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“THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6560-H6566 on Oct. 12, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messer). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. HANABUSA. Mr. Speaker, it is very disturbing that we are here on day 12 of the Republican government shutdown, but it is even more disturbing when we heard the point of order that was made just a little while ago, the point of order on October 1, about a special rule that was passed. What has happened by that vote--the vote, again, by the majority party--says that only the majority leader or his designee can bring the matter of calling up by motion the ability to rule, the ability to ask people to vote on the continuing resolution as amended by the Senate.
In this process of not only shutting down government, what we have also done is shut down the people's right to have a representative form of government. So, out of all of us--435, who are mandated by law to be the Members of the House of Representatives--only one or his designee has the right to bring forth this critical, critical issue on which the people throughout this Nation are asking for a resolution. Only one can do it. Yes, it passed by the majority of the Republican votes in this House. Now, not only have we shut down government, not only have we made things unbearable for the people, but we have deprived them of their representative form of government. That, Mr. Speaker, is something that the people should be absolutely outraged about.
I would like to begin this Special Order by first yielding to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
Mr. DOGGETT. I would ask the gentlelady about the number of Federal employees you have in your area who remain unable to do their work.
Ms. HANABUSA. To the gentleman from Texas, I appreciate the inquiry.
As you may probably be aware, because of its unique location and its location before the time we were a State, Hawaii has a large Federal presence, and a lot of them are in the military. Because of the actions of this House, plus the Senate, plus the President, about 20,000 of them are defense. The last time I was able to check, we just had a small handful that were yet not back to work, but we do have a large number who did not work.
What is being impacted now are the other agencies which had some funds like, for example, the courts, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the other people like, for example, the State Department. All of them we are watching very carefully, but we have an additional number--
somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000--who are being affected. As the gentleman knows, it is not only they; it is the people they service, and it is their families who are being impacted.
Mr. DOGGETT. That is exactly what I wanted to explore with you.
First of all, all of those public service workers, whether they are at work or not at work, continue to face the uncertainty of whether their paychecks will arrive when the car payment is due or when the rent is due or when they need to buy another round of groceries. They don't know if those checks will be there.
I think that there are some people out there across our country who are watching this shutdown, and they are saying, Well, at least we are saving some money by not paying hundreds of thousands of workers across the country--Federal employees--who are not yet able to return to work.
In fact, isn't it true that, under the Tea Party faction rule here in the Republican Party, they have passed a resolution through this House to pay every one of those hundreds of thousands of Federal workers to stay idle--to pay them not to work--at a time that they could be delivering the services they were hired to provide so that then the taxpayer has to pay them to stay idle and cannot receive the benefits of the many varied services that these public service workers would like to provide?
Ms. HANABUSA. The gentleman is correct that we as the House of Representatives unanimously passed that bill that we would pay the furloughed workers. You are also absolutely correct that, because the government is still shut down and because the Republican position is to open up government piecemeal, with no concurrence on the Senate's part, that that is exactly what is going to happen.
Many of these Federal workers feel like, Why can't we go to work? We are getting paid to work. Why isn't that happening?
I believe that that is clearly a disservice, not only to the workers, themselves, but to the people of this great Nation. It makes no sense.
I yield to the gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Last weekend, I left. I went to Florida. Many people in church came up to me, and they wanted to know about this. These are not Federal employees; they are contract employees. So, therefore, they do service for the Federal Government, but they will not get paid; is that correct?
Mr. DOGGETT. That is correct.
The other thing that happens: suppose you have a cafe across the street from a major Federal installation. Suppose you have a dry cleaners or a service station or an auto repair. Your business has fallen through the floor because that workforce is not there, not only to do the public's work, but to do business with you.
There is not any plan from this irresponsible Tea Party caucus to reimburse the many small businesses around America as well as the contractors to whom you referred. There is not any plan to give them a dime. So they will suffer at the same time they pay Federal workers not to work and not to deliver the services that they were hired to provide and are willing to provide.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Lockheed Martin indicated that they are going to lay off over 3,000 employees. There are many companies that do work with the Federal Government, but because the Federal Government is shut down, they are going to furlough their employees, and they are not going to be paid.
Mr. DOGGETT. That is one of the reasons I feel that, with every hour that we go through this government shutdown and with every hour that we get nearer to a default--an historic default on the full faith and credit of the United States--we are jeopardizing our security. As to your comments regarding Lockheed, we are talking about the national security of the United States, and I am also talking about the economic security of your fellow church members and of our veterans.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. We had the Secretary of the VA come to our committee. He indicated that by the 1st of November, if he did not have his appropriations, over 5,000 veterans and their families and their spouses would not get their benefits in the mail.
Mr. DOGGETT. I view that as a real disgrace.
This week in Texas, in San Antonio and in Austin, as we attempted to call the Veterans Administration about problems some of our veterans were having, they said they had turned off their equipment and that they had furloughed some of the representatives we work with--I am sure that happened in your areas also--so that we cannot be the advocate we want to be for our veterans.
Additionally--I think it is around a fourth or a little over a fourth of our Federal workforce who are veterans. They are people who have served our country and have put their lives on the line, and now they are serving our country in a different way. Those are some of the families who are being paid not to work, and all of them, whether they are at work now or not, are left with great economic uncertainty about when they will get paid.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. The list goes on and on.
For example, we have furloughed most of the HUD employees, so we are going to have more homeless veterans. The list goes on and on. Cemeteries. We have furloughed cemetery employees. The other issue is, if we default on Thursday, then the Social Security payments will not be made.
These people in this House of Representatives want to operate by management. For example, yesterday, I heard over the news the number of cows that had died--or had been killed--because of a storm. We came back the next day and did the farm bill. Because everyone has been furloughed, they can't even provide the assistance they usually provide. We are going to tackle this, but there is a whole array of services that we are not picking up. For example, when you look at the number of, let's say, people who work at the universities, their checks say the universities, but they are really working for national foundations or the Mayo Clinic.
Mr. DOGGETT. You are talking about things like cancer research or someone who is working on childhood disease.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Or on Alzheimer's research. So all of this work is brought to a halt for no good reason.
Mr. DOGGETT. For no good reason.
That is why it is outrageous that we could be here on this Saturday and that the Republicans have recessed the House until Monday night. They know that this default is approaching. They have outlined no plan to avoid default. They had one coming up on the floor 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they could not get agreement among their own Members about how to avoid default. Now at a time when you--like all of us who are here--
have signed a petition to reopen the government and are prepared to address the default issue right here, they have gone home.
Mr. Cantor was here on the floor a few minutes ago. He is the only one under the rules--the Republican majority leader--whom they will permit to offer the motion to continue the operation of the government. That is why we turned, as you know, to this petition of all of us coming together. We are approaching now--are headed toward--200 Members of the House. We only need about 17 or 18 Republicans to come join us so we can reopen this House and then move to address the default issue.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. The sad issue here in the House is that the minority has no rights.
Mr. DOGGETT. Because they were specifically, as you know, cut off in the rules. The rules of the House, which have existed for so many years, would have given the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentlewoman from Hawaii, or any of our colleagues who are here now from across the country the right to say, Mr. Speaker, let us vote on continuing the operation of the government.
Now, why would they deny us that traditional right as Members of the Congress--all Members, Republicans and Democrats--and give Mr. Cantor, as the Republican majority leader, the sole right to do that?
I say it is because of fear. They are fearful that this House will continue the government operations, and they can no longer hijack the country the way they have hijacked the Republican caucus and jeopardize the security of our families.
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Ms. BROWN of Florida. In the Veterans' Committee, members kept alluding to the Senate, the Senate, the Senate. Let's be clear, the Senate passed the bill, and I thank God for the Senate. They passed the bill and took the House number, which was unacceptable to all Democrats, unacceptable, took those low numbers in order to pass a continuing resolution so we could have discussions. But what happened to the House? They are missing in action because there is no leadership on the Republican side.
Mr. DOGGETT. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for the opportunity to join with her on this because the numbers she refers to is back during the summer--and Speaker Boehner acknowledged this last Sunday on ABC. There was an understanding reached between the House and the Senate that Democrats would compromise and agree to a level of government services that we think is totally unacceptable.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Would you repeat that again, sir.
Mr. DOGGETT. There was an understanding, that he acknowledged, reached between the House and the Senate that we Democrats, in order to keep the government functioning, would agree on, for a time this fall, to accept an unacceptable low number that we know won't deliver the level of services that we need for Head Start, for education, and for cancer research.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, are you saying that the Democrats in the House held their nose and voted for the Republican irresponsible numbers?
Mr. DOGGETT. We have said we will do that now if it will keep our government open and protect our families and avoid default, open the government. And it is that motion, not a motion to give us all that we have asked for, but a motion to take the Republican budget number and put it in place as a compromise, and I might say not a very good compromise, not a favorable compromise.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Say it again. Say it again. We lost on the compromise.
Mr. DOGGETT. We agreed to do that. The Speaker indicated that he had agreed to that, and then this Tea Party faction took control, the shutdown caucus.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, a conversation. Can we have a conversation. Can you repeat what you just said again. A conversation. You mean to tell me that the Speaker had a negotiation with the House and with the Senate on the Republican's low levels? That it was unacceptable to the Democrats in the House, we held our nose and voted, would be willing to vote for it if they bring it up in order to move forward and get a conversation going?
Mr. DOGGETT. Absolutely.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we just want a conversation.
Mr. DOGGETT. I want to yield back to the gentlewoman from Hawaii and in doing so thanking her for this time. The reason that it is alleged that they would not continue to stand by the agreement that was made between the House and the Senate for this bad number was they wanted to shut down the Affordable Care Act and our opportunity to get health insurance for millions of Americans. And as the gentlewoman from Hawaii knows, they have failed utterly and completely to do that. They are now in search of some other rationale, some rationalization, some justification for keeping the government shut down.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. Sir, just one other question. I want to know how many times did the Republicans pass their bad bill in the House and then send it over to the Senate, and they think that the Senate is supposed to pick up their bad bill? How many times did they pass it--
44?
Mr. DOGGETT. They have passed little partial bills many times.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I am talking about on the health repeal.
Mr. DOGGETT. Oh. They have sent that over there, I guess, 40 times to repeal.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. No, I think it was 44.
Mr. DOGGETT. Forty-four? One can lose count because they do every time you turn around.
But I thank the gentlewoman from Florida and the gentlewoman from Hawaii. This totally unjustified shutdown must end, and we must stand for American families to avoid the insecurity, the threat to them that grows by the hour.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
I think what everyone needs to understand clearly, what the gentleman from Texas was referring to was the level of funding in the continuing resolution which was amended by the Senate at $986 billion. As the gentlewoman from Florida said, for many Democrats that was unacceptable. But you know what, the Democrats haven't had the opportunity to vote because it hasn't come to the floor, but it is a compromise.
Ms. BROWN of Florida. If the gentlewoman would yield, we have agreed. We have compromised. We have had a conversation. We have agreed to put our politics aside and do what is in the best interest of the United States of America. It is unfortunate that we have people that serve in the House of Representatives, what is supposed to be the people's House, and they do not care about the people of the United States of America. They only care about their petty politics.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlewoman the gentlewoman from Florida
(Ms. Brown). Do you wish to speak further?
Ms. BROWN of Florida. I think I have said everything I need to say, but I do want to say one thing jokingly. I went home last weekend, and I was looking for some snake oil since they said that Cruz had given the House Republicans snake oil. I couldn't find any snake oil, but I did find some holy oil, and I asked my pastors to pray for us because we need all the prayer we can get.
It is shameful. The Republican Party, particularly in the House of Representatives, continues to hold the nation hostage in a futile attempt to defund Obamacare.
I am so deeply disappointed that Republicans, especially those tea party Republicans in the House, continue to keep the government closed by appealing to the most extreme members of their Party by refusing to pass a clean funding bill to keep the government working.
Speaker Boehner's Republican Shutdown Must Stop
Republican recalcitrance has once again brought about a manufactured crisis designed to promote right wing ideology at the expense of the needs of all Americans.
Instead of working together to develop a budget that will work for Americans, Republicans let extremists and ideologues drive their agenda and drive us all into a national crisis.
Why did Republicans so carelessly shut down our government? Because they continue to be obsessed with eliminating the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican crusade against providing affordable access to health care for all Americans knows no bounds, and it has become apparent that they are even willing to sacrifice the basic functions of the U.S. government just to prove a point.
Even though millions of Americans were clamoring to sign up for insurance benefits on just the first day the exchanges opened up to the public.
Members of Congress are elected to make sure our government functions, and Americans have had enough with this Republican led shutdown.
There is a solution to this problem.
The Senate passed CR would fund the government for an additional six weeks, and all Speaker Boehner has to do is bring that bill up for a vote to end this stalemate.
In fact according to some reports, there are enough votes to pass a clean CR now.
This short term bill to fund the government already represents a compromise, after a negotiation, by Democrats and is the level requested by Speaker Boehner.
But Republicans cannot take ``yes'' for an answer. They are continuing to play more games by pushing a piecemeal approach to resolving this shutdown. This will not work.
As USA Today put it, it's like seizing a school bus full of kids then offering to release the cutest ones.
The Senate will not pass these bills, because they do nothing to address the real problem--that we need to fund the whole government.
Instead of working together to do our jobs and resolve these critical issues, Republicans have taken a decidedly different approach, one that they seem to have been looking forward to for some time--to make another desperate attempt to stop the Affordable Care Act.
