H.Res. 370

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.

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. 71) making continuing appropriations of local funds of the District of Columbia for fiscal year 2014, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 71, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the House, I bring before the House today a continuing resolution that's very limited in scope. It simply allows the District of Columbia to spend their locally raised revenues. That's all it does.

I brought this same resolution before the House yesterday, under the suspension of the rules. The vote was 265-163, a majority, but not the two-thirds majority required by the suspension of the rules. So the bill that is back before us today will require a majority for passage.

Quite frankly, I don't understand why so many of our friends on the other side of the aisle voted ``no'' yesterday, because all it does is allow the District of Columbia to spend their own money. But, be that as it may, that's what happened.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District of Columbia, made a very eloquent, very impassioned plea as to why we should pass this continuing resolution. But apparently that didn't convince enough of her Democratic colleagues for it to reach the two-thirds majority. So here we are today.

I think most of the Members recognize that the District of Columbia is unique. It's a unique city among all the cities in our great country. It's called a Federal city. And because of that unique relationship, Congress must appropriate the locally raised funds before they can be spent.

We do that every year, on a routine basis, as part of the Financial Services appropriations bill. We've done that from time to time, and things always seem to work out. But this time, we're back with the same resolution that we had yesterday.

The way it works is simply this: the District of Columbia has passed the 2014 budget. The mayor makes his proposal, the city council receives the proposal, it considers the budget, and this year it has approved the budget. There's an independent chief financial officer that has certified the budget. It's balanced. And there we are.

So now we're faced with a situation, unless Congress appropriates the money, they're not able to spend the money.

I don't think that, after they passed their budget, that just because the United States Congress is arguing back and forth between the House and the Senate as to how we should fund the government, I don't think that should stop the District of Columbia, this unique city, from spending the money that they've raised locally.

For instance, you have people that work for the District of Columbia, like any other city. You have schoolteachers that go to work every day, and they teach kids. You've got policemen that get up every day, that work night shifts, day shifts, to make sure that the streets in the District of Columbia are safe.

You've got firemen that go to work every day. They're there on call in case there's an emergency. Other first responders, they're working every day.

People keep the streets clean. They pick up the garbage. People go to work as librarians, and they do the work to make sure that people have access to reading material.

Now, there's no reason in the world why these people should be furloughed or not paid simply because Congress can't get its act together as to how to fund the Federal Government. That doesn't make any sense.

And if you live in the District of Columbia, you shouldn't have your quality of life degraded because of what goes on in Congress. You ought to have the police and fire protection. You have all the services that other cities have. You ought to have those.

Despite the fact that we tried to get together, the House and the Senate, to figure out a way to keep our government running, to keep it open, we haven't been able to do that. And so we shouldn't penalize the people in the District of Columbia for that.

So this simple resolution takes care of that. It authorizes, it appropriates the money, under the law, that needs to be spent on the local level by the locally raised funds. That's what it does.

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

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

I just find it ironic that the other side always likes to complain that Republicans meddle too much in the affairs of the District of Columbia. And yet yesterday, so many of them voted not to even let the District of Columbia access their own local funds.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I still don't understand why it's so hard for my friends on the other side to vote in favor of allowing the District of Columbia to spend their own locally raised funds.

Back in 1996, as they may recall, there was a shutdown of the government; and there was a standalone provision, pretty much just like this, and it was signed into law by the President of the United States. It was Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

I just don't understand why it's so hard for Democrats to accept that today.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California, Darrell Issa, the distinguished chairman of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee.

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time is remaining on each side.

Mr. Speaker, can I inquire of the gentleman from New York how many speakers he has remaining?

We don't have any additional speakers, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

There has been a lot of talk about political games. To watch people parade up and down and make speeches under the guise of a unanimous consent, I am not sure how serious that is. I am not sure how much that complies with the rules of the House. But be that as it may.

