H.Res. 373

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 373, I call up the bill (H.R. 3273) to establish a bicameral working group on deficit reduction and economic growth, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 3273.

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

It has been 1 week since the Federal Government shut down. In that time, House Republicans have passed several appropriations bills designed to provide funding for numerous parts of the government's most important functions. Additionally, we've invited Senate Democrats to join us at the negotiating table to find a commonsense solution to our Nation's fiscal problems.

Unfortunately, no one over these 3 weeks has been able to reach a compromise, and Senate Democrats have simply returned our volley every time without a value-added proposition. So what we are here to do today is to stand up once again and say we believe we are trying to appropriately fund the Federal Government.

As a result, we are here today. House Republicans are going to offer to sit down at the negotiation table with Senate Democrats in an effort to reach the meaningful solutions our constituents expect from us.

H.R. 3273, the Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act of 2013, would establish a bicameral, bipartisan working group consisting of six Members of the majority and four Members of the minority from both the House and the Senate. These 20 Members would be appointed no less than 1 day after enactment of the legislation and would meet each subsequent calendar day to provide recommendations to overall discretionary spending levels for fiscal year 2014, changes to the discretionary debt limit, and reforms to direct spending programs.

Mr. Speaker, being from Texas, I am used to a lot of people trying to work for the good--the common good--of its people. I will tell you that I fully expect that the reason I came to Washington was to work for the good and not for just the people of Texas, but to accept the responsibility. It was important that I come to work for all people in Texas and the American people to make their lives better. I believe that some of those ideas include sitting down, talking, negotiating, finding common ground, leading--not obstructing, not saying ``no,'' not being the

first one to walk out or not agreeing to meet, but, rather, to sit down and be constructive.

That is what we in the House of Representatives are trying to do once again today with a common set of principles. We believe constitutionally, as the House of Representatives, we have the authority and the responsibility to be leaders in the process that will allow the American people to effectively see who is here, who is working, and expect us to get our job done. Unfortunately, it's a rough world, and we're having a tough time, so a new idea today is to gather our colleagues together from each side and see if we can make progress.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican Party hears the gentleman. We are also listening to the American people. The American people are sick and worried about their future. They see a government that spends too much money and listens too little. They tax too much and leave too little for the American people. They are very aware that this Big Government ploy and play by not just this administration, but the prior administration that ran this House of Representatives, placed America in a detrimental position, in a position where we have health care that is a government-run health care plan, that is causing not just uncertainty, but unemployment. Republicans got into this whole mess of the debate with ObamaCare because it got closer and closer and closer to implementation.

Let's look at what this bill tactically does. It tactically puts rules and regulations on business. That means that business arbitrarily will make decisions literally to cut not only the amount of people that they have, but the work hours associated with that. Many unions across the United States are concerned about the loss of the 40-hour workweek because that's the threshold that Democrats have placed the American worker in.

So the Republican Party, in listening not just to business, but workers, made a determination that the closer we got to this implementation, we were going to continue discussing how bad this was for not just business, but for individuals.

Then the President came and unilaterally decided he would let businesses be deferred for a year, but kept the rules and regulations on individuals. That was done over Fourth of July, just in a tweet that went out. They weren't even brave enough to put the full announcement out.

So now the Republicans have focused since the Fourth of July on the unfairness about how individuals will be expected to apply all of these laws directly on them as individuals. See, what the American people understand is, it is almost impossible to fight as an individual against a big government, against the IRS, and it's the IRS who will be making sure that the American people follow this tax law.

That is what the Supreme Court said it is. It is a tax law.

That is where lots of groups around the country continue to speak, not only clearly, but with effectiveness, about how it is unfair for the President to give 1,200 waivers and a waiver to certain people who were included in the bill--business--and now he is going to waive that but put it off on individuals.

These are small business owners. They are men and women who are not just our neighbors. They are men and women who produce the goods and services, who put their name on their businesses, who have their children become teachers and firefighters and members of our military.

They see where this is harming their ability to have health care. It is harming their ability to have the opportunity for their small business to be successful because it is putting them at a disadvantage. Perhaps worst of all, there are lots of businesses who understand that this will cost an incredible amount of money, and that is why businesses will not offer the exact same health care plan that they had previously--UPS, all the way to Delta Air Lines, and lots of other companies.

That is why it is very timely--it is very timely--that Republicans have been doing this all year, but we focused on this directly at the implementation.

We are here for a good reason. We are trying to now change the dynamics with a working group. We are trying to say we believe that some of our colleagues would have a better opportunity to negotiate with some good ideas. Trust me, there are good ideas that float back and forth between Republicans and Democrats all the time. We are trying to say that a successful ``rain dance'' has a lot to do with timing.

That success can be accepting this working group, getting our Members together on a bipartisan basis--House and Senate--immediately within a day or so, and then start working together. Do you know what? Even if they weren't the final answer, what a great opportunity to empower our Members to talk and work together and see if they can make headway.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would thankfully acknowledge the floor of the House of Representatives here for voting on several very, very important items that allow those employees that today might not be at work. We have asked that they come back to work, and it was passed here--those in food and drug security, those in Head Start, those in national emergency disaster recovery, those in the NIH, and those in national parks.

These are an example of the ideas that have come forth from votes on this floor. And soon to come--intelligence, border security, Native Americans, and Alaskan health care, national weather monitoring, nuclear weapons security, and nutrition assistance for women and children.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman for asking. My dear friend, very respectfully, has asked a good question.

As a matter of fact, we would like to move forward with all 150 as quickly as possible. What we would like to do is move through these. We've got them now. They are lined up to go to our colleagues on the other side of the Capitol. But they don't want to do that.

Why would I move forward if they don't want to do that? Why would we move forward if they do not actually really want to open up the government except under their terms?

We believe that they have not addressed the underlying problems:

Number one, what is happening with this thing called ObamaCare, and secondly, with the debt? We are adding debt as we speak. We have gone from $9- to $17 trillion in just a few short years.

We have been working with the President. We have been doing things in the 3 years that Republicans have been back in the majority. We are trying to correct the errors of the past. That is why we are here today.

The gentleman asked a good question: Wouldn't it be a good thing to get through our list of 150? I would say to the gentleman, we have already done some and we will keep doing them.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

As the gentleman knows, there are few people in this House who I have a better relationship than I do with the gentleman from Maryland. With great respect, I listened to him and his words.

I would say back to him there is a little bit more that really comes to us from people who speak about their lives also. I am concerned about people who are not only working for our great government and people who receive services, but we are also trying--without to make a point--we are trying to make changes in the Affordable Care Act, which is also known as ObamaCare.

There are several things about the Affordable Care Act that render that title difficult to understand, because the Affordable Care Act, within a year the Congressional Budget Office said they believed it would be at least twice as expensive as it was originally thought it would be.

Secondly, some 70 percent more people will be in the system because they provided a figure that did not match what they expect now for people to be in it from people who moved off of their worker plans, their insurance plans.

Third, the President stood right here one State of the Union and said there won't be a dime of taxpayer money.

And lastly, the President of the United States said:

And if you like your insurance, I guarantee you, you can

keep it.

But, Mr. Speaker, what has happened since then is this administration was incapable of providing information about how this would work. And even to today, after the announcement was made, people are going onto the Web site and learning more about these exchanges.

The largest cardiology group in America, cardiologists--heart doctors--were not even included or asked to be in the exchange. Not even given a chance to say no, thank you, the largest cardiology group in America.

So now the American people are looking at it and saying, my doctor's not even included, so who is included because my doctor is not, and now I am looking at this plan that is very expensive. Granted, New York City, the State of New York was less because they had a very expensive plan, and it's true in some places it is less. But the best doctors or the doctors that people went to are not even included in those plans now. As an example, as I said, the largest cardiology group, the most experienced cardiologists, the ones you want to go to for Medicare, for Medicaid, and for your health insurance, are not even going to be included in the government plan.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is just one example about the disappointment that the American people have because they were told one thing, and they're going to get something else. Because you're fighting the government, we have to do it in such a public way. If we simply followed the law, and the contract or the express contract did not equal what came out the other end, you could go to court and sue for it. But you can't sue the government over this. So we are litigating this actually, Mr. Speaker, right before your eyes in a very public way, saying that we believe this health care, known as ObamaCare, should not be entered into lightly.

We better understand what we're doing, and we're asking for a lot of changes. Those changes are: we think we ought to delay it; we think we ought to defer it; we think we ought to wait on it. We have, in essence, backed up every single time from our demand, and now we've gotten to a point where we, as Republicans in our discussion through legislation with the Senate, have now gotten to the point where we've said, We are where we're going to be. Now we're going to try and open up the government and we're going to try and make it work. That's the facts of the case, and that's just the way it is.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, there is some truth to this. I and the Speaker and the majority leader and the whip and our conference do not want to have anything that would empower somebody to raise taxes. But we did want to empower that we would allow maybe Mr. Dingell, the Dean of the House, maybe Mr. Van Hollen, maybe Mr. Hastings, to be part of a committee, a working group that would sit down with their colleagues and speak honestly--and maybe Mrs. Lowey--speak honestly about how we get out of this mess that we all have.

And as a working group, as a working group with no dictates but how you've got to do what you're going to do, no timeframe except you have to go meet, and you've got to be successful, and it's going to be about these items. In other words, make ``the big deal'' the big deal. And the big deal right now is spending, debt, and how we do something to get this government back to work. That's what I think the legislation does.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I yield myself the remaining time.

Mr. Speaker, we're here because Republicans want us to move forward with a process that is very important. We've had a number of times that the gentlewoman, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Mrs. Lowey, we've had the great young chairman from Kentucky, Mr. Rogers, chairman of Appropriations, come up to the committee and talk very clearly about their ideas about moving forward to get things done.

I don't know that they would be the representatives of this body, but I bet they would be and I bet you that they could make real progress, along with, perhaps, Mr. Van Hollen and others who are awesome Members on their side, Members who are committed to getting the work done.

But this is a fight, and it's a fight that goes all the way to our friends in the Senate and all the way to the President. As best I can tell you, just as I started, I will end today. I will say that today's stalemate is the making of the President. This is his making. He places his own political power, I believe, above the Constitution, wanting to dictate policies instead of negotiating them with a duly elected branch of government, and that's the House of Representatives.

I hope that the American people take note of what's happening. The President is different from his predecessors not in terms of greatness, but rather to the degree to which he's willing to sacrifice this Nation's greatness. He's willing to take us to the brink, rather than offering his negotiating skill-set and getting people together. That is what we should be about.

The Speaker of the House has literally instructed us to get a working group together, gather it on a bipartisan basis, and see if we can make progress not with the President, not with the Speaker, not with the Senate Majority Leader, but among Members of this body who we know and who we respect. Let's gather us together, and let's get together, and let's make a difference. That's what we're trying to suggest today. I will tell you that my colleagues that have been here on the floor, including the great minority whip, I believe have the ability to make this success happen if we will work together. That's what I'm for.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that the amendment contained in the motion violates clause 7 of rule XVI, commonly referred to as the germaneness rule.

The objective of the bill under consideration is to establish a working group on deficit reduction. The amendment proposes to consider a Senate amendment to a House bill; therefore, the amendment fails the fundamental purpose test of germaneness described on page 547 of House Practice:

If the purpose or objective of an amendment is unrelated to that of the bill to which it is offered, the amendment may be held not germane.

Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, the amendment proposed in the motion is not germane to the bill, and I respectfully request a ruling from the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), my good friend, for granting me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my Republican friends are devolving into self-parody. The solution to this unnecessary and manufactured crisis is simple, and it hasn't changed for months:

Step one, pass a clean, short-term continuing resolution at Republican sequester levels to reopen the government;

Step two, pass a clean debt ceiling bill so that the United States will not default for the first time in history and so we don't send the economy into a tailspin;

Step three, finally agree to go to conference on the budget so we can sit down and talk about our priorities.

Let me go over that once more just in case there's any confusion on the other side of the aisle: reopen the government; raise the debt ceiling; and negotiate on the budget.

That has been what the White House and Democrats in Congress have been asking for over and over and over and over again. It's what we're asking for today, and it's what we will ask for tomorrow.

By contrast, the list of House Republican demands changes every 10 minutes: repeal ObamaCare, defund ObamaCare, delay ObamaCare, stage a non-filibuster filibuster, ask for the entire Romney economic platform in order to raise the debt ceiling, yell at park rangers, fund this part of the government, fund that part of the government, pay furloughed employees, pay essential employees, hold a conference meeting, hold a press conference, rinse and repeat.

Enough, Mr. Speaker. Enough.

Here we are again with yet another convoluted, cockamamie legislative effort that is going absolutely nowhere. We have yet another ``message bill'' that is designed to win today's news cycle but that gets us no closer to resolving this crisis.

Today's effort is particularly pathetic, Mr. Speaker. Instead of actually

solving the problem and letting the American people get on with their lives, the bill before us today would create that most cherished and beloved Washington institution, a committee--not just any committee, no, but another supercommittee. It's Supercommittee 2: The Wrath of Cruz.

We have before us a bill that was dreamed up--Lord knows when-- floated in the press at 10 o'clock this morning, distributed as legislative language at 11:30 this morning, in the Rules Committee at 12:30, and on the floor at 3:20. Forget the 3-day rule, Mr. Speaker. This contraption barely even followed the 3-hour rule.

And the Superdupercommittee Part 2--pardon me, the ``bicameral working group on deficit reduction and economic growth''--that is created by this bill doesn't come with any instructions. There is no time line. There is no deadline. It doesn't reopen the government. It doesn't prevent a default. It doesn't do much of anything.

It's unclear whether coffee and pastries will be provided at the Superdupercommittee Part 2 working group. Maybe we need another bill to do that.

This is just another press release. Mr. Speaker, we do not need another committee to do the job that we were elected to do. Let me remind my colleagues that we have this thing called the Budget Committee, and the Republicans made a big deal about the fact that we passed a budget in the House and the Senate didn't pass a budget in the Senate. Then the Senate did pass a budget. What you're supposed to do is then go to conference and work out your differences and come up with a final product. For 6 months we have been pleading with the Speaker of the House and the Republican leadership to appoint conferees to negotiate a budget agreement. That's the way it's supposed to work. The Senate does something, we do something, and we negotiate the differences. For 6 months the Republicans have refused to appoint conferees, and now they're saying we need this kind of vague committee that has no instructions, that has no time line. It doesn't do anything to stop the government shutdown. It doesn't do anything to stop the government default on our financial obligations.

This is no way to run a railroad, let alone the United States House of Representatives. So I would urge the Republican leadership to start caring a little less about winning today's news cycle and a little more about the American people, who sent us here and who expect us to do our jobs.

Open the government. Raise the debt ceiling. Negotiate on the budget. It is really not that complicated.

In the meantime, I urge all of my colleagues to reject this closed rule, reject the underlying legislation, and reject the politics of manufactured crises.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume

Mr. Speaker, we are in this predicament because the Republicans shut the government down. It is that simple.

You own this shutdown whether you like it or not.

The gentleman quoted Politico. Let me read from Politico. It says:

President Barack Obama opened the door to a short-term debt

ceiling increase in order to avoid going over the fiscal

cliff and allowed negotiations between the White House and

Congress on a long-term deal.

That doesn't sound like someone who doesn't want to negotiate. I'd prefer a long-term deal because I'm tired of this crisis by crisis by crisis, but this President has gone out of his way to negotiate over and over and over again.

I will just point out another thing for my colleagues. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Boehner negotiated a deal on this short-term continuing resolution to keep the government going. Speaker Boehner admitted that this week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, that they negotiated a short-term spending deal to keep the government open at the Republican sequester levels. The deal was that, in return for the Republican numbers, the Speaker wouldn't attach any extraneous materials to that short-term continuing resolution.

Obviously, that is a deal that the Speaker did not keep in large part because of a group in his conference who kind of represents, I guess, the Ted Cruz wing of the party who said that wasn't enough. They wanted to shut the government down, and they're willing to default on paying our bills for the first time in history. That is, in my opinion, unconscionable.

Let's not talk about who wants to negotiate here. Democrats have negotiated going to your level on the short-term continuing resolution. The President has been willing to negotiate time and time again. Every time he gets close to an agreement, the Speaker can't deliver. He's going to continue to try, but don't say he's not trying to negotiate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the gentleman from South Carolina, who just spoke, I don't know what he is talking about.

We have been negotiating. This temporary spending measure that we're talking about, Harry Reid negotiated it with Speaker Boehner. It's at your levels, your sequester levels. Do you think I like that? I can't stand it, but I don't want to shut the government down.

The bottom line was the Speaker said that, in exchange for that, there would be no extraneous materials attached to that CR. He wasn't able to deliver on his promise because of some people in your conference. It's that simple.

The gentleman is on the Budget Committee. I would think that, in being on the Budget Committee, you would want to go to conference--you worked on a budget; the Senate worked on a budget--to work out those spending differences. We have tried 19 times to get you to go to conference, and you refused to negotiate with the Senate on each of those occasions.

Every time the President negotiates, unfortunately, your leadership can't deliver on the deals. So we have been negotiating, negotiating, negotiating. We still want to negotiate, but, please, the gentleman gave no reason why we should shut down this government, why the Republicans should have shut down this government, and he has given no reason why we should default on our financial obligations. We ought to pass a short-term spending bill to reopen the government, and we ought to pass a clean debt ceiling bill so we don't default on our financial obligations and ruin our economy.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if you want to end the games, I have a better idea. Just open up the government. End the Republican shutdown.

It's really simple. We could have an up-or-down vote to open up government today, and all the Federal workers would be taken care of, and all the monuments would be reopened. We wouldn't be having all this controversy. We can get serious about negotiating a long-term spending bill. It's a better way.

So join with us and support a clean continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the Dean of the House.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me just remind my colleagues there's an easy way to solve all of this--reopen the government, raise the debt ceiling, and negotiate a new budget. Our minority leader has already said it on the floor. It's our willingness to cooperate.

It's not that complicated. You can save all this misery that Federal workers are now enduring by reopening the government right now. This is not that hard to do, and it's at your number. It's at Republican levels. That is a compromise on our part. We loathe those sequester numbers that Republicans insisted on enshrining--those are horrible for our economy--but to keep the government open, we're going to swallow that so we have time to work out a longer-term deal.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I served as an aide here on Capitol Hill when Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House. I think he is one of the greatest Speakers that ever served in the United States House of Representatives. He was a friend of mine as well.

I will tell you that Speaker O'Neill would never go on national TV and threaten to default on the debt to this Nation. He would never, ever act in a way that might bring this economy to ruin. He put country before political party.

I would also say that Speaker O'Neill understood the importance of working in a bipartisan way. He would be disgusted with the way this House is being

run today. The bottom line is he'd be scratching his head right now, wondering why we just don't resolve this in a very simple way.

