Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to call our colleagues' attention to the passing last Monday of a great North Carolinian, F. V. ``Pete'' Allison, Jr. Mr. Allison died at age 91 after an extraordinary life as a businessman and banker, community, church, and political leader, husband, father and grandfather, and friend and mentor to many. A memorial service is planned for Saturday at the White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, which I am certain will witness an outpouring of community appreciation, affection and respect.

A native of Greenville County, Virginia, Pete Allison came to Durham after receiving his undergraduate degree from Hampton Institute and his master's in business administration from New York University, and he never left. Remarkably, he worked for only two institutions his entire career--in the business office of Hampton Institute and, after 1953, Mutual Savings and Loan of Durham, where he started as a teller and accountant. Mr. Allison rose steadily through the ranks, becoming chairman and CEO in 1978. He saw Mutual through its conversion to a community savings bank and through the acquisition of two other institutions. The bank, which he led with a strong hand until his retirement in 1996, became a mainstay of Durham's African-American community, making home ownership possible for thousands of families and helping launch and expand hundreds of businesses.

Pete Allison's professional and civic endeavors could fill several pages. He was especially proud of chairing the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority during the period when direct flights to London were inaugurated. He received a gubernatorial appointment to the N.C. Education Assistance Authority. He took leadership roles in the American League of Financial Institutions, the U.S. League of Savings Institutions, and the Savings and Community Bankers of America. In Durham, he was the chair and long-time treasurer of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, chaired the Durham Business and Professional Chain, helped lead the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, and served on the board of visitors for N.C. Central University's business school. For his extraordinary contributions, Governor Jim Hunt named Pete Allison to The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest honor for service to the state.

The list goes on, Mr. Speaker, but such a recounting cannot do full justice to the qualities of leadership and friendship that made Pete Allison beloved by so many. His generosity, warmth, and strength of character shone through. I was fortunate to experience this personally in representing the Durham community in Congress and being associated with him in various political and civic endeavors. I always looked forward to seeing Pete, to hearing his observations as to what was going on at the moment. Indeed, he was a keen observer, but he expressed his views gently, with humor and compassion, and he much preferred reaching agreement to dictating his views. People wanted to follow Pete and to work with him because they liked and respected him so much and were assured of his integrity and his genuine concern for them and for the community.

Durham and North Carolina will miss Pete Allison and the wise counsel, encouragement, and inspiration he offered. He is survived by a son, Vincent, a daughter, Michelle, and his wife of 59 years, Lavonia Ingram Allison. Pete and Lavonia have been partners in a commitment to social justice and to community leadership over many decades. Lavonia's political and civic endeavors, including chairmanship of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, have been ground-breaking, and Pete supported and encouraged her every step of the way. She has been likewise devoted to him, and has especially exemplified compassion and care during Pete's long final years of illness.

Mr. Speaker, it is people of character, compassion, and courage like Pete Allison who make our communities and our country flourish. At this time of loss, we give thanks, in the words of the apostle Paul, ``for every remembrance'' of him.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the bill. I want to commend Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey for reminding the House how Members can work together on a bipartisan basis to get the people's business done. We didn't merely set aside our differences; we laid them on the table, and we worked through them.

The result is far from ideal. It bears the marks of the majority's misguided budget strategy, which has cut appropriations time and time again while leaving the main drivers of the deficit, namely, tax expenditures and mandatory spending, largely untouched. The dire results are most evident in the Labor-Health-Education title of this bill, with devastating cuts to community health centers, medical research, and other vital investments.

But it could have been worse. The December budget agreement allows us to avoid another mindless round of sequestration and to stitch together 12

bills that have gone through at least some of the appropriations process.

Along with Chairman John Carter, I have had particular responsibility for the Homeland Security title, and I want to thank him for the open and collaborative process he has led on our subcommittee. With the help of our superb professional staff, we have worked cooperatively to make the most effective possible use of constrained resources.