You have folks on the other side that say they really believe the District of Columbia ought to be able to spend its own money, but yet they vote ``no'' on the authorization to do that.

We are in the second day of a shutdown in the Federal Government. A lot of people are upset. I am upset, I am disappointed, because it doesn't have to be this way.

On three separate occasions, this House sent to the Senate a continuing resolution that would have kept the government open, kept the government running--three times. Yet three times the Democratic- controlled Senate said no--not once, not twice, but three times.

Then this House sent to the Senate a continuing resolution that also said: let's appoint a conference committee. That is a group of individuals from the House and a group of individuals from the Senate. They would sit down and they would try to resolve these differences to try to keep the government open. Because how are you going to solve a problem unless you sit down--that is what we call a conference committee--and then you try to move forward? But the Senate once again said no.

Now, we all know that we have conference committees from time to time. The gentleman from New York and I--he is the ranking member of the Financial Services Subcommittee of Appropriations. We have jurisdiction over lots of different agencies--the IRS, the Department of Treasury, the Federal Court system, the Supreme Court, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission.

We drafted a spending bill this year. I assumed the Senate was working on their own spending bill somewhere, somehow, some way. Usually, when it all ends up there is a conference committee and you try to work out your differences.

For instance, we oversee the IRS. Members might remember the scandal that took place. As we were appropriating money to the IRS, we found out that they had been singling out individuals and groups of individuals based on their political philosophy and they had intimidated them, they bullied them, and it held them up. We thought that was wrong. So when we drafted our appropriations bill we didn't give the IRS all the money they asked for.

But the Senate might have done something different. If that was the case, then we would come together and have a conference committee, and we would talk about that.

That is all we are saying here. Why don't we sit down and have a conference committee about how we are going to fund the Federal Government? That is the way to get started, that is the way to figure out a final way, that is a way to stop this shutdown.

Again, we don't have to be here. It is disappointing. I wish we could move ahead. But at least--at least--let's pass this continuing resolution. Let's say to the District of Columbia we have met our legal responsibility and we have appropriated their own local funds so they can move on with their lives. Let's don't punish the citizens of the District of Columbia, let's don't punish the people that work in the District of Columbia to try to keep the city open, keep it running, keep it safe, keep it clean. Let's pass this resolution and move ahead.

With that, I urge the adoption of this joint resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

For the people watching at home, this debate may seem familiar, and it is, because we just considered this same bill yesterday. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in the past 24 hours, so I continue to oppose this bill.

Our Nation still finds itself in the midst of a completely unnecessary government shutdown caused by the Republican Party. And we all know the solution--passing the Senate version of the continuing resolution, which would reopen our Nation's government totally for everyone.

Doing anything less than a full CR is simply a political ploy. It is a false process designed, strangely enough, by a member of the other body to deflect attention from the harm that the shutdown is causing.

Now, for 23 years that I've been in Congress, I've been, at times, begging Members of the other side of the aisle to help the District of Columbia. I've spent years getting rid of riders that they imposed on the District of Columbia.

All the things that you just heard today from the chairman of the committee, who I have a lot of respect for--and I know the public listens to this kind of debate and then says, but they say they respect each other. We do. We care for each other.

But a lot of this is just simply politics. All of the things that he just said are things that for 23 years his party refused to do for the District of Columbia. This is only to make it look good now so they can find yet another way to go after ObamaCare.

In fact, this bill continues that meddling by continuing a harmful and controversial rider that prevents the District of Columbia from spending its own funds on abortion services. No other State in the Nation has such a restriction.

Although I support D.C. being able to spend its own money, I do not understand why this bill is not being considered as part of the full Financial Services appropriations bill.

Many agencies under our jurisdiction have suffered, or will suffer, devastating problems as a result of the Republican Federal Government shutdown. Let me recap briefly some of the problems that I mentioned yesterday.

The Republican shutdown has required the Small Business Administration, our committee, to furlough almost two-thirds of its workforce. The agency has had to shutter almost all of its loan programs for our Nation's small businesses, including loan programs for veterans, women-owned small businesses, and small businesses located in underserved areas.

The Federal defenders currently have enough money to continue operations for just a couple of weeks. However, once that time is up, they will be unable to fulfill their constitutional duty to uphold the Sixth Amendment rights of criminal defendants.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is going down from 540 employees to only 22, putting all of the American people at risk.

The IRS, a favorite target of the other side, has been forced to lay off most of their workforce, preventing the agency from providing taxpayer assistance to those who have questions, to examine questionable tax returns, or even to accept paper tax filings. The IRS brings the vast majority of our Nation's revenue, and the Republican shutdown is harming our ability to pay our bills.

All of these agencies need and deserve a continuing resolution so they can perform the many functions of government that remain essential to American consumers, investors, taxpayers, and small businesses.

Let me close by saying that I have a lot of respect for the Members on the other side, but you've been caught up by a small group in your party and one person in the other body who is running this show and telling you that this shutdown has to go down for as long as it can-- until the public tells you not to do it any longer. And they will do that soon.

And so rather than now open up the government totally by approving a proper resolution, you're going to start nitpicking little pieces--not necessarily because you have now developed this great love for the District of Columbia, but because you know that it can divide people on this side and on your side. And division is what is best for this situation right now for a lot of folks on your side.

I hope that we can see this for what it is--which is a sham, a trick, and more of the same.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Not allowing them to use their local funds is something that has been said on that side many, many, many times.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the dean of the House.

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

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

Just two quick points. First of all, the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), the bill yesterday passed on a voice vote, and then he interrupted the Speaker and asked for a vote, which then led to a recorded vote.

Secondly, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Lowey), my colleague and ranking

member on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) for a unanimous consent request.

Charged with what?

Oh, just checking what I was being charged with.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Meng) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, does that mean that the Members cannot state why we should end this charade?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer) for a unanimous consent request.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey) for a unanimous consent statement.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano) for a unanimous consent request.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Barber) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the great State of New York (Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I'd now like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

We have two.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) for a unanimous consent statement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I just wish that in the 23 years I've been fighting on behalf of the District of Columbia I had heard so much love from the other side for the District of Columbia.

This is a game, this is a ploy. It is such a ploy that even when they had an opportunity to get by under the screen yesterday, they didn't do it.

Let me just end briefly by repeating this. There was a vote call on the floor. No one from this side called for a vote. The Speaker said that the bill had passed. Someone--they are denying now who it was-- from that side called for a vote.

We had a vote on this bill yesterday which resulted in what it resulted in because that side called for a vote. Why? Because they wanted to show a vote on the board. They wanted to make this a show, a trick, a ploy, and a sham. They didn't want that bill to really pass, and I am not sure they want the bill to pass today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, here we go again--the majority instead of opening Federal government they are introducing another scheme to waste time trying to make what they are doing even more painful to the American public.

I rise to speak on the Continuing Resolutions to re-open the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of many very important Federal government agencies.

NIH is comprised of many institutes that specialize in seeking cures for some of mankind's most dreaded and difficult diseases and afflictions such as: blindness, heart disease, blood diseases, infection diseases, cancer, stroke, alcoholism; arthritis, musculoskeletal and skin diseases, hearing and balance disorders, drug abuse, and mental illness.

NIH institutes focus solely on finding cures for the list of illnesses that I just mentioned. Researchers work often within a closed sterile world for decades looking for that one piece of information when placed within the body of knowledge known about a disease may save lives or health.

The NIH Institutes include the following, the: National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute on Aging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Nursing Research, and National Library of Medicine.

Because of the work of NIH to identify potential treatments and cures each year and a rare few are allowed into treatment and drug trials to discover if what the Institutes' researchers have discovered will yield beneficial results for the entire population, not just in the United States but the entire world.

