years ago next week, when President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and proclaimed ``Mission Accomplished.'' Of course, the mission was far from accomplished. The war was to drag on for another 8 years.

President Obama committed to ending the war during his campaign; and he, of course, did as President. While the war in Iraq is over, its legacy continues and the lessons still have yet to be learned. We need to look closely at the decisions made, understand the mistakes and misjudgments, and ensure that we never again repeat such a tragedy.

In Ghana, in the Akan language of Ghana, there is a mythical bird that's a symbol. It's called Sankofa. It's a bird flying forward looking back, and the message is that in order to not make the same mistakes as we move forward, we have to look back and we have to know our history. We have to know where we have come from, what we have done in order to move forward, and we should learn from those mistakes. Sankofa.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued its final report to Congress just last month, detailing billions and billions of dollars lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. The occupation of Iraq was characterized by poor planning by the Bush administration, who ignored State Department and USAID analysis envisioning protracted U.S. involvement in Iraq requiring substantial spending for many years.

The Pentagon was left in charge of managing postwar Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously underestimated the resources needed to stabilize the country. When Lieutenant General Jay Gardner told Secretary Rumsfeld that the United States might need to spend billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq, Rumsfeld responded:

If you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our

money over there, you are sadly mistaken.

Well, of course, it was Mr. Rumsfeld who was sadly mistaken, and the American public who was sadly misled, and the Iraqi people who sadly suffered from the chaos and destruction unleashed by ideologues who used Iraq as a laboratory for a light-footprint war.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, those lost opportunities and tragic mistakes are not behind us.

I would like to take a moment now and yield to my friend and colleague, a woman who has consistently been against the war and has stood for peace all of her life, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

Let me thank the gentlelady from Texas for that very profound statement and presentation. And just let me say to you that, as the daughter of a 25-year veteran of the Armed Forces, I am deeply thankful for your bringing forth the faces of our Armed Forces.

And also, talking about the obstacles now that they're facing upon their return, I'm especially concerned with the widespread and often undiagnosed incidents of PTSD and the alarming suicide rates among our soldiers.

The back claims, the Veterans Affairs losing records, denying claims that are clearly service-related. I want to acknowledge Congresswoman Jackie Speier and her work in our area and throughout the country to try to address the backlog of claims of our veterans who don't deserve to be treated this way.

Since the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, over 2,000 current and former servicemembers have committed suicide. The lessons from this tragedy cannot be any clearer. It's a lot easier to get into war than to get out of one.

It's my hope, Mr. Speaker, that this reckless and shortsighted decision will mark a turning point in American history, and that we will be more careful about war and use all of the tools of American power, as Congresswoman Woolsey so eloquently talked to us about and introduced over and over again, SMART security that should be used in resolving disputes, including diplomacy.

Let me ask you, Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

I would like to know if the gentlelady from Texas has anything else to say. Otherwise, we will close.

Let me just use a bit more time and say that there's no military solution in

Afghanistan either, so we must absorb that fact and learn, again, what we learned in Iraq. And we need to bring the war in Afghanistan to an accelerated end.

We need to stop throwing good money after bad, poorly conceived and poorly managed reconstruction efforts, and bring our troops home now.

And we need to repeal the 2001 Authorization For the Use of Military Force, which Congresswoman Waters mentioned, which I voted against right after the horrific events of 9/11. This overly broad blank check has underwritten the past decade of perpetual war.

I have a resolution, H.R. 198, it's the Repeal of the Authorization For the Use of Military Force. This will remove one of the underlying legal justifications for targeted drone killings that has been invoked over and over again, this time, targeted killings, to justify a wide range of activities, including warrantless surveillance and wiretapping activities, and, yes, a blank check for war anywhere, any time, for any length of time.

I hope those who are listening and who care about this, go back and read that resolution of 9/14. What it said was the President, and I'm paraphrasing now, but it was the President is authorized to use force against any nation, organization, individual, deemed connected to terrorism and the 9/11 attacks.

Now, this was in 2001. 2001. No end game, no timetable, a blank check, perpetual war until this is repealed. So Congress really needs to reassert its constitutional authority in the matters of war. Our Founding Fathers were very deliberate in placing war-making powers in this body. In a democracy, such as ours, we have this system of checks and balances.

On 9/14, we did not have a full debate. From what I remember, it may have been an hour, it may have been 2 hours. But we did not fully debate that blank check and what that meant by authorizing then- President Bush, now President Obama and any future President, to use force in perpetuity.

We can no longer abdicate our constitutional duties allowing any President to engage in hostilities without debate, without oversight, and without accountability.

And I want to commend Senator Durbin for conducting hearings this week looking at the constitutionality and the rationale for targeted killings using drones. This was a very important hearing. I was able to sit through some of that hearing, and it was very revealing. Actually, there was a young man from Yemen who received a State Department scholarship. He went to school here, had gone back to Yemen, and his village was devastated by drones.

So you can see what's happening now. There are more and more hostilities, unfortunately, toward the United States, unless we get this policy straight about the lethal use of drones and have congressional oversight and debate and really exercise our constitutional responsibility to really declare war, if that's what we're going to do.

And so as we embark into this new age of modern warfare, we do need rules. We need oversight; we need accountability; and we need to develop an international legal framework on drones.

And we understand asymmetrical warfare and the new world in which we live. None of us have our head in the sand about that. We just need to make sure that Congress has a role in debating exactly how we're going to, if we're going to, and when the appropriate use of force is necessary.