The agreement provides substantial increases for new customs officers at ports of entry to improve security and expedite travel and commerce. It provides significant increases above the request for Coast Guard operations and for new aircraft and vessels to help the Coast Guard fulfill its critical homeland security and maritime safety missions. It provides increases for ICE to pursue domestic investigations, including those related to human trafficking, child exploitation, money laundering, violent gangs, and drug smuggling.

The bill provides healthy increases for first responder and anti- terrorism grants, for critical cyber and infrastructure security programs and for research and development of new technologies to improve capabilities across the full range of the Homeland Security enterprises.

I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan agreement.

Mr. Speaker, if the interim nuclear deal negotiated last month leads to a final agreement, Iran can be prevented from developing a nuclear weapon. This would neutralize one of the greatest threats facing the United States, Israel, and the international community and could set the stage for a new era of relations between Iran and the West.

The unprecedented sanctions already in place have brought the Iranian economy to its knees and the government to the negotiating table. We are entering these talks from a position of strength; we have a strong hand to play.

But if Congress rushes through another round of sanctions or takes other action perceived as undermining the negotiations, we will be giving up our hand before we have a chance to play it. Iran would then have an excuse to walk away from the table, and the

international coalition that has been so critical to the current sanctions regime could fracture, thus weakening the leverage we already have.

There is no guarantee that a final deal is possible. But given the stakes involved, we simply must try, for the alternative is far worse. Iran would then be left to develop its nuclear program without supervision, and the U.S. could be drawn into another costly war in the Middle East.

I urge my colleagues to support the interim nuclear agreement and oppose any attempt to undermine our country's diplomacy.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask our North Carolina colleagues to join me here, along with the dean of our delegation, Mr. Coble.

Mr. Speaker, our colleague of many years, Mel Watt, has just cast his last vote in this body. Mel Watt, the Representative of the Twelfth Congressional District, from Charlotte, North Carolina, has just been confirmed by the Senate to be the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, so he is going to leave us after today to take over that position.

Howard Coble and I are the deans of our respective parties in the House delegation from North Carolina, and we both wanted the House to pause to pay tribute to Mel for his service and his dedication to this institution.

I am happy at this point to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), my colleague.

I thank the gentleman.

I want to make note of the fact that Mel's wife, Eulada, is in the gallery tonight. On behalf of my wife, Lisa, and myself, we have considered the Watts good friends, colleagues, shared many experiences together, and we are going to miss them both a great deal, although we take some solace in the thought that they are not going too far and that we will have chances to be together as Mel assumes this new role.

Mr. Speaker, Mel Watt is a legislator's legislator. We sometimes say that about colleagues. If there is any doubt about that, it would have been dispelled by what we just heard in the committee room this afternoon as colleague after colleague from the Judiciary and Financial Services Committees, from both sides of the aisle, paid tribute to this fine friend and colleague.

There were many stories of collaboration, of disputes and fights that were nonetheless civil and respectful, of mentorship of younger Members. There is just no question that Mel has made his imprint on this institution. As a man of great intelligence and expertise, he is admirably qualified for the job he is about to assume, but also a mainstay of legislative work in the committees that he served on during his entire time here, Financial Services and Judiciary.

We are going to miss him. I probably speak for others in the delegation; but, actually, I will just speak for myself. I know when the votes occur, the rollcall votes occur, that is a name I check, just like I used to check John Spratt's name. There are a few colleagues that one respects so much that you want to make sure you are not going too far astray when you cast those votes. I will miss Mel in that very practical way.

We will not take much time here this evening. It is mainly a matter here, as the votes come to a close and Mel casts his last vote before this body, testifying to how highly we regard this

colleague and honoring him for his service.

Mr. Speaker, this is a sad and, indeed, depressing debate because there is such a transparent effort underway to weaken our Nation's campaign finance laws even further by the perfectly legitimate, compelling case for sick children in our country. This represents the worst of Republican cynicism--I have just got to say it--and since this measure stands no chance of passing in the Senate, it is a fitting end to the least productive session of Congress in modern history.

