Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. 75, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children Continuing Appropriations Resolutions, 2014; Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules; Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(a) of Rule XIII with Respect to Consideration for Certain Resolutions; and for Other Purproses

Floor Speech

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Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Unless the silent Members of the majority speak up, today's debate is a fait accompli.

For the last 2 days, Members of the majority have said publicly that they wish this government shutdown would end. In fact, a coalition of more than 218 Democrats and Republicans has publicly declared that it is ready to vote on the clean Senate CR. This 218 would be the majority, and we would pass it; and that's why the powerful minority, who has taken the government hostage, is doing all it can again today to prevent the Senate CR from coming to the House floor. It doesn't make any sense. Not only doesn't it make any sense; but, actually, were we to do that, we wouldn't have to be here today, trying to do these piecemeal pieces.

Last night, the Rules Committee proposed a rule for these 11 piecemeal funding bills before us today. They didn't go through a single meeting of a committee. At least, in the committee process, the subcommittees and committees would have given both Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to weigh in on these measures. Remember that half the population of the United States is represented by Democrats and that, in the last election, Democrat candidates for Congress achieved a million more votes than our Republican friends, but we are shut out of the process. Indeed, these bills were written yesterday afternoon and were brought straight to the Rules Committee, as so many are lately, in order to be rushed to the floor.

During our hearing, a colleague promised that the reckless approach would continue, even suggesting that we could see 150 more of these piecemeal bills before the majority agrees to end the government shutdown. That should take us to, maybe, October of next year. Yet, while they're willing to take 150 votes on bills the President would veto--and everybody knows the President would veto them--and the Senate would reject, they haven't allowed a single vote on the cure to the problem: bring up the CR, and put the government back to work.

Fortunately for the American people, no minority--no matter how powerful--can stop the will of the House if we exercise it. Unlike the Senate, a majority in the House can only be held back for so long. Thanks to the democratic spirit baked into our Chamber's rules, the majority will always succeed. For the more than 218 Members--a majority who has expressed a desire to vote on the clean CR--our most powerful tool is voting down the previous question and bringing the clean Senate CR to the floor to vote on.

Now, earlier this week, my Democrat colleagues and I urged the Chamber to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we could bring the Senate bill to the floor. Not a single Republican joined our cause. Today, we are going to give you another chance. Following the debate on the rule, we will have a chance to vote down the previous question. While that may simply be legislative language to most people, what that will do is give us an opportunity--those of us who very strongly believe this government should work--to bring the CR, bring the shutdown to a close and put everybody back to work. I want to see by the end of this day that we can accomplish that, because words are no longer enough. Those Members of the majority who claim that they want to end the government shutdown get the opportunity today to stand up and vote. As I said the other day when we had the same opportunity, I would like them to put their voting cards where their mouths are.

Over the next hour, I encourage every Member of this Chamber to reflect on the damage that has already been wrought on our Nation because of the shutdown and on the damage that will ensue if we wait another day. The shutdown is costing the Nation $300 million a day, and more than 800,000 workers are furloughed without pay. Today, we are going to vote--and, I think, almost unanimously--to pay them when the shutdown ends. A logical person would say, Why don't you bring them back to work? If they're going to be paid anyway, let them work. There is no answer for that. There must be some reason here that is available to only a few people as to why the majority wants to keep the government shut down.

We have to also end this because our State Department and intelligence employees need to go back on the job. A hurricane is bearing down right now on the State of Louisiana while 80 percent of the FEMA workers are furloughed. NASA had to turn off the Mars Rover, which was giving us so much information about the universe--stopping all the space exploration in its tracks.

I think one of the best things I've read to describe what we are doing in this House was said by a Republican. Because there is no plan here--there is no end game here--he is saying that what they are doing is laying the track ahead of the speeding train as it bears down on them.

The majority started the shutdown because they were dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act; and I think, by doing this piecemeal, they think they can still do that. Throughout the process, they have issued dire predictions about the health care law and have warned that the law would hurt American workers. It is absolutely turning out not to be true.