For me, personally, I believe in SMART Security; and I know that that will lead to a world that our children deserve and is worthy of our children's future.

So let's put this decade of perpetual warfare behind us. We should bring our troops home. We should invest in our veterans and our children, create jobs here at home and really begin to invest in our future for the sake of our children and our grandchildren.

I have this chart here to show you just in terms of the fiscal implications of what these policies have brought. When you look at the deficit, with the war and the economic policies of the Bush era, the tax cuts, we're looking at this line right here. Had these unfortunate policies not occurred, our deficit would be down here. This is very clear. This was put forth by the Congressional Budget Office in February. These are their estimates.

It's very clear, I hope, to everyone that the failed economic policies of the Bush administration and the wars in Iraq are the major contributing factors to the economic crisis that we find ourselves in. And so, aside from the human toll that this 10-year war and the war in Afghanistan has taken, we have a real crisis now, an economic crisis in this country that we need to come to grips with. Our senior citizens did not cause this crisis. Our children did not cause this crisis. The poor, our middle class individuals, and families did not cause this crisis. And we cannot forget what has taken place over the last 10 years of this unbelievably terribly sad time in our history, where we lost so many lives and we lost so much time in terms of rebuilding our country for the future of our children.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Key Iraq Votes From the 109th Congress

H. CON. RES. 35 [109th]

Latest Title: Expressing the sense of Congress that the

President should develop and implement a plan to begin the

immediate withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq.

Sponsor: Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [D-CA-6] (introduced 1/26/

2005) Cosponsors: 34

Committees: House International Relations

Latest Major Action: 1/26/2005 Referred to House committee.

Status: Referred to the House Committee on International

Relations.

H. RES. 82 [109th]

Latest Title: Disavowing the doctrine of preemption.

Sponsor: Rep Lee, Barbara [D-CA-9] (introduced 2/9/2005)

Cosponsors: 15

Committees: House International Relations

Latest Major Action: 2/9/2005 Referred to House committee.

Status: Referred to the House Committee on International

Relations.

H. AMDT. 214 [109th]

(A009)

Amends: H.R.1815

Sponsor: Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [D-CA-6] (offered 5/25/2005)

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 370 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, we're here today because we don't have a ``my way or the highway'' system of government. We have a system of government that requires that the people's representatives come together and build consensus, find a common path forward. And that path has been illusive, Mr. Speaker.

Oftentimes, as the reading clerk is reading a bill, you'll see someone ask to waive the reading of the bill, ask unanimous consent that the bill not be read. I'm so pleased that today we had every single word of this resolution read, Mr. Speaker, because the words matter.

I open up a newspaper, it talks about all the division in Washington, D.C. It talks about all the things on which we cannot agree. And what we have before us today, Mr. Speaker, is a bill about things on which we agree.

I hear it from my constituents all the time. They say, Rob, why in the world can't you all get something done? I understand there are things that you legitimately disagree about, ideas about which different parts of the country have different paths forward. But what about those things on which you agree?

That's what we have here today, Mr. Speaker. There's not a Member in this body that is celebrating a government shutdown. What we can celebrate, though, is a path out of the government shutdown. This rule allows for that today.

I want to read those titles again, Mr. Speaker. H.J. Res. 70, to reopen our national parks and museums, common ground on which this body agrees.

H.J. Res. 71, to provide local funding for the District of Columbia. A lot of folks don't realize, but because the District of Columbia is a Federal district, the Federal Government provides a little money, but most of the money comes from the District of Columbia itself. But the District of Columbia is not allowed to spend its local funds without a Federal authorization. This does that.

And then, so important, Mr. Speaker, honoring our promise to America's veterans. I don't believe there's a man or woman in this Chamber that doesn't believe our veterans deserve the very best service that we can provide. I don't think there's a man or a woman in this Chamber who wants to see our VA services halted or curtailed. We solve that today, Mr. Speaker.

Research for Lifesaving Cures Act, Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 73, to continue funding at the NIH. NIH makes us all so proud. We do so many first-in-human trials at the Winship Cancer Institute down just outside of my district in Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, lifesaving research, lifesaving opportunities caught up in this government shutdown, not one of those things on which we disagree; one of those things on which we agree. We have an opportunity to get that done today.

And, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3230, Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act.

Again, there's a lot to be frustrated about here today. And I know folks back home, Mr. Speaker, in your district and in mine, they have a lot to be frustrated about too. But one bright moment in this debate came late on Saturday night when we came together unanimously and said, whatever our disagreements here, our men and women in uniform should not get caught up in it. Pay our troops first. It brought us together.

Not just in this House, Mr. Speaker, we have the ability to come together, but also in the Senate, where, by unanimous consent, they passed that bill. It went to the President's desk.

But what that bill did not include, and what I believe we all believe it should have included, was funding for our National Guard and our Reserve. This bill gives us the opportunity to solve that today.

Mr. Speaker, we tried to bring up three of these five bills yesterday under a process they call suspension of the rules. It requires two- thirds of the House to support it. But because we unanimously supported our troops last week, we assumed that we would be able to unanimously support our veterans, unanimously support our folks here in the District of Columbia, using their local forums, unanimously support our parks and our monuments, and we were wrong.

I'll say to my friends, I don't know if they looked at the numbers-- 80 percent of my friends on the other side of the aisle said no. They said yes, this is something on which we agree, but no, we are not going to participate in solving that problem. We want that problem to persist until you solve all the problems.

Mr. Speaker, I'll close with this. One of our great patriots during the American Revolution, Edmund Burke, said, No man does worse than he who does nothing because he can only do a little.

Mr. Speaker, I concede that some of the things we're working on today might seem like a little. But we have the opportunity to help people. We have an opportunity to make a difference, and shame on us if we do nothing because we can only do a little.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to my friend that we have an opportunity to do something today. There's been a lot of talk on this floor. We have an opportunity to actually do something, and I don't think there's going to be a single Member on the other side of the aisle that challenges the notion that, if we pass these bills, we will make a difference for American veterans, we will make a difference for American families, and we will make a difference for American Guardsmen and Reservists.

And I do not believe that the heart of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that, because we can only do a little, we should do nothing.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), a good friend and great leader in this institution,

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to say to my friend that there's a little revisionist history in that recitation.

You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that the House passed its package, and the Senate said, No, it's our way or the highway. So the House said, Well, let me give you a different package--one that is a little closer to that position. The Senate said, No, it's my way or the highway.

Then the House said, Let me give you a third position that's a little closer to you. And the Senate said a third time, No, it's my way or the highway. And then the House said, Well, come and sit down with me at the table so that we can find a way through our differences. And the Senate said, No, it's my way or the highway.

The American people know who's looking for common ground and consensus in this body.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller), a real supporter of finding that pathway forward, the chairwoman of the House Administration Committee.

Mr. Speaker, it's clear we're going to hear more ``it's my way or the highway'' from the other side throughout today.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), a freshman Member of this body who believes that there is a pathway forward and that we can make a difference.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would say to my friend from Virginia, before he leaves the floor, that I'm grateful to his nephew for his service. I, too, represent a part of the world where service is not an opportunity but an obligation.

I would say, as my friend knows very well, this body, this United States House, in June, passed our Veterans and Military Construction appropriations bill. This whole idea that you're supposed to fund the government in one giant bill is more of that revisionist history. That's exactly the wrong way to fund the government.

The way the government is supposed to be funded, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is that we're supposed to fund it one piece at a time--that's the way it always has been, the way it always should be--because you end up looking to see where those funding priorities are.

So this House, Mr. Speaker, in June, with only four dissenting votes, passed a bill affirming the financial commitment that this Nation should have to our veterans, and it has been sitting, gathering dust, in the United States Senate since June.

Funding for all veterans ran out on September 30. We all knew that. We knew it last September 30 that funding was going to run out this September 30, which is why this House has moved forward on appropriations bills. The Senate has moved forward on zero, Mr. Speaker. That's why it's my way or the highway.

There's a right way to get this done, and we've been trying to do it here. The Senate won't do it the right way. They want to do it their way--and a way that doesn't serve folks back home the way you and I, Mr. Speaker, know that they are entitled to be served.

You have not heard one voice on this floor today dispute that the bills we have before us would make a difference in the lives of American families. You've had folks say it doesn't do enough, but you haven't had folks say it doesn't do what it's intended to do. We have an opportunity to do some good. Let's do it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleague in the Rules Committee earlier said if we could just get a few of us together around the table we could sort this out. I believe that. I absolutely believe that. If we could just sit down around the table and talk to each other, get together on the facts, we could sort this out. But we're not even together on the facts, Mr. Speaker.

My colleague just talked about how we're taking away 250 years of American governance with this government shutdown. I don't celebrate this shutdown. I wish the Senate would have come to the table so we wouldn't have had a shutdown. But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, in the 16 years that Republicans have controlled this body, this is the third shutdown that has the great misfortune of occurring.

I came along in the Carter administration. I'm from the State of Georgia; President Carter is from the State of Georgia. You go back to the Carter administration, come 16 years forward, Democrats controlled this institution, shut the government down 15 times. In the Carter administration, Mr. Speaker, it was all Democrats--Democrats in the White House, Democrats running the U.S. House, Democrats running the U.S. Senate, shut down the government five times for more than 50 days. I don't celebrate that, but I do recognize that when people refuse to sit down and talk to each other that is sometimes the outcome. It didn't have to be the outcome this time, but here we are.

So we can either throw up our hands in disgust or we can start pointing the fingers of blame or we can do something about it. Again, Mr. Speaker, not one Member of this body has come to

the floor to attest that the passage of this rule and the passage of these underlying bills wouldn't make a difference for American families--and the reason they haven't is because they would.

I understand we're going to continue to disagree, but let's do those things on which we agree. These five bills contain the first of those ideas. And I commit to my colleagues, if we can begin this process today, we can be right back here tomorrow doing more of it.

Wonder of wonders, Mr. Speaker, if we start working together and doing those things that we know our constituents want us to do, we might just find a way out. We might just make constituents back home proud. We can and we should.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to ask my friend from Texas whose words had an impact on me.

My friend from Texas who was talking about the bill we passed in June, I happen to share his commitment to that legislation. It is my understanding that that legislation is sitting today, as it has been since June, in the Senate, and they could take it up and pass it and not fund veterans just for a week or 10 days, but fund those programs at those levels for the entire year.

I would ask my friend if he would join with me in calling on the Senate to do exactly that.

I would be happy to yield to my friend from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, I say to my friend that the clean CR that he is advocating so passionately for cuts the exact same $6 billion that he said is a problem. I agree with him that that's a problem. I hope we won't do that. I hope the Senate will take up that bill.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Radel), a new Member of this body, but one who brings commonsense idea after commonsense idea, bipartisan idea after bipartisan idea to the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to agree with my friend that folks are not entitled to their own facts. The fact is that the law of the land is the budget number that the Senate is proposing. There is no set of circumstances you can spend a penny more than that. In fact, as all of my colleagues know, beginning on January 1 that number is going to drop another $19 billion.

To suggest that the Senate is compromising by agreeing to follow the law of the land says a lot about where we are in this town, but it says absolutely nothing about genuine compromise.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it gives me great pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Holding), a new Member of this body, but a growing leader in this body.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 60 seconds to say to my friend I know he has a lot of Federal employees in his district, as do I--certainly not as many as he does. I know he speaks from the heart in terms of the struggles that those families are going through.

But I would say to my friend that while that might be his goal, we could have taken a step towards it yesterday and all of your VA employees would have been back and all of your park service employees would have been back and all of your folks who are in the D.C. Government would have been protected.

We could have done it yesterday, and the Democrats defeated it. Now we are bringing it back today, but we could have made a difference yesterday, and we didn't.

I would just say to the gentleman that I know his concern for everyone is heartfelt, but I wish that he would join me in helping at least someone today. We might get all the way there. I believe that we can, but we have got to get started. These bills today get us started in that direction. Again, I appreciate the gentleman's commitment.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds, and I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds to say that it encourages me that what I hear from my friend is that he doesn't like our proposal because he thinks it's a policy of divisiveness, and he would like to move toward those things that unite us. I happen to feel the same way about these proposals before us.

I think where the Senate is pushing us is a place that divides us, but that these ideas are common-ground ideas that unite us. While we may disagree on that, it does give me great encouragement, as I know it does my constituents back home, that the goal is to find those things that unite us, to focus on those and to move America forward.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it gives me great pleasure to yield 1 minute to a leader from the great State of South Carolina (Mr. Rice), a good friend of mine and a new Member of this body.

I very much thank my friend. I do not have any speakers remaining.

I thank my friend from New York for joining me on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, it is sad for the House that we have come to define a CR as any sort of success whatsoever. Every Member of this body knows that, when we talk about CRs, we are just talking about varying degrees of failure, because there was a better way that the House was obligated to do that we didn't do.

I want to say to my friends again that no one has said this bill won't help. Absolutely, everyone knows this bill will help, but I want to reach out my hand once again, Mr. Speaker, and say what my friend from South Carolina said moments ago: take your pick. I will meet you on your terms. Either let's take these things that we agree on in government, and let's fund them--let's pick and choose those things we agree on, and let's fund them--or let's fund it all, and let's stop the picking and choosing in ObamaCare of what we like. If it's all good, let's fund all of the government, and let's obey all of ObamaCare, giving those waivers to individuals that Big Business got. If it's not good, then let's focus on these things that we unanimously agree are good.

There is a path forward, Mr. Speaker. We can find it together. I believe the rule and the bill we have before us today begin to take us down that path.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the gentlelady from California, and I particularly thank you for your astuteness on bringing us together. If I might reflect on memory lane that was very painful, we traveled a lot together, and I think of the moments in history on the Iraq war. The rising up of the American people was powerful, from San Francisco to places in between, to the quarter of a million people that walked down 53rd and 57th Street in New York on a cold morning in January.

People all over America recognized that it was not these brave men and women that you see here. And I brought pictures of wonderful families and men and women who were called to serve who we continue to honor and appreciate. I thought it was important to acknowledge that our soldiers have families. We see it all the time. My district is near Ellington Field, and it is increasingly becoming a base utilizing the talents of young Americans who are willing to volunteer. So I take this 10th anniversary, as well, to pay tribute to them and those who still serve in foreign fields around the world. We know that they still serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So we come here today on the 10th anniversary simply to ask the question: Why? And when we ask the question why, it is not a selfish question on behalf of Members of Congress. It is a question on behalf of those brave men and women who, no matter who calls them as Commander in Chief and for what cause, they accept the cause. For that reason, it is imperative that we understand the battle into which we send them.

In the Iraq war, it was alleged there were weapons of mass destruction. We have come to a fairly complete conclusion that there were no such weapons. We all knew Saddam Hussein, and none of us adhered to his despotic and horrible governance. But I will tell you, my colleagues thought the same thing, that our approach should have been different. The bloodshed not only of the young men and women that you see here, some of their comrades were lost, but the millions, the numbers of Iraqi people who themselves, their lives were lost and of course still continue to be in danger.

The Iraq war saw more than 4,400 brave men and women who wore the United States uniform make the ultimate sacrifice, and tens upon tens of thousands who in actuality were wounded. Over 32,000 of the men and women who came home suffered wounds. But as we know, those numbers have risen. Some 3,000 of the wounded call Texas their home, 500 lost their lives. We know the scars that were left on families--mother, fathers, children, and wives. We realized that we needed to make a better judgment.

As the tragedy unfolded in Boston, one of the emergency physicians, one of the medical professionals, said they knew exactly what it was because they had been to Iraq, and they understood the sound of the IEDs. How many of our brave men and women encountered these makeshift IEDs that tore through their body and either killed them or completely amputated or caused the amputation of their arms or legs and the disfigurement of their face. We see them now. We call them wounded warriors. We call them heroes, and certainly those who followed in Afghanistan.

But this 10th year reminds us to ask: Have we made the progress that we should have? The gentlelady spoke of the moneys, $800 billion that has directly contributed to the Nation's deficit, and the amount of money that was supposed to be used for restoration; and because there was no infrastructure in Iraq, we made our Army personnel be the little government.

We made soldiers be the ones that had to interact with the village leaders and the chiefs, and carry monies to them. No, nothing accounted for; just good intentions, following orders. But we cannot account for those dollars. We don't know if they made a difference. We don't know if they helped bring Iraqis home. We don't know if they helped build schools or hospitals.

So I think it is important to note that when we make decisions regarding war, we need to think about soldiers holding their families and loving their families. We need to think about the better way to go, and we need to ask those whose war we fight--Saddam Hussein is gone-- the people whose war we fight, the conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis.

We need to understand our history as to whether or not a war that would see the loss of all these brilliant young people, divide families, whether or not we can bring some measure of peace, some comfort, some stability.

And I'd venture to say today that we have not. And I say this to the head of Iraq, the leader, Mr. Maliki, for his participation in the ongoing conflict in Iraq, because that is the case.

There is no coming together of the Shiites and Sunnis. There is a cluster of a government that hides in the walls, that does not go out and try to bring peace to the people. And I give you one example, Mr. Speaker, that troubles me over and over again--it is the Iranians who left Iran.

We know the conflicted issues and alliances were all, if you will, misunderstood; old alliances, friends and enemies. We understand that. But this is supposed to be a peaceful nation now, and there are Iranians who fled the despotic Iran, and have become, in essence, enemies of Iran.

They started out in Camp Ashraf. They were called rebels and terrorists. They have now been vindicated, and they're not called that anymore.

But let me tell you what the present government of Iraq allows. They allow, in the camp that was Camp Ashraf that is now Camp Liberty, bombs to go in from the Iraqi soldiers. They allow no medical care to come into that particular camp.

Just yesterday, the Friends of Iran, American Iranians were here, and they had 10 people or more, their faces, who had died in that camp because the government of Iraq, the government that we shed blood for, that we asked to be a peaceful nation, is, in essence, attacking people on their soil who are unarmed, who are not interested in war, who fled because they'd been persecuted.

And they don't allow them to get access to cars, access to hospitals, and so people die from sicknesses because they could not get care.

When we go into battle and send our troops into battle, shouldn't we ask the question of what is the ultimate result?

We understand that democracy in its structure that is here in the United States cannot only be the structure that fits every community, every nation, every faith. But what I would say to you is that we bring one of those C-130s, big C-130s that many of us have rode on to go into Iraq. And I spent many hours there, nothing in comparison, of course, to those who served, but I'm grateful I had the opportunity to go and serve and see those individuals who served, and to sit down with those from Texas and to break bread with them.

When we land one of those C-130s, why don't we know, and shouldn't we know our purpose, our goal, what is our ultimate direction that we would like to see?

Not the dominance of the United States over this nation that we help but to be able to know that they, too, stand for democracy and peace.

I want to thank the gentlelady from California for allowing me to share this time with her, and to say, it's important to remind us of the 10th anniversary, one, to say thank you, for when we land these C- 130s and these men and women come out ready for battle, they are wearing our uniform and our flag but, at the same time, we must ask the question, for what? For what results? For what long-range results? For what peace? For we owe that to them.

I ask that we consider those in Camp Liberty and we find relief for them. I thank the gentlelady very much.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in solidarity with my fellow members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to speak in recognition of the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq war. I want to thank my colleagues, Representatives Lee and Waters for anchoring this Special Order.

On March 19, 2003 President Bush launched invasion of Iraq ten years ago under a cloud of questions about the motivations for the invasion. Today we see the toll of this war on our young military men and women, their families and communities across our nation.

First and foremost, I would like to thank our troops who served in the Iraq war, but more broadly I would like to thank all members of the armed forces for their courage and heroism under circumstances that few of us could imagine. As members of Congress we have, regardless of our view of the wisdom of entering into armed conflict with Iraq, have always stood in strong and unwavering solidarity with our troops.

Part of our role as representatives in Congress is to give voice to the plight of our constituents that include men and women in the armed forces--many of them served tour after tour after tour without break; and in the beginning of the war had insufficient equipment to protect them from IEDs which cost the nation countless lives and left many with traumatic life changing injuries.

We cannot forget their sacrifice and heroism in the face of what was asked of them. In April of last year the great city of Houston, which I am proud to represent, hosted a Bayou City-style parade honoring the homecoming of the American troops. This gesture of thanks defines the support that Houston has for our troops in any situation.

During the course of the Iraq War more than 4,400 brave men and women in uniform made the ultimate sacrifice and over 32,000 were wounded. Of these brave men and women more than 500 of the fallen and 3,000 of the wounded call Texas their home.

In 2003 I fought with many of my colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus to ensure that the order to proceed with the Iraq War did not pass the House, but our efforts were not successful.

Although we have withdrawn from Iraq it is imperative to understand that the withdrawal is not synonymous with the end of the war on terror. It has been my stance since the beginning of the war that there are different steps that must be taken to combat terror--which include diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.

The war also had an economic cost to our nation, which we are still paying and will continue to pay until our colleagues on the other side of the isle resolve to battle the economic threat at home with the vigor of the fight against a less than creditable threat many thought they saw in Iraq 10 years ago.