The passage of this bill will do nothing to increase the Federal funding of pediatric disease research. That is why it is so cynical. Simply authorizing a new program will not translate into additional funding in the current appropriations environment. If the majority were really serious, it wouldn't have passed a budget that makes adequate funding for medical research impossible or, perhaps, it would actually try to negotiate a comprehensive budget agreement that lifts sequestration once and for all from pediatric research and many other priorities. To make matters worse, this bill would make it more difficult to modernize and reinvigorate one of the most successful examples of campaign finance reform in our Nation's history--the Presidential public financing program--which has given candidates a viable alternative to private and corporate fund-raising for more than three decades.

Now, I agree with my colleagues from both parties in that paying for Presidential nominating conventions is not a wise use of taxpayer dollars, but if the House majority is truly concerned about this issue, I would encourage it to schedule a vote on my bill, the Empowering Citizens Act, which not only would prevent taxpayer dollars from being used for conventions, but it would also include important ``soft money'' provisions to prevent high-dollar special interests from funding conventions. The Empowering Citizens Act would mend, not end, the Presidential public financing system, bringing it up to date with campaign realities. It would also establish a voluntary small donor public funding program for congressional campaigns as well as strong rules forbidding the coordination between super-PACs and political parties or campaigns.

I believe we are at a tipping point in the short history of campaign finance reform in our country. We can either choose to stand by the commonsense reforms that restored America's faith in elections after the Watergate scandal or we can choose to cede the control of political campaigns entirely to wealthy corporations and interest groups.

The responsible choice is clear, so I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this measure in the hope that the Republican majority will both get serious about medical research funding and will get serious about the oversized influence of millionaires and billionaires and super-PACs in our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Wake Technical Community College on its 50th Anniversary.

In the late 1950s, the North Carolina General Assembly launched an innovative concept in higher education and provided funding for new industrial education centers that would train adults with the vocational and technical skills needed in the region for emerging industries.

In 1958, Wake Technical Community College, then named Wake County Industrial Education Center, started offering a few classes to about 70 students. By 1963, the new institution had found a home, and the W.W. Holding Industrial Education Center officially opened in October 1963, with 34 full-time students and an additional 270 students taking classes at community sites. Today, Wake Tech has expanded to five campuses, and is soon to develop a sixth. The college also operates two centers and dozens of community sites throughout Wake County. It offers 180 associates degrees, diplomas and certificates, preparing students for immediate employment and increasingly serving as a gateway to four- year institutions. Enrollment has grown to nearly 70,000 students this year, making Wake Tech the largest community college in North Carolina. It is the second fastest growing community college in all of America!

For years, North Carolina's leaders have recognized the critical role that technical and community colleges play as drivers of economic growth and renewal. Visionaries such as Governor Terry Sanford understood that community colleges could help lift generations of North Carolinians out of poverty, and that they could be a powerful magnet drawing new businesses and industries to our state. Nowhere has the success of this vision been more prominent than in the ``Research Triangle.'' Education has been the catalyst for this economic transformation, and our region's community colleges--Wake Tech in particular--have served as its engine.

Wake Tech has produced world-class business leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as highly capable workers, and has done so while constantly reinventing itself as industries have evolved or given way to new ones. I commend Wake Tech on its ability to recruit and retain quality faculty, and its ability to maintain flexible, accessible, customized educational and training programs for North Carolina citizens. Its effective and beneficial community partnerships, outstanding ability to identify the workforce needs of the region, and commitment to measuring resource allocation and quality outcomes are only part of what make Wake Tech such an asset to the region. Fifty years after opening its doors, Wake Tech is still leading the way in world-class training, education, and workforce development.

In honor of its 50th anniversary, Wake Tech has launched a new logo, featuring a torch to symbolize the role Wake Tech plays in helping students find their way along the path of higher education. The new motto, ``Lead the Way'' speaks to students' ability to take charge of their lives as they learn and grow, as well as to lead and inspire others. It is also fitting as an allusion to the innovation and focus on the future that have been a hallmark of Wake Tech programs and services for the last 50 years.