There were 200 Democrats who have signed a letter saying, We will cooperate with the Republicans to pass a clean continuing resolution at Republican levels, and we know that there are 20 Republicans in the House who publicly said they would support such a move. That's the majority. We could open up the government in a matter of minutes. In the Senate, over a dozen Republican Senators voted for cloture on a clean continuing resolution. That is bipartisanship. Accept it. This is the way this House should be run.

So I would just point that out to my colleagues that we're going through all this rigamarole for I don't know what when we could end this Republican shutdown right now by bringing a clean continuing resolution at Republican levels to the House floor. It would pass in a bipartisan way, and I predict that there will even be more than 20 Republicans that would support it. They want a way out of this.

Let's open the government. Let us not use the debt ceiling in the threatening manner in which it's being used by the Republican leadership here. We should never--I don't care what your political ideology is--default on our financial obligations. That is economic ruin for this country, and I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that. We should never use that in such a political way.

Let's work together and appoint budget conferees and go to negotiate a budget conference so we can have some parameters in terms of numbers we can work with.

I listened to some of my colleagues talking on the other side--even those who serve on the Budget Committee--and you wonder why we should have a Budget Committee if the Budget Committee doesn't mean anything. I have a lot more respect for the people that serve on that committee.

As this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

May I ask the gentleman how many more speakers he has?

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

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

I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will allow the House to vote on the clean Senate continuing resolution so that we can send it to the President for his signature today.

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

Mr. Speaker, as we bring this debate to a close, I have the dueling emotions of being angry and being very sad--angry that we are putting the American people through this trauma. This is totally unnecessary. This is a manufactured crisis.

When my colleagues talk about the fact that Democrats aren't willing to negotiate, let me just refer to some of

the recent headlines: ``Nineteen Times Democrats Tried to Negotiate with Republicans''; that's according to the National Journal. ``Republicans Spent Year Blocking Budget Conference''; that was in the Huffington Post. ``Boehner Tells GOP He is Through Negotiating with Obama''; that was in The Hill newspaper. I mean, those are the headlines about my friends' actions during these recent weeks.

The bottom line is that what we're doing today really is sad because I think it diminishes this institution. We ought to be solving problems. We ought to be finding ways to lift people up. We ought to be trying to debate ways to create more jobs and opportunity in this country. We ought to get the government running. We ought to deal with the debt ceiling, not politicize it, and we ought to work on a long- term negotiation so we have a long-term spending bill that makes sense for this country, and we're not doing that.

We're coming up with a committee today that does nothing. You pass this bill, the government still shuts down. You pass this bill, we're still headed for a default on our obligations on October 17. This does nothing. It does nothing. It is sad because it is beneath this great House of Representatives. So many incredible things have happened on this floor, and yet this is so trivial. It is so meaningless at a time of such a great crisis.

I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that this is a crisis that my friends have brought on themselves. There is nothing that says that we should be in shutdown today other than the fact that my friends on the other side of the aisle decided to shut the government down.

Now they're saying they care about the monuments and they care about our senior citizens and our veterans, but they're the ones who shut the government down. They say they don't want to default on our financial obligations, yet we heard on ``This Week'' with George Stephanopoulos that the Speaker of the House is prepared to basically see this country default on our debt. That's what he said.

I mean, I am shocked by that kind of talk. I don't care what party you're in, where you come from ideologically. We all should at least agree that we ought to pay our bills, that if we don't, it will do great damage to our economy, and it will hurt your constituents just as much as mine. We could do so much better. We could do so much better than this.

I would urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say they want a vote on a clean continuing resolution to vote with us on some of these procedural motions. Start giving us some votes on these procedural motions, because it appears that your leadership will not give you the right to an up-or-down vote. Notwithstanding all of the talk about a transparent process, an open process, you're not going to get that vote unless you force it.

Here is the other sad thing. My friends on the other side of the aisle began this Congress by talking about regular order and a transparent, open process. Of all the stuff we've been voting on these last few days, nobody has seen it. Even the committee chairman who oversees these bills doesn't even come to the Rules Committee to testify. We don't know what we're voting on here.

We can do better. Reject this rule. Vote ``no'' on the previous question.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 373 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Worcester, Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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 have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 373 provides for a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 3273, the Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act of 2013; H.J. Res. 89, the Federal Worker Pay Fairness Act of 2013; and H.J. Res. 90, the Flight Safety Act of 2013.

Mr. Speaker, today this body will consider three important pieces of legislation designed to address the current government shutdown and the looming debt limit. The first of these bills would appropriate the funds necessary to pay essential Federal employees who have been continuing to work during the shutdown. These men and women have earned their paychecks and deserve for us to act on their legislation to ensure that they are paid on time.

Secondly, we will consider legislation to fully fund the FAA in order to ensure that our Nation's commerce and air travel continues uninterrupted and safely. There are many, many workers of the FAA who need to come back to work to ensure the safety and to ensure that millions of American passengers in the air are not put at risk due to a continued government shutdown.

Finally, we will consider legislation to establish a bicameral, bipartisan Working Group on Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth. This working group would consist of 10 Members of the House and 10 Members of the Senate, representing six from the majority and four from the minority of both Chambers. These Members would be appointed no less than one day after the enactment of this legislation, and would each meet on the subsequent calendar day until an agreement is reached on the overall discretionary levels for fiscal year 2014; changes to the discretionary debt limit; and reforms to direct spending programs.

For nearly a month now, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans have asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to sit down and negotiate with House Republicans. Bill after bill from House Republicans and this body have gone to the United States Senate only to be batted down or to be revised and to come back without addressing the significant problems that our country faces today.

So what we are trying to do is to find another avenue, and that is to have the House of Representatives and the United States Senate and their appointees be able to meet together in a working group to resolve these issues. What do I envision? I envision a TV would be in the room. The American people could take part in these discussions and see how much progress can be made between Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats and House Republicans and House Democrats on these important issues, and hold those Members accountable for exactly the same thing that we're trying to do, and that is to get this government back opened up with an agreement about how we are going to fund this government.

So, today, we ask once again if the Senate is willing to join us not only as we work towards ending this government shutdown but on how we are going to address our government's debt and put our Nation back to work on the pathway to prosperity. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, hot off the press this afternoon from Politico, which is not exactly a right-wing newspaper, it says:

Obama calls Boehner. Reiterates he won't negotiate.

So the President evidently today, as reported by Politico, called Mr. Boehner to repeat: I'm not going to negotiate on bills to reopen the government or to raise the debt ceiling. That's what's being reported.