The monetary cost of the war exceeded $800 billion, which directly contributed to the nation's deficit that is now trying to be mended by the Sequester. More worrisome, the long terms costs from the results of the war are expected to exceed $3 trillion.

Since our withdrawal, insurgencies have erupted across the country of Iraq. Iraq has been seen to gravitate towards Iran, a nation that has openly been hostile towards U.S. mission, and one that has proven to be a source of destabilization in the area.

The remedies to these issues once again come from intelligence and diplomatic channels that do not include invasions like the one the United States so hastily entered into with Iraq.

The tactical withdrawal from Iraq can be seen with some high regard as a template for how to end the war in Afghanistan, and exit the region safely and decisively. As a nation we must turn away from this past decade of occupying countries in the name of fighting terror. These endless occupations delay the creation of opportunity within our own nation, which must be one of the priorities as we attempt to overcome the economic hardships facing the nation.

In closing, I would once again like to extend my deepest gratitude to our troops fighting across the nation on the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War, and would like to thank my Congressional Progressive Caucus colleagues again for hosting this event.

In this post-Iraq time we must turn our attention to helping' our men and women who have fought bravely overseas to ensure our freedom and the promotion of democracy.

Earlier this week a new Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic was opened in the Houston area, which will shorten the distance between Houston veterans and the care they need. The nearly 30,000 square foot establishment provides primary health care, mental healthcare, women's specialty care, x-rays, optometry, physical therapy, occupational therapy, ENT (ear, nose and throat) and audiology. The new center will have a fully operational laboratory by July, as well as a visiting cardiologist and surgical physician's assistant for minor procedures.

The new clinic is expected to service 7,000 to 8,000 veterans within its first year of operation and create more than 50 paying jobs.

The Houston area clinic is one of many Community-Based clinics that have been established in response to the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans returning from war. It is vital that we keep these veterans, and current soldiers, in mind as we develop policies to ensure their care and wellbeing.

Mr. Speaker, good day to you. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think if Edmund Burke were alive today he would say that what we're really doing is so very little it's shameful, when we could do so much.

I want to say this, and I want to say it about every chance I get. We could stop this today.

We have just come from a 3-hour Rules meeting and hearing people on the floor and a lot of my colleagues, I have the sense that they don't have any idea what a government shutdown was. All of a sudden it's starting to hurt. Let's pick this piece over here, that one over there, and we can fix that.

800,000 people who work for the United States Government are being used as pawns. We are hurting all of the citizens of the United States who need the services that those 800,000 people provide.

We have one thing to do, Mr. Speaker, one thing: we can take from this desk and concur with the Senate CR. That's it. It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. It can go directly to the President of the United States, maybe even before the big meeting today. Sign it and it's over with. But no, we're not going to do that.

Now, don't believe that this bill was written today because there is a particularly sympathy for patients at NIH or the visitors to the national parks or the citizens of the District of Columbia. These proposals are cynical attempts to make these things pinch just a little bit less.

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that 30 sick children, most with cancer, were turned away from NIH clinical trials because of the government shutdown. Should they be pawns in this political, cynical game to hurt the health care bill?

This morning, the majority proposes to reopen NIH, or part of it. Yesterday, the TV cameras were dispatched around the country to capture the footage of museums and monuments closed. This morning the majority proposes they're going to open those sites.

The majority's making itself clear: anytime they see a bad headline, they're going to bring a bill to the floor to make it go away. At this rate, it could be a year from now before we ever finally come to some conclusion thereon, because nobody has said anything about what the end game is here.

How long are you going to hold the government, the country hostage?

Surely it doesn't have anything to do with health care anymore, after yesterday.

Now, if the majority really cared, we'd reopen the entire government, all of NIH, national parks right here, right now on this floor in this action we're taking today.

If the majority held a simple vote on a clean version of the Senate CR, the government shutdown would be closed upon the President's signature.

This afternoon I will give every Member of this Chamber a chance to do just that, as I did just in the Rules Committee. I want you to know that the opportunity to vote for the CR, end the government shutdown, failed 9-4 on a party-line vote. That tells us something about why we're here today and what the purpose is for all of this.

Let me be clear. This amendment is the only chance that this Chamber may ever have to end the government shutdown. If this Chamber supports my amendment, we will pass a clean CR this afternoon.

Now, if the majority really cared about helping those cancer patients' access to health care or letting the World War II veterans visit the monuments and reopening the doors of the Nation's parks and museums, they will vote for my amendment.

The VA, by the way, has announced today that they are running out of money. Furthermore, passing a clean CR would actually do more to help the Nation's veterans than the majority's proposal to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Under the majority's proposal, the VA would receive $6 billion less than if we simply passed the CR which, in other words, has $6 billion more for the veterans than what you're proposing today.

So for all the cries of concern, the majority's desire to shortchange the veterans by $6 billion tells you all that you need to know. And the veterans understand that. They know that they're being used as a pawn in this cynical, political game, and they resent it.

Far from honest policy, today's proposals are more cynical politics. For almost a week, the majority has found itself in a legislative box, or at least I thought so until a little while ago, and the Rules Committee vote, and when they voted 9-4 not to open up the government, I realized that that was the aim all along.

Now, because the Senate voted for cloture on a clean funding bill, a simple majority of Senators have been able to put an end to the repeated attempts to dismantle the Affordable Health Care Bill.

Now, under these circumstances, the majority knows they can't keep proposing ransom demands, so they've broken cloture and returned to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. The need to break cloture is why they tried to go to conference 15 minutes before the government shutdown, and that's why they are continuing to avoid a clean vote on the Senate CR today.

Mr. Speaker, two paragraphs in The Washington Post this morning sum up what this fight always has been and continues to be about: defunding the Affordable Care Act and taking health care away from 300 million Americans who have no insurance.

Referring to yesterday's events, Ezra Klein of The Washington Post wrote:

The top story all day was that Republicans had shut down

the Federal Government because President Obama would not

defund or delay the Affordable Care Act. The other major

story was that the government servers were crashing because

so many people were trying to see if they could get the

insurance through ObamaCare. On the one hand, Washington was

shut down because Republicans don't want citizens to have

ObamaCare. On the other hand, ObamaCare was shut down because

so many Americans did want that insurance.

Yesterday was, indeed, a historic day for our Nation and for every American who's ever been denied access to health care. In my home State of New York, there were more than 2 million visits to our online exchange in less than 90 minutes.

And by later in the day, the last number that I have, just for yesterday, 10 million people had visited the Web site at the end of the day. That is about 12 percent of the entire population of the State of New York, yesterday.

Meanwhile, 4.7 million people visited healthcare.gov yesterday-- that's the national database--while almost 100,000 more visited online exchanges in Illinois, in Colorado. Most importantly, in States from Kentucky to California, in red States and blue States, thousands of Americans went to sleep last night having purchased health insurance through the newly launched exchanges.

Now, while these Americans went to bed realizing their long-awaited dream, the majority woke up this morning realizing that their worst nightmare had come true. Despite their best efforts, the American people were finally given access to safe and affordable health care.

Now, the only question that remains is if the majority will finally acknowledge reality, or if they will keep the government closed while they continue their quest to take American's health care away.

I'm extremely grateful to the chairman of my committee this morning, when he said, when we called for a vote on funding the government today, he said, and I quote, ``I would say on behalf of the majority, what we think we are doing here today is probably some straight-line Republican viewpoints.''

I strongly urge my colleagues to reject the majority's latest gimmicks by voting ``no'' on the rule and the underlying legislation, and vote ``no'' on the PQ so that we can put our amendment on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that it would be the best of common sense for us to end this charade today. But I understand now, because I've heard it twice, that the intent really is to wait and whittle down the government. As Grover Norquist, I believe, famously said, he would like to shrink it down to drown it in the bathtub.

I think we're in the process of doing that today by funding it a little piece here, a little piece there, and the devil take the hindmost.

I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that the three bills that everybody is so proud of that they've put out to try to re-fund the Government have a dagger at the heart of the health care bill and would have destroyed it.

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, just 10 seconds to say let's not do the least we can do. This is the day we can open up the government and serve our people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if the gentleman from Georgia has any more speakers. If not, I am prepared to close.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule that would allow the House to vote on the clean Senate continuing resolution so that we can send it to the President for his signature today. I don't want that to be lost on anybody. This will probably be the only chance in this House that you will get to vote on what everyone has been asking for.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, we found out already this morning in the Rules Committee, admittedly by the chair, that they don't intend to open the government back up. I brought this very same motion today to the Rules Committee. It was defeated 9-4 on a party-line vote.

My hope today lies in all of the people from the other side, my good friends, who have said that, if they had an opportunity, they'd open up the government again. They would put people back to work and stop the terrible pain that we are simply laying on our Federal workers. What we have done is simply punish them. What we have done to medical science cannot be turned off and on like a faucet, as well as what we have done to our security and what we are doing to our intelligence--all of it, Mr. Speaker. We cannot do this multiple choice of what we will save today, and maybe we will do something else next week if we get a bad headline.

This is terribly important, this opportunity. I want to give notice to all of my friends on the other side to stand up for what you said. Today, please put your voting cards where your mouths have been. Vote because you know it is the right thing to do--to get this government back to work.

I will remind everybody that the Senate has not been holding us up here. The Senate sent a clean CR over early. We have simply ignored it, and everything that we have sent back to them has had nothing to do with the running of the government, but has had everything to do with trying to kill health care.

Today, let's get ourselves back on track and get this magnificent government working again. This country of which we are so proud is looking pretty bedraggled right now because we don't know, with this lurch from crisis to crisis, what is going to happen from one day to the next. This is the day, Mr. Speaker. This is the time. This is the opportunity. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. At that point, we will have our opportunity to vote on the clean CR that does nothing but continues the spending and allows the government to reopen.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 370, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 70) making continuing appropriations for National Park Service operations, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 70, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Well, here we are again, Mr. Speaker. We were here yesterday, with the Republicans trying to open the government back up and the Democrats opposing opening the government back up. But, Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this important legislation to fund the operations of the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.

Mr. Speaker, I spoke yesterday about some of the effects of the government shutdown, which began a couple of days ago. With each passing day, we hear of more and more impacts resulting from the shutdown across the country and in our Nation's Capital.

I want to remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that all 401 National Park Service units in the United States, 19 Smithsonian museums and galleries, including the National Zoo, the Holocaust Museum, and the National Gallery of Art, remain closed to the public. This legislation, if adopted, would reopen these national treasures to the American public.

Mr. Speaker, the government shutdown is having a real impact on real people and on the national economy. I remind my colleagues that it is estimated that the local economy is losing up to $200 million a day, with the National Zoo, Smithsonian museums, Holocaust Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and other popular attractions closed to the public. This doesn't even begin to measure the national and international impacts of these closures.