In the last week, two of our Nation's biggest companies have responded to the Affordable Care Act by giving tens of thousands of their part-time employees full-time jobs. Guess who they are? One is the largest employer in the United States--Walmart. They are raising 35,000 of their part-time employees to become full-time employees in order to make them eligible for health insurance. Walt Disney announced that 427 employees at Disney World who have been hired as full-time employees will be given access to the health insurance plan. We also hear all the time--and I've really got to research this--that Delta Air Lines has said, they tell me, that the affordable care plan would cost them $100 million a year. I surely would like to know how that's possible unless they plan to hire 70 million new employees, which would certainly be good for employment, but I see no earthly reason for them to do that. We need to know whether that's true or not since all of the rest of the dire predictions have turned out not to be.

The Affordable Care Act is working; but because of the majority, the government is not, and it's time for the majority to give up this losing game. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying legislation; and, so importantly, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. Then, Mr. Speaker, we can bring the clean Senate CR to the House floor, as we should have done weeks ago, and end this government shutdown today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds.

My colleagues have confused the fact that they have gone around saying how, indeed, throughout August and all the rest of this time, that they don't want to shut down the House, in some hope, I guess, that nobody would understand that when they shut down the House, that they had actually done it.

Now what my colleague is talking about from the Democrat side, what they are saying, let's do what we agree with, they are taking their word for it that you didn't want to shut down the House. So let's not do it. You cannot superimpose that notion onto the idea of setting up this government by dribs and drabs. None of us are for that. The Senate won't do it. You know this is an exercise in futility. But pretty soon, the previous question is coming up. You are going to have a chance to do what you said you didn't want to do, shut down the House. But I understand from what you have said that because of health care, because of health care and what you think it has done to people in your district, you are holding this country hostage.

Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentlelady yield?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I don't have the time. My time has been given out.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I am absolutely going to vote to retroactively fund the Federal employees because that's the best I can do, on that one issue. It is a matter of basic fairness, but it is not good enough.

The fact is that the Federal employees will not get paid their retroactive money until after all this charade is over. We have no idea when that's going to be.

Let me reiterate again what all my colleagues have said: we can do it right now, put them back to work and let them get their paycheck.

I'm embarrassed every time I pass the Capitol Police at what's happening to them. It bothers me terribly to hear my friends at the State Department say that they're working on fumes.

We cannot run the Government of the United States, which is the beacon of democracy, has been the pattern for countries all over the world, by saying we're going to fund this piece over there and that piece over there, and we don't care what happens to the rest of it. That's not what we are here for.

Certainly, we will fund that one piece; but I can tell you right now, the Democrats are not going to do any of the rest of it because the Senate is not going to take it up and the President is not going to sign it.

We are simply wasting time, and we're taking up valuable time, and we are worrying the country half to death.

For heaven's sake, when we do this previous question, let us do the right thing. Vote ``no'' and get all these folks back to work.

Does it literally make sense to anybody who either manages a household or their own business that we would say to everybody, go home and rest around here or there; we'll pay you later when we decide you can come back, for not being here. That makes absolutely no sense.

Let them go back to work. We're going to pay them. Pay them now for the work they're doing. Pay concurrently with work.

Doesn't that make more sense?

Does it really make any sense at all that we're saying to them, we have no idea what the end game is here. You may be sitting around for a very long time, while the country pays $300 million a day of the cost of the shutdown.

For heaven's sake, I would say once again that we have to do this previous question today. We have to stop this nonsense. It is humiliating us. We cannot go on with this another week.

We're only here today to try to make it look like we're doing something because the government's shut down, and we know it. Those bills that we're voting on today had no committee action, nothing. The Senate has made perfectly clear they're not going to take them up. They will not become law, as every school child knows.

Now, those who vote ``no'' on ordering the previous question will be giving this Chamber what the leadership of the majority has not, and that will be the real chance to vote this down so that we can put the CR on the calendar and stop the shutdown now, today.

It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. The President's waiting for it.

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.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from New York?

There was no objection.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, I beg my colleagues, I do implore my colleagues, for goodness sakes, come to the floor, defeat the previous question. Vote ``no.''

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

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