Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. 89, Excepted Employees' Pay Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3273, Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth Working Group Act of 2013; And Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. 90, Federal Aviation Administration Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Mr. President, can we talk? The government is partially shut down. The Nation's debt ceiling is looming.

President Obama and Harry Reid have drawn a hard line. They have proclaimed over and over again, no negotiation. They insist the debt limit must be raised at current levels of spending. No negotiation. They're adamant that the status quo must be preserved. And why not?

Here is the status quo: 7.3 percent unemployment 4 years after the recession has ended; 15 percent unemployment for those under 25; 50 percent of recent college graduates unemployed or underemployed; household income down 10 percent in the last 5 years. It has fallen every year since the President has been in office, and it continues to decline. Continued economic stagnation 4 years after the recession has ended; continued record deficit spending; Social Security and Medicare on a path to insolvency.

Why would the Republicans want to discuss these fundamental problems? Why would we want to alter that course?

By any measure, the President's policies are failing miserably:

He is failing our seniors. Their safety nets, Social Security and Medicare, are headed for bankruptcy, but he won't negotiate.

He is failing our middle class through higher taxes, higher energy costs, higher insurance bills on one hand, and on the other hand, a continued decline in household income. They're getting squeezed from both sides, but he won't negotiate.

He is failing our youth, the millennial generation, by piling mountains of debt on our children and our grandchildren, but he won't negotiate. He is failing our youth and millennial generation through his job-killing policies of more regulation, more taxes, and more government.

Mr. President, our youth wants to work, and they're counting on us, but the President won't negotiate. Remember, my friends, that the Democrats held the House, the Senate, and the Presidency for only 2 years; but out of that came ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, the two biggest expansions of government and killers of jobs to come out of Washington in 50 years.

I didn't want the government to shut down--nobody did--but we cannot continue to run head-on into failure. If we are to change course, the Republicans can't do it on their own. The President and Harry Reid in the Senate will have to participate.

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