BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Well, Mr. Speaker, here we are, on Day 2 of the Republican shutdown of the Nation's government, and the Republican majority has come up with yet another bit of meaningless political theater.
Yesterday's strategy from the gang that couldn't shoot straight was to bring up a small handful of bills to fund popular government programs and to try to pass them on suspension. That failed. Today's nonsense is to bring up those same bills under this rule and try to pass them with a majority vote.
Now, just for a moment, let's leave aside the fact that none of these bills are going anywhere. The Senate isn't going to go along with this, and neither is the President. So all of this is just a gigantic waste of time, which is one of the few things the majority is good at.
We say it all the time around here: budgets are about priorities. Budgets reflect things that you believe are most important to support.
And yesterday we learned all about the priorities of the Republican leadership. The first bill they brought up for debate--the one that they wanted to get over to the Senate most quickly--was a bill to fund the national parks and monuments. Now, I like the national parks. In fact, I love them. I support their full funding. I even believe they should get more funding than they would receive under the lousy Republican sequester numbers. But that's their number one priority?
What about the researchers at the Centers for Disease Control who protect us from epidemics? More than 8,700 people have already been furloughed from the CDC. I hope my Republican colleagues have gotten their flu shots, Mr. Speaker.
What about the low-income mother who has been cut off from WIC? What about the children who have been turned away from the Head Start programs?
No, they want to fund parks. And why? Let's be honest about this. Because right now every television network in America has a camera crew down at the National Mall interviewing disappointed tourists and taking pictures of the ``Closed'' signs on the Smithsonian museums. Because today, camera crews in California and Wyoming and Montana will be taking pictures of visitors turned away from Yosemite and Yellowstone and Glacier National Park.
Mr. Speaker, when my kids were little, we used to give them trail mix as a snack. There was granola and raisins and nuts and all kinds of healthy things. But my kids always wanted to pick out the M&Ms. That's what this Republican majority has been reduced to--trying to pick out the M&Ms from the trail mix. Eventually, my kids grew up. I hope the Republican majority will do the same.
We can do this right away. We can do this today. We can do this right now. We can pass the clean continuing resolution that has already passed the Senate. That's the way you keep the government functioning while the two Chambers work out their differences.
The notion that you're shutting the government down on a 5-week continuing resolution when we still have to negotiate a long-term spending bill is unconscionable. People all across this country, Democrats and Republicans, are outraged by the behavior of this Republican leadership. It is time to grow up. It is time to pass a clean continuing resolution.
Let's open up this government. Let's open it up today.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT