Can We Talk

Floor Speech

Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Mr. President, can we talk?

I am pleased to hear that President Obama, 10 days into a government shutdown, is finally willing to talk with a contingent of House Republicans at the White House this afternoon. After all, there is plenty to discuss.

Everybody in this room, Democrat or Republican, knows that too many of our youth are underemployed or unemployed. Mr. President, our youth want to work.

Everybody in this room knows that we need tax reform to make our businesses competitive in the world and bring American jobs back to America.

Everybody in this room knows that Social Security and Medicare are on a pathway to insolvency and have to be shored up so that we can make our promises good to our seniors.

Thank you, Mr. President, at long last for sitting down to talk. Maybe if we could spend more time talking and less time posturing, we might be able to deal with some of these very significant problems.

Let's all pray that these talks are fruitful and improve the lives of all Americans.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair and not to others in the second person.

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