In fact, as one of their chief spokespeople, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann put it, ``We're very excited. It's exactly what we wanted, and we got it.''
Republicans seem not to care too much about the consequences of a shutdown, even though the consequences are significant.
Thousands of federal employees have been furloughed. National parks are shuttered. Loans to small businesses, farmers and families trying to purchase homes have been shelved. Lifesaving scientific research at NIH is halted. People waiting for travel visas and passports will be even further delayed. Those who need assistance to get back on their feet like recipients of the Women Infants and Children program (WIC) are struggling to find other means to get by. Veterans and their families applying for hard-earned benefits are waiting indefinitely for their fair due.
But the plan is in place, the Republican slash and burn approach to governance continues, and they have shown that they are willing to put it all on the line to appease the extreme right wing of their party.
As if their work to dismantle the programs Americans rely on like Head Start and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) wasn't clear enough when they pushed the sequester through, they have now chosen to just stop our government from functioning.
The cavalier attitude on display by House Republicans makes it clear that the Majority is more interested in ideology than action.
Their government shutdown could be the most damaging thing to hit our economy since the budget sequestration they imposed on Americans.
Rather than passing a jobs plan to get Americans back to work, help rebuild our economy and create good jobs with good benefits, the GOP has gotten what they really wanted all along--shutting the doors of the government of the United States.
As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlelady from Florida.
Now I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).
Mr. HONDA. I want to thank the gentlelady from Hawaii. I just have to say offhandedly that this is a wonderful, candid interchange, one that needs to be heard, witnessed, and participated in because the way the rules of the House are set up, there is very little exchange between the different parties here on the floor. The rules are very rigid, and it disallows debate and interchange of ideas and discussion, a discussion that is very, very needed in this country because through this discussion that we just had, as candid and as colorful and as interactive as it was, it was informative. And, hopefully, the information that was shared between the gentleman from Texas and the gentlewoman from Hawaii and the gentlewoman from Florida was helpful and would raise some questions in the minds of individuals watching and listening to us, and perhaps asking themselves, Is this all true? Hopefully, it will drive them to check it out and see if the information that was exchanged was valid and factual. I believe they will find it is.
Ms. HANABUSA. To the gentleman from California, I want to say aloha and mahalo. You are from California; but as far as I am concerned, you have been a great friend of Hawaii all along. Your concern over the shutdown is not only for your constituents in California but the constituents of the United States. And I know we in Hawaii, we also have a special place in your heart. So I thank the gentleman.
Mr. HONDA. As our past Senator Inouye would have said, mahalo, sister.
Mr. Speaker, I come here from California. My friend, Ms. Hanabusa, comes from the islands of Hawaii. All of us here in this body came here to do things that will make our country better, to help us build a more perfect Union. We have different ideas on how we would do that; but like in the medical field, we should observe one rule before all else: do no harm. We should not be causing unnecessary suffering, inflicting unnecessary pain on our country or on our economy and those who sent us here to try to improve their lives.
Here we are on day 12 of the Republican government shutdown and less than a week from an unprecedented government default; and every day that the Republican majority does not allow a clean vote to reopen the government and give us a long-term certainty on the debt ceiling, they are violating that most important rule: do no harm.
Critical child care, nutrition support, lifesaving research, small business capital, high-tech and groundbreaking research and development, home loans, affordable housing, veterans benefits, tax support, visas and passports are all negatively affected. And the list goes on and on to touch nearly every sector of the economy, with the cost to our economy compounding every day; $50 billion is the estimated cost to the economy over a month's time.
As we get closer and closer to defaulting on our debt obligations, we are causing more and more undue harm to our economy. A failure to make payments on any part of our debt for any amount of time would cause severe disruptions in the global financial markets, downgrade the creditworthiness of the United States, and do long-term harm to the economy. If we defaulted, Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits could all be disrupted. Retirement accounts would be devastated, State and local governments might be forced to default, and their ripple effects would be felt all over the world.
Mr. Speaker, time is running out, and the world is watching. There is nowhere for us to hide from our obligations. Let's start the process of ending this manufactured crisis and stop inflicting unnecessary harm to our economy and to our people. Let's lift this cloud from over our economy and have the vote that Americans have been waiting for.