Mr. Speaker, this is, I think, a bad precedent. Where I'm from in Dallas, Texas, leaders lead. Leaders lead by trying to do what's in the best interest of everybody, not running to crisis after crisis after crisis, not negotiating, not agreeing to meet with people, not agreeing to do things to help resolution. Leaders present ideas, opportunities, options. They're the ones that stay at the table, and they're the last ones to leave when everybody else gets frustrated.

I think what's important to note is this President is simply different than every other President we've ever had. What he is doing is giving up not only his legitimate moral authority to lead, but what he's doing is saying, I recognize what could happen if we're unsuccessful. I think, as Speaker Boehner said yesterday, the President's senior adviser said he would sooner see the government go into default than to meet with and negotiate with the Republicans. That is not what leaders should be doing, and I would suggest to you that this President stands on the shoulders of other Presidents for 230-plus years who have given their very best to the benefit of others. They have looked at Republicans, they have looked at Democrats, they've looked at House Members, they've looked at Senate Members, and realized they had to negotiate. That was one of the key things I remember as a young man about Ronald Reagan's negotiating with Tip O'Neill, inviting Tip O'Neill down to the White House, their being good with each other, talking about how they could make progress with each other.

We are evidently past that. This President even has the audacity to call the Speaker and say, I'm not going to negotiate with you. That is not good leadership, and the American people are seeing it.

The House of Representatives, we're not going to get our nose out of joint. We're going to stay at work. It is true that we bring this bill up, and we'll probably be here tomorrow and the next day with new ways to negotiate. Today, we're here on the floor just as we were yesterday, just as we were on Saturday, talking about constructive, creative, bipartisan issues to fund this government and to make sure we can get moving.

The NIH should have been open already. We should have had lots of government agencies as a result of what we are doing, including Head Start. We should have these activities, even if it's one by one, to open up. Today, we're on the floor to say, We ought to pay those government employees who have been working when Tuesday rolls around. They should get paid. We should have people at the FAA come back to work and open that agency back up. That's what House Republicans are doing. We recognize this President will not negotiate, but we're going to offer ourselves up. I think the American people see what House Republicans are attempting to do.

I am very proud of not only what our Speaker is doing but of our majority leader, Eric Cantor, and our whip, Kevin McCarthy. They are attempting to move forward ideas that sustain this body to where we can look people straight in the eye and where we can accomplish things on behalf of the American people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the gentlewoman from New York, the ranking member of the committee. Just before we came down to the floor, we had a very, very nice committee meeting where she was able to not only articulate that, but was joined by her other colleagues. I did offer words of assurance to them about not only how we need to move forward but also how the committee needed to get slightly better in our time frames, and we're going to attempt to do that.

The gentlewoman recognizes that what we are doing is bringing bills as quickly as we can, including the FAA, opening up the FAA again, and how important that is. So she recognized the importance of what we are attempting to do.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Rice) of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the minority leader for her comments today and thank her for coming to the floor.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado Springs, Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished Dean of the House has spoken. I gather, from his comments, that he would not like to be appointed on the committee, and I'm disappointed. I was rather hopeful that the minority leader would see that he would be exactly the kind of commonsense person that could represent the party, and so I'd hope that the gentleman would reconsider that.

At this time, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Grandfather Community, North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), the vice chairman of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, we heard from one of the brightest voices of the Republican Party, a member of our Republican leadership, Virginia Foxx.

At this time, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), a member of the Budget Committee and the Rules Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that there is a lot of dialogue on the floor today about opening up the government. Yet this body has passed bill after bill after bill--whether it's the intelligence community, whether it's Head Start, whether it's NIH--making sure that we are going through a deliberative process. Repeatedly, you are seeing where our friends on the other side vote ``no,'' and when it gets to the other body, even though it's a passed piece of legislation, the Senate, our friends over there, ignore the bills. I kind of wonder what we're really trying to aim at, whether we're really just trying to score political points or whether we can begin working together. That's what House Republicans are here to do: to set aside our differences, to try and fund these issues, to try and deal with the President.

Earlier in the week, our great young Speaker, John Boehner, went to the White House. He was asked to come to the White House, and really all he was there to be told by the President was: I won't negotiate. I won't negotiate. I won't negotiate. Then, as Mr. Boehner tells the story, he got that message, so he came back to work. Here we are, trying to send ideas out about working together.

The working group intentionally was an open-ended opportunity for Members of Congress--10 on the House side, 10 on the Senate side--to work together with an opportunity, as a working group, to try and overcome this bypass. That's what we're trying to do. I think we're going to be faithful to it. I think we're going to pass this here today, and then we're going to see what the Senate will do again--I'm sure, once again, just another piece of log over in their fireplace for the Senate majority leader to burn down. I am hopeful here today that we have common sense, and I think we will pass this.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would advise the gentleman, at this time, I do not have any further speakers. I thank the gentleman for asking.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate my dear friend, my colleague, from Worcester, Massachusetts. I will describe it to him real fast.

Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is open up all the employees that are home at the FAA. That's it. We're going to bring them back to work; pay them; get it done, all the employees at the FAA.

Secondly, we're trying to form a working group. We're trying to work around the process that has gotten bogged up today, with an idea from our Speaker, John Boehner, and our Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, and our whip, Kevin McCarthy, and a couple of people who are in the Republican leadership who are saying let's find another way around the logjam that we've got. So we came up with a good idea and said let's go to a working group. Let's actually get 10 Members of the Senate and 10 Members of the House. Let's meet. Let's meet very quickly. As a matter of fact, the resolution says that, within 1 day, they've got to be selected; within 1 day after that, they have to meet. Let's put them to work. Let's put the Members to work on this on a bipartisan, bicameral basis. That is what this is about. It is really pretty simple.

Mr. Speaker, this is not really rocket science right now. We're engaged in how we put one foot in front of the other, and Republicans have been doing this for 3 weeks. We're meeting at the Rules Committee. We're taking testimony. We are listening to the people who come to the committee.

We have very vigorous, detailed debates where Members, Republicans and Democrats, come to the Rules Committee from the Appropriations Committee. As a matter of fact, we've seen some star witnesses in this House--stars, good people, great ideas--trying to push that we're going to work together. We're going to do this together. We can do this together. Not all the bills were agreed to, but a bunch of them have been on a bipartisan basis.

So you never know when you throw up a good idea whether somebody is going to take you up on it or not. We have had a couple where that has worked; and we, as Republicans, are going to stay after it. We're the ones willing to negotiate.

Now, there was a discussion about us showing up at the World War II Memorial. Yup, sure did. I did that myself, too. The reason we went down there is that there are men and women who served in the military during World War II who, at the last years of their lives, are coming up in what are called Honor Flights, where they come up here and meet together as people who were comrades in arms for the United States of America, who fought the Axis of Evil, the Germans, the Japanese, and others. They wanted to come just about 2 miles from here down to the World War II Memorial, and it was locked. It was bolted up and locked. So a couple of colleagues, my fellow Texans, went down there last week and found out--the park ranger was there. Well, who's allowed to get in? First Amendment protesters. First Amendment protesters are the only ones allowed in--well, and Members of Congress. So these two colleagues of mine took bolt cutters, opened it up, and it has been open ever since.

That's what Republicans are trying to do. We are trying to do that not just for the World War II Memorial; we are trying to do that for this government. We are trying to work on commonsense ideas. We are asking for this House of Representatives to be with us today.

I support this rule. I support the underlying legislation.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I associate myself with his remarks. I thank him for his extraordinary leadership in trying to keep the government open.

Mr. Speaker, this is--what?--the eighth day of the Republican shutdown of government. Small businesses cannot get loans to expand; veterans face uncertainty about their benefits; tuition assistance and the rest. Millions of women and children will go without the nutrition programs that they desperately need.

The shutdown could be over in hours if Republicans would stop being the party of ``no'' and just take ``yes'' for an answer.

So in case you don't know, I have some very good news for you: Democrats have not only been willing to negotiate; Democrats have already stated that they are ready to cooperate.

For example, I have good news. Perhaps you missed the fact that 200 Democratic Members of the House have signed a letter saying that they're willing to accept the Republican number of $986 billion even though, as the gentleman said, we don't like this number--we don't think it's adequate--but the fact is we don't like shutting down the government more.

So, in order to open up government, 200 Members have signed the letter, and five additional Members have made public statements of their willingness to support the Republican number. There's space in this letter for the signatures of maybe just 17 Republicans to sign, but they don't have to sign a letter. Many of them have made public statements, which we respect and honor as their public statements, that they would vote for the Republican number of $986 billion.

The Speaker negotiated with Senator Reid. Senator Reid accepted the Republican House number. The President of the United States accepted the Republican House number. The Democrats in the House accepted the Republican House number. The only people not accepting the Republican House number are the Republicans in the House.

So, when the leadership of the Republican Party--Speaker Boehner, in particular--go around saying it can't pass, that the votes are not there, does that mean he does not trust the word of his own Members who have said that they will vote for the $986 billion? Let's find out. Let's bring the bill to the floor.

That is what we are saying: just bring it to the floor. It has passed the Senate. The President stands ready to sign a number we don't like, but prefer it over shutting down government. We don't like it. We want to open the doors of government, and we are willing to use the key of the Republican number to do so.

Last week, Democrats went a step further. In both public and private discussions, Speaker Boehner said that he doesn't want to go to conference on the budget even though he asked for regular order in March. In early March, Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner said they wanted regular order. That's a message to the President that Congress should work its will. That was good news to us. That means: you pass a bill in the House; you pass a bill in the Senate; you go to conference to reconcile your differences. Perhaps the Speaker didn't think that the Senate would pass a budget, but they did in a matter of days-- practically hours--after the House passed its budget.

But what happened to regular order? It blew out the window. After saying, We want regular order, no longer did the Republicans want to take ``yes'' for an answer. And why? Well, some of this is explained under the Speaker's own statement. Speaker Boehner said, Under rules-- listen to that word ``rules.'' Under rules, if you appoint conferees and after 20 legislative days there is no agreement, the minority has the right to offer motions to instruct, which become politically motivated bombs to throw up on the House floor.

So to be frank with you, we are following what I would describe as regular order. What I would describe as regular order is not ``under rules.'' ``Under rules'' are the rules of the House.

The Speaker--as awesome as the power of the Speaker is, and I understand that--does not have the power to just decide what regular order is, and if you don't want to honor regular order, just say you're not going to honor it, but don't redefine it in order to keep government shut down.

So, in listening to the Speaker's not wanting to shut government down at first and then after it was shut down wanting to open it, the House Democrats took a step unprecedented by any minority party in the Congress of the United States. The House Democratic minority said, We will surrender. We will relinquish our right to motions to instruct--an insider term, actually--

placing conditions on how it would go to the conference table.

So we said to the Speaker, don't worry about that. If that's important to you, if you want to shut down government because you're afraid of a motion to instruct, we'll allay your fears. Fear no more, Mr. Speaker. We will not offer these motions.

As an example, we didn't offer the motion on the first night, which was our right to do, when this bill was introduced as all of you will agree.

So we have said, we have made that claim. This, as I said, is unprecedented, but is a necessary move to end the Tea Party stranglehold on our government and restore basic services on which millions of people rely.

They didn't take ``yes'' for an answer. Two hundred signatures.

Mr. Speaker, I will submit this letter for the Record--200 signatures. It's a beautiful sight, because I want to tell you something: it's about cooperation.

None of us likes this number. All of us want to open up government. That's why we signed it. I want to thank Congressman Tim Bishop, Congressman Patrick and Congressman Keith Ellison for producing this result.

So we've said, yes, we're giving you the votes on something we don't like. We've said we won't do motions to instruct. Please take ``yes'' for an answer.

If you insist on being the party of ``no,'' then don't hide behind something and say who won't negotiate. We cooperated. We gave you what you wanted.

Now here we are today. Republicans are offering yet another motion to keep the government shut down. Some people call it, in the press, the ``supercommittee.'' Others call it the ``Ted Cruz committee.'' Whatever you call it, I'd like to know who writes this stuff. This is so ridiculous a proposal. It's so ridiculous a proposal.

How about we go to the budget table and see how we can reduce the deficit? produce growth for our country?

But all we're going to do is cut our investments in education, investments in making the future better. We're going to make seniors suffer more while we do not touch revenue, and we will not allow any discussion of closing special interest loopholes. That's how they want us to go to the table.

You must be kidding.

As I said, who writes this stuff?

Sometimes there is an expression that people use. Flippantly, they'll say, ``Who do you think you are?'' when you say something. Remember that from your childhood when somebody said, ``Who do you think you are?''

I think we have to take that sentence very seriously, with an emphasis on ``think.'' That would be interesting.

Who do we think we are?

Do we think that we are a party that is responsible, all of us--a Congress that is responsible--that wants to do the right thing for the American people, that knows that we have to come here to cooperate with each other to get something done in a bipartisan way?

To my fellow colleagues on the Republican side--I hope that's allowed, Mr. Speaker. They are Members of the body--do you think you have come here to make sure that people know that you can do this just because you're doing it?

It's just a waste, a total waste of time, and we don't have time to waste. In fact, we could be spending our time in such a more important way--working in a bipartisan way on entrepreneurship, on creating growth for our country, on investing in the education of our people, which, by the way, brings more money to the Treasury than any other initiative you can name.

Early childhood, K-12, higher education, lifetime learning. You want to reduce the deficit?

Invest in education.

You want to increase the deficit?

Cut education.

But let's sit down and talk about that. The path to get there is one that says, say yes to 986. We did, your number. It says accept our offer. We won't offer any instruction to the committee, but don't continue to be the Tea Party of ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Speaker--is that allowed, Mr. Speaker? I hope the Speaker will give us a vote so we can see where this Congress stands on the serious responsibility that we have and that the Republicans will even accept what they are asking us to accept.

This rule should be voted down. This commission is a joke whether you call it the Ted Cruz commission or the super--super in what way? Certainly not super in meeting the needs of the American people.

To recap, A, we are giving you 200 votes for your number. Take ``yes'' for an answer.

B, the Speaker doesn't want any conditions or discussion or anything else on the floor about the budget. We are willing to accept that.

Take ``yes'' for an answer.

I ask for a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Congress of the United States,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. John Boehner,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Boehner: Enough is enough.

Today marks the fifth day that the federal government has

been shutdown. Please consider how deeply unfair this is to

the citizens we represent.

The solution to this crisis is a simple piece of

legislation that funds the government at levels that have

already passed both chambers of Congress.

At this point, to attach defunding or delaying the

Affordable Care Act to legislation needed to reopen the

government is to put our economy at risk in order to advance

a political agenda.

We demand a vote on a clean continuing resolution

immediately so that government functioning can resume and

Americans can move on with their lives.

The games have to stop.

Best Regards,

Tim Bishop; Patrick E. Murphy; Nancy Pelosi, Democratic

Leader; Steny H. Hoyer, Democratic Whip; James E.

Clyburn, Assistant Democratic Leader, Xavier Becerra,

Chair, Democratic Caucus; Joseph Crowley, Vice Chair,

Democratic Caucus; Nita M. Lowey, Ranking Member,

Committee on Appropriations; Chris Van Hollen, Ranking

Member, Committee on the Budget; Robert E. Andrews;

Karen Bass; Joyce Beatty; Ami Bera, Jr.; Sanford

Bishop, Jr.; Earl Blumenauer; Suzanne Bonamici;

Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Robert A. Brady; Bruce L.

Braley; Corrine Brown; Julia Brownley; Cheri Bustos;

G.K. Butterfield; Lois Capps; Tony Cardenas; Andre

Carson.

Joaquin Castro; Judy N. Chu; David N. Cicilline; Yvette

D. Clarke; Wm. Lacy Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; Steve Cohen;

Gerald E. Connolly; John Conyers, Jr., Jim Costa; Joe

Courtney; Henry Cuellar; Elijah E. Cummings; Susan A.

Davis; Danny K. Davis; Peter A. DeFazio; Diana DeGette;

John K. Delaney; Susan DelBene; Thoedore E. Deutch;

John Dingell; Lloyd Doggett; Keith Ellison; Eliot L.

Engel.

William Enyart; Ana Eshoo; Elizabeth Esty; Sam Farr;

Chaka Fattah; Bill Foster; Lois Frankel; Marcia L.

Fudge; Tulsi Gabbard; Pete Gallego; John Garamendi; Joe

Garcia; Alan Grayson; Gene Green; Al Green; Raul

Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Janice Hahn; Colleen

Hanabusa; Alcee Hastings; Denny Heck; Brian Higgins;

James A. Himes; Ruben Hinojosa; Rush Holt; Mike Honda;

Steve Horsford.

Jared Huffman; Steve Israel; Sheila Jackson Lee; Hakeem

Jeffries; Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson; Marcy Kaptur; Bill

Keating; Robin Kelly; Joseph P. Kennedy, III; Dan

Kildee; Derek Kilmer; Ann Kirkpatrick; Ann McLane

Kuster; James Langevin; Rick Larsen; John Larson;

Barbara Lee; Sander M. Levin; John Lewis; Daniel

Lipinski; David Loebsack; Alan S. Lowenthal; Michelle

Lujan Grisham; Stephen Lynch; Daniel Maffei; Carolyn B.

Maloney; Sean Patrick Maloney.

Doris O. Matsui; Carolyn McCarthy; Betty McCollum; Jim

McDermott; James P. McGovern; Jerry McNerney; Gregory

Meeks; Grace Meng; Michael H. Michaud; George Miller;

Gwen Moore; James P. Moran; Jerrold Nadler; Grace

Napolitano; Richard Neal; Gloria Negrete McLeod;

Richard Nolan; Eleanor Holmes Norton; Beto O'Rourke;

William L. Owens; Frank Pallone; Bill Pascrell; Ed

Pastor; Donald Payne; Ed Perlmutter; Gary Peters; Pedro

R. Pierluisi.

Mark Pocan; Jared Polis; David Price; Mike Quigley; Nick

J. Rahall; Charles Rangel; Cedric Richmond; C.A. Dutch

Ruppersberger; Bobby L. Rush; Tim Ryan; Linda T.

Sanchez; John P. Sarbanes; Janice Schakowsky; Adam

Schiff; Brad Schneider; Allyson Y. Schwartz; Robert C.

Scott; Jose Serrano; Terri Sewell; Carol Shea-Porter;

Brad Sherman; Albio Sires; Louise Slaughter; Adam

Smith; Jackie Speier; Eric Swalwell; Mark Takano.

Dina Titus; Paul Tonko; Niki Tsongas; Juan Vargas; Marc

Veasey; Filemon Vela; Tim Walz; Debbie Wasserman

Schultz; Maxine Waters; Mel Watt;

Henry Waxman; Peter Welch; Frederica Wilson; John

Yarmuth; Pete Visclosky; Matthew Cartwright; David

Scott; Zoe Lofgren; Nydia M. Velazquez; John Carney;

Ben Ray Lujan; Michael F. Doyle; Donna F. Edwards;

Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Scott H. Peters; Chellie Pingree; Gregorio Kilili Camacho

Sablan; Kurt Schrader; Rosa L. DeLauro; Bennie G.