Think of the families, the veterans groups, the groups of students who all have saved for months and, in some cases, years to travel to our Nation's Capital from across the country to visit the Air and Space Museum, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the National Zoo, Ford's Theater, or the National Gallery of Art.

This government shutdown has a real impact on real people. Think of the families who made reservations to visit Yosemite or Yellowstone or the Statue of Liberty and now find these national parks shuttered today. This government shutdown, again, has real impacts on real people.

Think of the impact the government shutdown is having on Ford's Theater, one of the most hallowed National Park Service historic sites in our country. Not only are tourists denied entrance to the historic theater, but the shutdown has forced evening performances of the theater to be moved to another location because of the budget impasse.

Think of the young people who have a National Park Service permit to get married at the Jefferson Memorial this Saturday. Their families are arriving from all over the country, over 130 people, for what should be the happiest day of this new couple's life. But because of the government shutdown, they are not able to get married at the Jefferson Memorial and are now scrambling to find an alternative location to get married.

Let's pass this bill so this couple and millions of Americans across this country can enjoy our national parks and this couple can get married at the Jefferson Memorial.

There's a photo on the front page of today's Washington Post showing National Park Service employees putting up barricades around the Martin Luther King Memorial on The National Mall. Remember, this is open air, accessible to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and we are putting barriers around it.

Just down the street, barricades were put up around the World War II Memorial--again, a memorial accessible to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Fortunately, these temporary barriers didn't stop a large group of visiting World War II veterans, members of the Greatest Generation in their eighties and nineties, many of them in wheelchairs, from storming the barricades so that they could witness the memorial built in their honor of courage and sacrifice.

Tourists visiting Washington, and, indeed, many furloughed Federal employees are, today, finding actual physical barriers to prevent them from experiencing our open-air national monuments honoring Lincoln, Jefferson, King, and our World War II heroes.

At some point, Congress and the President will overcome their differences over Federal funding. But, isn't it ironic and even cynical that when the government shuts down, the President's administration actually builds physical barriers at sites that are otherwise open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

How cynical is that?

Now, some people say they put those barriers there to protect them from vandalism. So we use the Park Police to put up and protect the barriers, but not the monuments. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

To my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle and to the President, I say this: If you seek a solution to this government shutdown, if you seek a bipartisan solution, Mr. President, you can start by tearing down these barriers.

Let's open our national parks. Let's open the Smithsonian, the National Zoo, the Holocaust Museum and the National Gallery of Art.

Why are the House and Senate Democrats denying the American people the right to visit these treasured sites?

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I will close with this thought. By opposing this legislation, you are voting to keep our national parks closed, to keep Yellowstone closed, to keep Yosemite closed, to keep the Statute of Liberty closed, to keep Ford's Theater closed.

You are voting to keep the Smithsonian closed. You are voting to keep the National Zoo closed. You are voting to keep the Holocaust Museum closed. You are voting to keep the National Gallery of Art closed.

We should not be using our national parks, the Smithsonian, the National Zoo, the Holocaust Museum and the National Gallery of Art as hostages for the Democratic ``my way or the highway'' shutdown, and that's exactly what this is. This is the Democratic ``you either agree with us, or we will shut the government down.''

We just simply wanted to go to conference, but no, that's not good enough either. We can't go to conference to talk about these differences, so let's shut it down, and that's exactly what the Democratic Party has done.

Mr. Speaker, this is a commonsense bill, and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it. Let's reopen these national treasures.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it just stuns me that the gentleman from Virginia is unwilling to put his constituents back to work in opening and working in our national parks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), the Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have on either side?

Mr. Chairman, it is now my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Riverside, California (Mr. Calvert), a valuable member of the Interior Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the

gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who represents what may be one of the most beautiful places in this country, Yosemite National Park.

Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Speaker, I am disgusted that the gentleman from California would actually use the word ``jihad'' on the floor of the House. We should all reject his comments and he should be censured, but I won't call for it.

I'm the last speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, most people might not realize that Mr. Moran from Virginia and I are pretty good friends and we share a lot relative to our Interior Subcommittee. But I will tell you, what it reminds me of, when I'm listening to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is if you say something long enough and often enough, maybe you will get the American people to believe it.

Nobody over here voted to shut down the government. In fact, every time we passed a bill and sent it to the Senate, it was to keep the government operating. Did it include more than that? Yes, it did. And it was rejected by the Senate. So we sent them another one with another offer. They rejected it. We keep sending them things.

Finally, what we said to them is: Let's go to conference and work out our differences. But no, they won't even sit and talk to us. So the distinguished minority whip from Maryland says: Let's do this; pass our idea, do it my way, and then we'll negotiate.

Well, that's just backwards. We need to go to conference and settle our differences and get a bill out here that keeps the government operating. That's what everyone here wants to do.

It is not a Republican shutdown. It is a Democratic ``my way or the highway.'' You agree with us or we will shut the government down. That's exactly what the minority party has done here.

I would encourage my Members to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's motion.

Mr. Speaker, I insist on my point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against the motion to recommit. This motion is not germane and as such is a violation of rule XVI, clause 7, which states:

No motion or proposition on a subject different from that under consideration shall be admitted under color of amendment.

This motion deals with a proposition unrelated to the matter addressed by the joint resolution and brings in a matter under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Rules, which fails the committee of jurisdiction test, and therefore is a violation of rule XVI, clause 7.

I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the table.