Let me just close, my friend, with this other personal observation. We know the phrase PTSD, and we know about its devastating effects on people. I suspect the kinds of things we are doing here--or not doing here--is causing or inflicting a massive PTSD upon our seniors, our families, and those who are trying to make ends meet. I appreciated you doing this Special Order for us.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentleman from California. The gentleman from California makes some great points, including that we are never fully aware of the impacts, and that is what is the saddest part of what has been done with the shutdown, and that is we do not know what are the true impacts. I can say for my Democrat colleagues, that is the reason why we fight so hard on trying to reopen government. But the question is for the majority party and especially for the Speaker, what about the people? The gentleman raises a great point.
I just would like to share something before I call upon the gentlelady from Illinois. I just learned recently in visiting with some of the most decorated members of the Greatest Generation, members of the acclaimed 442nd Regiment in Hawaii, everyone knows about them, and one person came up to me and said, You know, we found out that although our fathers sort of suffered quietly as a result of that war and the result of the rejection by a Nation that didn't want them, that they were suffering from PTSD, we just didn't know that it was called that back then.
I think the gentleman from California makes an amazing point, that we have got to see the hidden injuries, because if we can all look upon the hidden injuries; no one, on either side of the aisle, can let this craziness continue.
With that, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos).
Mrs. BUSTOS. Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity, and I also appreciate that you are talking about the human consequences of this shutdown. That is what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks now is trying to draw attention to the human consequences of this senseless government shutdown because this is about people we are here to serve, and now we are in week two of this crisis.
What I have been doing is spending a lot of time on the telephone talking firsthand with the people from my region of Illinois who are suffering through no fault of their own. Today, I would like to share a story about a family who not only wants a piece of the American Dream, but is striving to achieve that and is working their tails off to achieve just a piece of the American Dream.
This is a story about a woman named Jill King. She is a wife and mother of two young girls and a disabled veteran from Moline, Illinois. Jill also happens to be a Federal employee who works at the Rock Island Arsenal, which is the largest employer in the district I am here to serve.
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On top of all that, Jill has gone back to college as a way to continue her education, and her husband, also a veteran, who lost his job recently, has gone back to school to increase his employment opportunities. All they want to do is provide a better life for their two young girls. They are ages 4 and 6. One is a preschooler, and one is a first-grader. But because of this government shutdown, Jill has been furloughed and is afraid that now she will lose her VA benefits on top of it. With her husband back in school, not knowing where their next paycheck is going to come from, Jill and her husband are rightly worried about how they are going to make their home mortgage payment, or, for that matter, even pay their most basic bills.
Jill and her husband worked very hard for a number years in order to buy a home. They had to rent to save that money. They have never missed a payment of any sort. They have never even been late with any payment. Now what Jill is left doing is calling her banks just to talk about the what-ifs, because, like many people throughout the country, they don't know what the next steps are. They have had to cut back, and Jill has even had to stop going to her doctor appointments because of the injuries that she has been treated for that are associated with her military service. Her husband now is considering dropping out of school in order to bring home more money to help their family, and Jill is now applying for a second job.
What especially worries her is that if she has to work both night and day, and with her husband now not sure what he's going to have to do as far as his education or going back to work, is that her children--
again, ages 4 and 6--might have to be at the babysitter not only during the day, but at night now. I would ask any mother, or for that matter any parent: Who thinks that that is acceptable?
There is so much sacrifice that we have asked of our veterans and their families, and in this case we are asking so much of this family when all they want to do is do better. Jill King and her family want more from their government. And on week two of the shutdown, I ask of this Congress to do what is right for families like Jill's. That is nothing more than let's talk, shake hands, work together, be civil, be kind, and allow Congress to vote on a measure that simply reopens this government.
We have been talking this morning and now into the afternoon that the votes are there. Republicans and Democrats, together, but only together, can reopen this government. We can do it right now. We could do it right this minute for that matter. I think everybody here today--
at least here today--would say let's do that. Let's bring this up for a vote. Let's open up government. Let's do what is right for Jill King and her family and all the families throughout this country.
Ms. HANABUSA. If the gentlelady would stay for some conversation.
I had the opportunity to actually go to Rock Island. I know people are probably saying, what is somebody from Hawaii doing in Rock Island? I also want people to know how difficult it must be for Jill because Rock Island Arsenal, what many may not be aware of, is the last foundry of the United States Army we have in the United States. They actually do do things like the necessary plates to keep people safe in the Humvees and the Strykers and things like that. They are also faced with the question as we withdraw or draw-down from Afghanistan, and as we have drawn down from Iraq, of what happens to Rock Island Arsenal, and what they are able to do for the military--the whole idea of reset, and what do we do with that? I can just imagine the uncertainty with sequestration, with the drawdown, and now with this unnecessary shutdown that it must cause her amazing and critical concern about the future of her family, and to put on top of that the concern over veterans benefits.