NIH's work is racing against the clock to find cures in time to save or improve the quality of lives. There are medical professionals who are serving in the Congress and you have each benefited from the work of NIH and so have your patients.

We should listen to what researchers are saying about the Federal government shutdown:

Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research! America, said: ``On a micro level, we are concerned that an incremental approach to the shutdown neglects disruptions to lifesaving funded by other federal agencies, as well as access to treatments in the pipeline at the Food and Drug Administration,'' Woolley said. ``And because it is unlikely that this measure would pass both houses, it may simply delay funding for NIH.''

Benjamin Corb, director of public affairs for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: ``The data shows that deep cuts to federal investments in research are tearing at the fabric of the nation's scientific enterprise and have a minimal impact on overcoming our national debt and deficit problems,'' he said. ``I hope leaders from both parties in Washington review these findings and join with scientists to say `enough is enough.' ''

Chris Hansen, president of American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said ``Every week the government is shut down, the NIH Clinical Center will have to turn away cancer patients who are eligible to start potentially lifesaving clinical trials--a devastating impact that compounds the problem created by the sequester that resulted in 1,000 people being turned away from clinical trials in the past year.''

This Congress has done harm to NIH research through Sequestration: funding cuts occurred indiscriminately across all areas of research. Cell lines were lost that had been developed over generations to see how they change to learn more about what goes wrong within cells and what may be done to prevent cancers from developing.

Sequestration damaged NIH research that involved a study of rabbits that were carefully breed over years to learn about inherited disorders, but due to the Sequestration an entire line was destroyed because they could not be cared for nor were there funds to keep the copious and careful notes needed to document each generation's development.

It should chill us all to think about what may be lost in NIH research because of the last few days of government shutdown. Our tools are words, the work of NIH researchers are cells and specimens that cannot wait for the majority to figure out why the Federal government matters.

Every 36 minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. That's enough children to fill a classroom each day, which adds up to almost 15,000 new cases of childhood cancer each year.

Children under the age of 21 are diagnosed with cancer every year; approximately \1/4\ of them will not survive the disease.

Each year in Texas, almost 1,200 children and adolescents younger than 20 years of age are diagnosed with cancer. Approximately 200 children and adolescents die of cancer each year, making cancer the most common cause of disease-related mortality for Texans 0-19 years of age.

Treatments and Death Rates

Approximately 2,300 children will die this year from cancer.

The five-year survival rates for childhood cancer have increased greatly over the past 30 years.

Prior to 1970, children diagnosed with cancer would survive less than 50 percent of the time.

Today, due to modern forms of treatment, the five-year survival rate is almost 80 percent.

Cure rates vary for specific cancers depending on the stage of diagnosis and the cancer type; some forms of cancer remain resistant to treatment.

For example, due to better treatments and research, children with leukemia can be cured almost 80 percent of the time. Neuro-blastoma is among the most difficult childhood cancers to cure.

More kids die from childhood cancers than any other disease.

In fact, cancer kills more children than asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined.

By the age of 20, one in every 330 Americans will develop cancer.

Approximately 10,400 children and teens ages 0-14 years will be diagnosed with cancer this year in the United States.

Treating childhood cancer differs greatly from treating adults with cancer.

Those children who do survive may have serious health challenges to long term survival--for example a treatment that saves a child's life may cause a severe heart problem that threatens the long term health of that child.

Today, more than 90% of 13,500 children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States are cured because of the work of researchers like those working at NIH.

Research is needed to help these young cancer survivors' live full and productive lives.

I know that members of the majority now know that there is a government agency called the National Institutes of Health and that the work that this government agency does is important, but the work of all of our federal agencies are important.

For this reasons, we cannot wait for the majority to discover all of the reasons why we have a federal government or the importance and purpose of each agency.

We have to pass a clean CR now--we do not need to wait, just bring to the floor the bills sent to this body by the Senate.