Thompson; Mike Thompson; John Tierney; Kyrsten Sinema;

Lucille Roybal-Allard; Kathy Castor; Tammy Duckworth;

Collin C. Peterson; Donna M. Christensen; Ron Barber;

Michael E. Capuano; Raul Ruiz; Loretta Sanchez.

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

I thank the gentleman, my good friend from Texas, who yielded the time.

I rise today obviously in strong opposition to this measure. I would say to my friend, I just heard him just a moment ago, Mr. Speaker, say that the people from Texas sent him here to do things. Well, the people from Florida sent me here to do things just like him. There are 435 Members in this institution, in addition to delegates from around our territories, and each one of them has an unequivocal and clear understanding about how to go about budgeting in this particular matter.

Forming a working group is forming another group up above that group. I don't need that, and I don't believe he needs that. I don't need it. Evidently, we haven't done very well when we've had it. From the newspapers today, I gathered that we had a Simpson-Bowles Commission, which people forget was the legacy of the 2010 debt ceiling increase. We had the Domenici-Rivlin commission. We had the Cantor-Biden talks. We had the Obama-Boehner debt ceiling negotiation, the Gang of Six talks, the supercommittee, and then the Obama-Boehner fiscal cliff talks. Not one of them worked, and this mess isn't going to work either.

It's sort of like, Mr. Speaker, moving the hostages, since they're taking them one by one here with this rifle-shot approach to legislating, when, in fact, all they have to do is put a clean CR on the floor and we could pass it, and they know that. But basically what they're doing is saying, Okay, we're going to take some hostages over here; then we're going to put them in another room with some more people so that they can talk to them.

I said in the Rules Committee, and I repeat: this is a gimmick wrapped in a con inside a scam, and nothing tells me anything different about my friends across the aisle who've offered gimmick after gimmick instead of doing what they know is right.

We can open the government, and that's easy to do. We can put Americans back to work, and that's easy to do. We can keep our country from defaulting on its obligations. This measure will do none of those things, not one of them.

In all that talk about the President, the President made it very clear today that he's willing to negotiate. Evidently--and I picked up on this--my friends on the other side must have poll-tested conversation. Well, conversation allows, among other things, that you have an exploratory understanding with people in an informal setting.

What have we been talking about around here for 2 years? We've been talking about this mess. This didn't just come up last night or the day before yesterday. Democrats have already offered seven times to take up the Senate-passed continuing resolution. The House GOP has blocked a vote on the measure each and every time. For 6 months, we've been asking these people to conference.

To the House Republican leadership I say, Mr. Speaker, let us vote on a clean CR. Let us raise the debt ceiling. Why prolong this shutdown when you know that the votes are here in the House of Representatives?

My friends across the aisle know they've made a mistake. The goalposts have not only moved; they have vanished completely from the field. First, they want to defund ObamaCare. Then they only want to delay ObamaCare. Then when that didn't work, they said, well, we don't want to shut the government down, so let's open it up piece by piece. Evidently, that isn't working either, so they're now down here, moaning and groaning about the fact that the Senate isn't going to take up something that's foolish because they've made it clear that they want this to be a measure that's not a part of any negotiations or conversation; and the President made it clear that he will converse with anybody about anything but not with a gun at his head and not with the kind of undertaking that you are going forward here.

So now it's a working group, another supercommittee. How did that work out for you the last time, I ask my friends, if you would, Mr. Speaker?

So tell me, where does it all end? In all seriousness, what do my friends across the aisle hope to achieve?

Speaker Boehner has said: ``My goal here is to have a serious conversation''--he said it 27 times ``conversation'' on Sunday; I was looking at him when he said it--``about those things that are driving the deficit and driving the debt up, and the President's refusal to sit down and have a conversation about this is putting our Nation at risk of default.''

At 11:38 today, the President's office issued a statement wherein they had a conversation today with John Boehner, in essence, telling him virtually that we can do this with a clean CR.

What have we been talking about? Why are we even here? What are we talking about now? Are we having a conversation, or are we just talking past each other here in the House of Representatives? Republicans have shut down the Federal Government and taken us to the brink of a global economic catastrophe because, evidently, they want to have a conversation that we are already in the middle of.

Guess what? The Senate CR is at the levels you wanted--$986 billion. That's what they voted on. Sequestration is the law, as my friend from Georgia is fond of saying, ``the law of the land.'' You've already gotten what you wanted. Let's just vote on a clean CR. Let us raise the debt ceiling. This shutdown and looming debt ceiling breach are failures of the majority's leadership to stand up against the extremists within their own party, elected on a platform of obstructionism that borders on insurrection.

Leaders, you say on the other side, must be strong. Leaders must be courageous. This has become not a democracy that was intended by Jefferson and Madison and Adams and all of those that were our Founders, the Franklins and the Washingtons. They founded a democracy in spite of their divisions. They did not want to have mobocracy. That's what you've allowed to stand up in your part of this institution, a mob.

Mr. Speaker, let us end these games with a strong bipartisan message. We can show the rest of the world that the United States is ready to end its political brinksmanship.

When I was a child and I would speak out of turn, my dad and my grandmother would say: Sit down and shut up. We don't need a shutdown. We don't need people being shut out. What we need to do is shut up and let the American people cause us to listen to them and go about the business of bringing a clean CR down here. That's what I'm hearing from the American people, both Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, that they want us to sit down and shut up and open up this government with a clean CR.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, would you be kind enough to tell both sides how much time remains?

I thank the Speaker.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Nita Lowey, my good friend and an appropriator supreme.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I put to you most sincerely: Do you not feel that by cherry-picking what it is that you want to do with these rifle shots, that it is causing a morale problem in the rest of the government?

Let's assume that you have 150 that you are going to do, and the group that would be going back to work the latest would be sometime the week after next or sometime 2 weeks from there.

In the vernacular, they just say ``bring it.'' Put all 150 of them down here and we would have a clean CR.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), one of the most distinguished Members that has served in the House of Representatives, my good friend, the minority whip of my party, who may very well answer that question that I asked about morale.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I thought we were here about the working group, but it does come out in the wash: we really are here about ObamaCare.

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the ranking member on the Budget Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 1\3/ 4\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

I yield the balance of my time to my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

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

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