Because we have talked about this, I would like for you to share how your office has been able to get this kind of information because you have actually adjusted your schedule and what your office does to service your constituents. I would like for you to say that because it is so important as to how you have tried to adjust and make things easier for them.
Mrs. BUSTOS. I appreciate greatly the kind words that you say about the Rock Island Arsenal. It is the largest employer in the entire 7,000-square-mile district that I represent that stretches from Rockford to Peoria to the Quad Cities, and so many great towns in between. We have about 8,000 employees there. Here is what they have been going through because of the nonsense, these votes that have been cast that have hurt government employees who just want to do a good job.
People like Jill and the rest of the employees there, leading up to this, they had to take 6 furlough days. Already, that was a cut in their pay of what they are used to bringing home. That was already a cut in their pay. On top of that, they haven't received pay raises going on 4 years now. We want to encourage people to go into public service in these jobs that are helping people and helping our military in this case.
You had mentioned the armored reinforcement that is built right in the heart of my district at the Rock Island Arsenal. What that did was, early in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military men and women were driving in Humvees that did not have armor reinforcement, and they were sustaining horrible injuries and death. The workers at the Rock Island Arsenal, the foundry and the manufacturing sector of this, actually developed these and produced these to save countless lives. So the work that the people at the Rock Island Arsenal are doing is meaningful work, it is lifesaving work--and look how they have been treated as a result of this.
I appreciate you also bringing up the fact that in light of this government shutdown, we in our office have restructured things because we are public servants. We are here to make sure we are doing everything we can in light of this atmosphere. We have five offices in our district in Illinois, and we have our office out here. That is six offices altogether. What we have done is we have opened our office an hour early and we stay an hour late. And every single one of our employees, including myself, are all answering telephones, doing casework, and talking to the people who call in about their concerns about what is happening in the government and what they can expect next.
What I have learned from this, and something I will continue doing well after the government shutdown, is I will continue answering the telephone calls and reaching out to people because I never want to lose sight of why we are here. You understand it. Our colleagues understand why we are here. That is to serve people. Government can be a force for good.
Where government is in the way, I don't know anybody here who doesn't want to fix that. We want to fix anything that is broken or bent or just needs some tweaking. We want to fix that. We also know that government can be a force for good. That is why we run for office. That is why we are out here in Washington, D.C. That is why it is so disheartening what a few people in Congress have done to this country. It is time to move to this next level now.
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank the gentlelady from Illinois, and thank you for reaching out so clearly for your constituents.
I now call upon the gentlelady from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).
Ms. BONAMICI. I want to thank my colleague from Hawaii for yielding some time and for this opportunity to talk about the harmful effects and the hidden injuries of this unnecessary government shutdown.
My colleague from Illinois was just talking about the human consequences. We also have to talk about the economic consequences to our constituents and to this country on day 12 of a completely unnecessary government shutdown.
I really appreciate this opportunity because our constituents want to hear and we need to get the message out there about the harm that is being caused by this. And like my colleague from Illinois, I spent a good part of this week on the telephone talking with constituents out in the great State of Oregon. I have to tell you people are concerned, they are anxious, and they are frustrated.
I spoke with our National Guard. There is so much uncertainty out there among the National Guard members about when they'll be paid. Many of them are unable to work. They are anxious.
Our community action organization that is designed to help low-income people, they are worried. They are already struggling, some of these families. They don't know if they will be able to continue getting the assistance they need.
Our Head Start organization--if you really want to make a difference in a child's life, early childhood education makes that difference. Our Head Start programs are being threatened.
Just a while ago here in this discussion, somebody mentioned health care research. I talked to one of our supervisors of health care research at the Oregon Health & Science University. It is clear and obvious that health care research is not something that can be put on hold and picked up again when the government figures things out. So much is at stake here with the researchers who have dedicated so much time on their research projects and are at a halt because they might need something like NIH approval that they can't get. They are extremely concerned, and here we are on day 12.
I have to say that the government shutdown is not just affecting Federal employees and their families, or even those directly connected, like government contractors. It is also hurting private sector businesses, and that is what I wanted to highlight in the next couple of minutes.
There is a business in my district, Leupold. It is in Beaverton, Oregon. They have about 700 employees, and they manufacture specialized optics. That is 700 employees in Beaverton, Oregon. Right now they have
$10 million in orders that they can't ship. They can't ship them because they need export licenses because they sell their scopes and their binoculars and other products overseas, and they get that approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. So if we can't resolve this government shutdown, they are soon going to lose those sales to foreign competitors. That hurts our economy, it hurts the employees who work there, and it hurts the business.