I extend my congratulations to Wake Technical Community College on their fiftieth anniversary and look forward to the 50 years to come!

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

Have we had enough yet?

The American people are fed up with partisan games and procedural gimmicks. They see right through them, and they are demanding that we come together and get the government back to work today.

If the Speaker of the House is so sure that the votes for a clean funding bill are not there, he should call the vote to prove it to the American people. But he won't do that, because everyone in this Chamber knows that the Senate-passed continuing resolution would clear this House in a heartbeat and end this Tea Party-fueled dream of government collapse.

Today, the majority has decided that the government function they want to give political cover to is border security. Border security, obviously, was not very high on their list. We have had to wait 10 days before they have gotten around to it.

Of course, the question remains: Why didn't they think more about border security or cancer research or the national parks or women's and children's nutrition when they were shutting the government down in the first place last Monday? Ten days late and billions of dollars short, you might say.

As someone who has worked for years in a bipartisan spirit to secure our Nation's border, I certainly appreciate that border security is one of the most sensitive and dangerous areas of the budget with which to play partisan political games. But I have to ask: What about the many other critical homeland security functions that this bill wouldn't do anything to fix, including protecting our Nation from cyber attacks, for example, or keeping our aviation and mass transit systems safe or funding the Secret Service or developing the next generation of explosive detection technology?

We cannot continue to pick winners and losers by providing temporary funding for government services, operations and personnel. This piecemeal approach to governing is failing our constituents and is failing our economy. The only solution is to reopen the entire Federal Government by calling up the clean funding bill passed by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, last week, we were told by Republican leaders not to worry. Furloughed employees should stand by, they said, while the House votes to open the government one news cycle at a time. Americans' livelihoods can't wait for another news cycle. We are tired of waiting. We are tired of this charade.

Let's dispense with this political theater. Let's get back to our basic job description: to keep the government open, to pay the country's bills, and to negotiate a comprehensive budget plan that lifts sequestration, revives our economy, and secures our fiscal future. The first step is a clean continuing resolution. Let's do that today.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee of the Homeland Security authorizing committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard), an outstanding member of our Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of the full authorizing Committee on Homeland Security.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time remains on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), another fine colleague from the Appropriations Committee.

I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, our Republican colleagues today have spoken accurately of the time-honored tradition of passing a budget in this Congress and then passing appropriations bills, one hopes on budget and on time, in an orderly fashion, conforming to the agreed-upon budget resolution.

Now, for a while this year, we thought we were on the same page with regard to agreeing on a budget going forward. In fact, colleagues will remember that Republicans badgered the Senate in past years for not having passed a budget. This year, the Senate passed a budget. The Senate worked hard and passed a credible budget; we looked forward to a more normal process being resumed.

But we were soon disabused of that, because the Republican leadership of this House steadfastly refused to go to conference to work out a common budget with the Senate which, of course, is the normal process.

We have been urging that the House go to conference for months. Why did they refuse? We have thought a lot about that. One possible reason is that no comprehensive budget plan could possibly pass their conference, given the Tea Party influence in that conference these days. That is the explanation that is suggested, I have to say, by the failure of Speaker Boehner's ``Plan B'': remember that, back in December? They left President Obama's budget overture on the table, never taking him up on that comprehensive offer.

But then after a while, our Republican friends warmed up to the idea of stalling on this, and we gradually realized: They are running out the clock! The Republicans are running out the clock. Why are they doing that? Maybe they are looking for a crisis atmosphere, letting the government shut down, running up against the possibility of default. In a crisis atmosphere, maybe they think they can extract more. Maybe they can extract more, by demanding a ransom, a political ransom. the Affordable Care Act, whatever. Because now with the clock run out, you are talking not just about negotiating a budget; you are talking about demanding a ransom merely to keep the government open; demanding a ransom merely to pay the country's bills, basic constitutional responsibilities which this body should meet without any threat of extortion.

Meanwhile, of course, they understand the public doesn't like this. So we have the spectacle today of yet another bill seeking political cover, to fund piecemeal a function of government which has been in the news and which people value.

Well, this charade has to end. Yes, we need to get back to the normal budget process in this country. The first step is to pass a clean funding bill to reopen the government, and the votes are here in this body to do that this afternoon. We also must lift the threat of defaulting on the Nation's debt.

And then, sure enough, let's get on with the negotiating of a comprehensive budget agreement, a budget agreement along the lines of the budget plans of 1990 and 1993. These budget plans helped produce a robust economy, and eventually produced 4 years of budget surpluses. We paid off $400 billion of the national debt in those years. Those were comprehensive agreements, to be sure. They were politically tough. They did include revenues. They included all categories of spending. They were painful votes for many in this body, but I continue to think they were among the best votes I ever cast. That is where we need to go. We all know that.

The question is, can we find the political will to get there? Let's muster that political will. We have had enough of the ransom demands. Let's reopen the government, let's lift the debt ceiling, and let's get on with serious negotiations, the kind of budget negotiations we should have been having all year.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, this debate is a bizarre experience for those of us who have been urging negotiation on the budget for a year. ``Take the President up on his

overture of last December,'' we've said to our Republican friends. ``Let's go to a conference with the Senate and work out a budget.'' But the Republicans have steadfastly refused. They have run out the clock. And why did they do that? So that in a crisis atmosphere, they could demand a ransom for doing our basic duty--keeping the government open and paying our bills.

Well, that's extortion, and it's way over the line. We can't do that. In fact, we need to open the government. We could do it tonight. The votes are here if the Speaker would simply permit a vote. We could reopen the government immediately.

I promise you once we do our basic duty, we will be happy immediately to do what we should have been doing all along, and that is to negotiate a budget plan, a budget plan that puts everything on the table: revenues, entitlement, all categories of spending, a budget plan that secures this country's economic future and ends this charade that the Republicans have put us through here as the new fiscal year begins.

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

Mr. Speaker, how much longer are we going to continue this charade? At what expense are we going to continue this charade?

The Federal employees who serve our country are being disserved, as well as the American people who depend on their services. How much longer are we going to continue this same tired old dishonest debate?

Today it's about FEMA. We appreciate the Republicans' concern for FEMA. Like them, we are also anxiously watching the approach of Hurricane Karen. It's too bad that our Republican friends didn't think a little bit more about such things on Monday midnight when they shut the government down.

The issue, of course, is not whether we want to provide funding for FEMA or for any other particular activity or particular group of Federal employees. I'll take a back seat to no one when it comes to supporting the men and women who serve on the front lines of our national disaster preparedness and response efforts. And we know they will be there, whatever Hurricane Karen amounts to.

The issue here is whether we are going to pick winners and losers by providing temporary funding for governmental services, operations, and personnel when everyone in this body knows that we could reopen the entire

Federal Government in one fell swoop this afternoon by calling up the Senate-passed continuing resolution. That's what Democrats and a growing number of Republicans are advocating, and it's the only path that will get us out of this mess.

Instead, the House majority continues to bring to the floor piecemeal measures like this one, measures that may be red meat for Ted Cruz, but they have no chance of passing the Senate or being signed by the President because they don't solve the basic problem.

Therefore, they are a cynical and cruel deception. We all know that. So let's quit playing games, and let's actually do our job for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, if we're going to resume funding for parts of the Department of Homeland Security, I'd like to ask, where's the bill that's going to fund the Secret Service, whose importance was on full display yesterday?

Where's the bill to ensure our aviation system remains safe and secure through TSA?

Where's the bill to keep us safe from cyber attacks?

Of course we all want to provide funding for FEMA, but what about all the other employees of the Department of Homeland Security who work every day to ensure the security of our Nation?

What about the Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection officers, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents?

They're all protecting our Nation, and they're protecting it without pay at this moment.