Here is another example. Oregon, you might know, is well-known for craft beer. There are a lot of great small businesses, and those people work really hard to brew a great product. In Hillsboro, Oregon, in the district I am honored to represent, Three Mugs Brewing Company is all set to open. They are paying their rent, they are paying their utilities, their business expenses, but they can't start brewing because they need approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. They approve the labels and recipes for brewers. So here is this great small business, an entrepreneur ready to start, and they have their store, they are paying their rent and expenses, and they can't start brewing their beer because of this unnecessary government shutdown. It is time to end this right now, and we could end it today.
I, along with my colleagues here, we signed a petition to open government today. We could end this shutdown now, because across the State of Oregon, as well as across this country, our constituents are more than ready for this government to be back open.
I try, I struggle to understand how they must view this from across the country. We are here in Washington, D.C. We have been here day after day after day ready to open up the government and get the employees back to work, but what must we look like? I thought of an analogy. So there is an accident about to happen, and those nearby can prevent the accident, but they don't because they can't agree how to prevent the accident. So the accident happens, and now the victim is bleeding. The victim has been bleeding for 12 days. Guess what? There is a disagreement about what kind of bandage to put on the victim. That is how absurd this must look to the United States of America. This is an unnecessary government shutdown. It has been 12 days now. Let's get the government open. We can do it today.
I hope the Speaker calls us back today for a vote. The votes are there. We can pass a continuing resolution. Let's pass that resolution, open up the government, and continue the conversation about how to build our economy, get our budget conference committee going. We can do that today, and I hope we do.
I want to thank again the gentlelady from Hawaii for giving us the opportunity to really highlight how this unnecessary government shutdown is hurting our constituents and our economy.
{time} 1215
Ms. HANABUSA. I thank very much the gentlelady from Oregon, who clearly is in her district looking and hearing what her constituents are saying. I will always remember Beaverton, Oregon, and her 700 constituent employees of that company that is unable to ship, because that is really what this is about. We initially reacted to the immediate impact of the Federal employees, but now we are beginning to see, as the gentlelady from Oregon pointed out, that it is more than just the immediate employees, contractors who deal with the Federal Government; it is also the people who need the Federal Government because of their businesses. So the gentlelady from Oregon has brought forth an amazing story, as well as given us further insight into how this really Republican government shutdown has hurt everyone.
Now I would like to call upon the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Frankel).
Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. First I would like to thank the esteemed Representative from Hawaii for sharing this time with me.
Mr. Speaker, I once again rise and join my colleagues in urging you to allow us to vote to reopen government. I have been up here before day after day. I have taken a nuanced approach, quoting the wisdom of the popular children's author, Dr. Seuss, but today the Dr. Seuss gloves come off.
It is no wonder, no wonder that a recent poll of Americans show that Congress is less popular than hemorrhoids, toenail fungus, dog poop, and cockroaches. Like millions of Americans, I want to put my head out the window and shout that this standoff is idiotic and this reckless, irresponsible shutdown has got to stop.
Mr. Speaker, as I speak, the Earth is in turmoil. Iran is building a nuclear weapon; in Syria, a civil war is killing thousands of women and children; in Nairobi, terrorists attacked innocent shoppers in a retail mall; and in Europe, major countries are going bankrupt.
So what does the greatest Nation on Earth do to set an example for the rest of the world? We hang a sign that says, ``Closed for business.'' And as we try to emerge from a recession that hurt so many of our constituents, we proceed to throw 800,000 patriotic Americans out of a job, leaving them without income to pay their mortgages, their car loans, their children's tuition. Oh, but that is not all. We stop the funding for Head Start for millions of children and slow down benefits for veterans who risked their lives and their liberty for our freedom.
Mr. Speaker, this government does not belong to the United States Congress. This government belongs to the people of America, and they are demanding, rightfully so, that we open our government today.
Mr. Speaker, let us vote today.
Mr. Speaker, if this Congress delays any longer, I respectfully suggest that even the Ebola virus and twerking will overtake us in the polls, and it will be well-deserved.
Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you to my good friend, the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Frankel). As she always has the capacity of bringing things down to the basics, I would hate to admit that we would be less popular than the Ebola virus; but knowing the gentlelady from Florida, she probably has a basis for what she has said.
Mr. Speaker, my Special Order time is running down, and I would just like to say, after listening to all of the people who have spoken--the gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from California, the gentlewoman from Florida, the gentlewoman from Oregon, and the gentlewoman from Illinois--and all of their stories that they have shared and the concerns of their constituents, you have got to start to ask the question, why, and what does the Republican majority, Mr. Speaker, intend to gain--to gain--from this shutdown?
Let's also look at H. Res. 368 that we passed on October 1 regarding the amendment to clause 4 of rule XXII that says, any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII relating to House Joint Resolution 59--and we all know that is the CR--may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee. You add this on top of everything else, the inability for people to come forward on behalf of their constituents to ask for unanimous consent to bring House Joint Resolution 59 to the floor, not being able to do that, and the fact that we have a petition, a discharge petition that people are signing up for because that is the only alternative, is this the message we want to give to the people of the United States, that not only does the House of Representatives shut down government because of a minority group within the Republican Party that is the majority, but in addition to that, you have taken away the ultimate form of representative government, which is that each and every one of their elected Representatives has a right to come before this body and to make a motion and to be heard? But instead we have shut that down on October 1 as well. That should be even more problematic to the people of this great Nation, that a motion and a rule such as that was passed. And, Mr. Speaker, I remind you, nine--
nine--of your own Republicans couldn't even stomach that and could not vote for that.
So why are we doing this? Why? It began with, well, we will go along with the continuing resolution that the Senate sent back on the condition that we first defund ObamaCare. We had delays of ObamaCare. We had repeals of ObamaCare, and that sort of lasted for last week and then it stopped. No mention of ObamaCare. No mention at all of ObamaCare.
Then what did we start to do? We started to pick and choose and cherry-pick which part of government we wanted to open up. And you knew that was DOA, dead on arrival in the Senate. But yet, Mr. Speaker, you decided well, maybe the optics would be better. But it hasn't been better. It has not been better.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has come out against not only the failure to address the debt ceiling and saying that the United States cannot default; they also said you shouldn't allow the shutdown. And big businesses have also said that. Banks have said that. People that the average person probably associates more with the Republican Party than they do with the Democrats, and they are saying do not do this. Yet it is being done. It is being done.
The people in Hawaii will know this concept, and the concept is save face. You know, we have a saying back home that what people sometimes need to do is save face. And I think that is what it comes down to. The polls, Wall Street Journal polls are slamming the Republican position, Mr. Speaker. You are being given but a 24 percent favorable rating. So what does that say to you? It says the people are not with you. The people do not support this crazy--I don't know what to call it. I would like to say it is a plan, but I can't see anyone being behind a plan that makes the people of this great Nation suffer.
You heard the story of Jill. You heard the story from the gentleman from California who talks about he knows people are suffering PTSD. You have heard the fears of not being able--not being able--to know when you will be working and when you are not going to be working.
Yes, we in the House passed, we passed 3223--I believe that number is correct--that says we will retropay. But that doesn't give them their paycheck because a continuing resolution hasn't passed; and it hasn't passed the Senate, though we believe the Senate will be with it, and we also believe the President will sign it into law. But for those people, yes, it is like an empty promise, the same empty promise that they believe we had when everyone said we are not going to shut down government. Why would we shut down government? And here we are, this is the 12th day of the shutdown, day 12, and do we have anything to tell them? No.
Instead, we emphasize the fact that their Representatives who want to see a vote, because we believe that there are members of the Republican Party who will support a clean CR and a voting to open up government at the level, at the level of funding which the Republicans wanted, Paul Ryan wanted, but we are not even able to do that because of a procedural move.
Procedural moves are what the people of this great Nation dislike the most, because they feel that it is some kind of hidden deal and we are not being transparent and we are also not giving people true representation. To abdicate the ability to bring something to the floor as important as the government continuing to operate to one person or his designee is exactly what the people do not want. And that is what we are dealing with, Mr. Speaker. We are dealing with this shutdown for no basis, because you have abandoned ObamaCare now. There is no ultimate plan.
We have the looming debt ceiling crisis, which is what Wall Street is even more concerned about than anything else, and what we should all be concerned about, because the full faith and credit of the United States should never be in question and should never be in jeopardy because we can cause a recession worldwide with that action. There is no plan. There is no plan.
You wanted to show that you could shut down government, Mr. Speaker, so you won. You shut it down. But now, now you must plan how to open it. And that has been always the criticism of our great country, that we always lack exit strategies, and this is another example of a lack of an exit strategy. You win the shutdown, but how do you open up? That is the question, Mr. Speaker. And that is the question that only you can answer to the people of this great Nation. And only you can answer to the people of this great Nation why, why you have taken away the ultimate form of representative government by abdicating the right to bring this most critical measure to this floor to one person or his designee.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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