Well, maybe the House majority will eventually get to them or, then again, maybe they won't. It's becoming more and more difficult to tell whom the Republican majority cares about at any given moment.

Now, there have been charges of a lack of willingness to negotiate and compromise on the part of the President and congressional Democrats.

Let's be clear: the only ones who have compromised on anything related to funding the government are Democrats. We have compromised to the tune of $60 billion, that is, agreeing to a short-term continuing resolution well below the President's budget request, well below the Senate-passed budget resolution.

And by the way, that's the same budget resolution that Republicans have refused to work on with the Senate and that would have headed off this shutdown in the first place. It really must take some nerve for our colleagues now, all of a sudden, to be singing the praises of conference committees!

But as to the Senate's clean bipartisan funding bill, we don't need a conference committee. We don't need to talk. We need a vote. The clean continuing resolution would pass this House easily, right this minute, if the Republican leadership would simply put it up for a bipartisan vote.

So let's dispense with this political theater. Let's get back to our basic job description which, surely, by any measure, involves keeping the government open. It also involves paying the country's bills, and it must involve a comprehensive budget plan that lifts sequestration, revives our economy, and reduces our deficit.

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

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

My friend from Kentucky, the chairman of the full committee is, in a time-honored House tradition, criticizing the other body. I've done some of that myself.

But let's be clear about a couple of things. Our Republican friends, as I recall, for years were badgering the Senate to pass a budget resolution. This year they did it. They did it and were ready to go to conference months ago; they were ready to go to conference with a budget resolution that was comprehensive in dealing with the deficit. And had that been agreed upon between the two Houses, it could have prevented this whole mess.

From all indications, it is the House Republicans, the leadership of this body, that has refused to go to conference. I don't really think that's in dispute.

Secondly, my friend from Kentucky, and many speakers in the last few days, have talked about all those appropriations bills and how they didn't make it to the floor of the Senate. What they didn't tell you was why they didn't make it to the floor of the Senate.

Again, I don't think this is open to dispute. The Transportation-HUD appropriations bill was ready for floor action on the Senate side. It was a threatened Republican filibuster that kept it off the floor and that has kept all subsequent bills off the floor.

I assure you, the Senate leadership and Senator Mikulski, the appropriations chairman in the Senate, were more than ready to take those appropriations bills to the floor. In many cases, they had been written with good bipartisan cooperation.

But it is the Republican leadership who dictated that the Senate would not pass those appropriations bills.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), my friend, the ranking member of our full committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), ranking member of the Homeland Security authorizing committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), a fellow Appropriations member.

Mr. Chairman, how much time does each side have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), another appropriations colleague, the ranking member of the Interior Subcommittee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee of Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, does the gentleman have additional speakers?

I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of attending the annual awards dinner of the Partnership for Public Service, the so-called Sammies Award. These are awards that are given each year to outstanding public servants.

Last night's awardees had touching, inspiring stories of the work they had done within the Centers for Disease Control in polio eradication, the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children--an agency we know very well in Homeland Security. The Central Intelligence Agency, story after story of devoted public service--public service, I must say, that has taken place in recent years in an atmosphere where public service is often denigrated and public servants often have their pay frozen by virtue of the budget nonsense of the sort we are witnessing here this week.

Half of those awardees last night were on furlough. What a disgrace. What a commentary on the honor that we should be paying to those who serve our country so well. So we're asking today, it would take about 30 minutes; there would be a bipartisan majority easily in this body for ending this shutdown and opening the Federal Government.

And on the issues before us--the budget, health care, whatever--you know, you live to fight another day. But we have no business in this body demanding a ransom for doing our basic job, which is to keep the lights on, keep the government running, and to pay our country's bills.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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

Madam Speaker, I have the privilege of representing one of the most military-friendly and veteran-friendly areas of the country, North Carolina. So I'm glad our Republican colleagues are concerned with maintaining funding for our Nation's veterans.

But it's too bad they didn't think a little more about the VA before forcing this government shutdown on us Monday night. And now it's too bad they're not showing equal concern for the more than half a million veterans who now serve their country as Federal employees, many of whom have been sent home on furlough and now have bills piling up, or the veteran small business owners whose SBA loans are on hold, or the veteran parents whose kids have been turned away from Head Start, or the veterans earning their graduate degrees whose research labs have been closed.

Madam Speaker, of course we need to restore full funding for the VA so it can resume its full array of services to our Nation's veterans, to whom we owe a special debt of gratitude and support.

But veterans want the same thing all Americans want: for us to reopen the entire government so they can get on with their lives as parents and workers and members of their communities.

You don't have to take my word for it. In a letter sent this morning to the bipartisan congressional leadership, the heads of several major Veterans Service Organizations write, and I quote:

Our organizations and the veterans we represent will no

longer tolerate Congress leveraging veterans' health and

well-being to achieve unrelated political ends.

Or, in the succinct words of the spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, ``The VA needs to be fully funded, not piecemealed and not used as leverage.''

So let's dispense with this political theater and this piecemeal approach that fails to end the shutdown. The Senate has approved a clean funding bill that will pass this House easily this very afternoon if the Speaker will simply let it be voted on.

It's time to get on with this business that the American people elected us to do.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the House now consider the Senate-passed clean continuing resolution so that the Department of Homeland Security can pay the frontline personnel that put their lives on the line every day and secure our country's critical infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have had enough of this cynical attempt to shift blame for the Tea Party shutdown.

Of course we want the American people to have access to our national parks, and I wish our Republican colleagues had thought a little bit more about that World War II Memorial before doing what they did last night.

Of course we want the D.C. government to continue to function. Why weren't Ms. Norton's compelling arguments given more attention before what our Republican colleagues did last night?

Of course we want the Veterans Administrations to resume their operations for those who have worn this country's uniform, although we do not like seeing our veterans used to score political points.

What about the thousands of Department of Defense civilians who were told not to come into work today, including those in my district who serve Fort Bragg? What about those EPA scientists in the research triangle who spent today on a community service

project instead of conducting important research on air quality or the firefighters across the Nation who depend on FEMA grants to keep their communities safe? What about those Agriculture Department-funded researchers at NC State whose paychecks are running out? What about the NIH researchers at Duke and UNC whose grants are under threat, or those desperately ill people who will now be cut out of NIH clinical trials?

The American people deserve a government that works for everybody. The Senate has passed a responsible, bipartisan funding bill that would pass this House easily if the Republican leadership would simply allow it to receive a vote.

Let's dispense with this political theater. Let's get back to the basics: keeping the government open, paying the country's bills, and negotiating a comprehensive budget plan that lifts sequestration, that revives our economy and reduces our deficit. The first step is to pass a clean continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker we're now just hours away from the Tea Party-inspired government shutdown. Here our Republican colleagues go again, holding the economy hostage to their ideological demands and their take-it-or-leave-it politics. This isn't the behavior of responsible legislators or of a serious political party willing to do what it takes to govern.

The only party that has actually compromised on the bill before us is Democrats, who have agreed to a short-term funding level below the Senate budget resolution, despite our belief that we should be replacing sequestration instead of locking it in.

By contrast, Republican leaders have steadfastly refused to go to conference to work out a budget with Senate Democrats. They walked away from negotiations with the President on a comprehensive budget deal in December. And now it is Republicans, as the President said, who are demanding a ransom merely for doing their job of keeping the government open. That ransom, incredibly, is health insurance for millions of our fellow citizens.

The Affordable Care Act has been upheld as the law of the land by a majority of Congress, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, and a majority of Americans at the ballot box. If the junior senator from Texas and his acolytes think they can overturn those decisions unilaterally, I suggest they consult the Constitution. I'd be happy to loan them a copy.

Mr. Speaker, we've got to reject this latest Republican ploy, and this body, this country, has got to get back to the basics: keep the government running, pay the country's bills, and negotiate a comprehensive budget plan that ensures our fiscal future.