Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, shutting down this House for the next 2 days--after shutting down the government--is truly an act of great irresponsibility. The threat to the security of our families grows with each hour of the government shutdown and with each hour that we approach an historic breach of the full faith and credit of the United States. One economic expert after another tells us that to move into this uncharted water and economic calamity, along with the consequences it brings to our families--our economy and our standing in the world are jeopardized. We have two ways to avoid this. Any Member can call up the Senate resolution to continue operations of the government. Republicans have blocked that with a special rule that gives that power only to Eric Cantor, the Republican leader. You see many Members wearing these stickers, which is the second way. It is to sign a petition to open the government. We have done that. We have reached almost 200 Members of this House. If only a few Republicans will join us, the government will open up.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Mr. DOGGETT. You are talking about things like cancer research or someone who is working on childhood disease.

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.

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.

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.

Mr. DOGGETT. They have passed little partial bills many times.

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.

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.

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.

Mr. DOGGETT. Oh. They have sent that over there, I guess, 40 times to repeal.

Mr. DOGGETT. Absolutely.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, Ms. Pelosi has already cleared it. Who is objecting? Who is not clearing it?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the House bring up the Senate amendment to H.J. Res. 59, instead of leaving for a 3-day weekend, that we open the government, go to conference on a budget, and end this Republican government shutdown.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, Federal workers, already under sustained attack from the Republican Shutdown Caucus, certainly deserve to have no further abuse, but the approval of this bill is surely one of the more bizarre moments in a truly bizarre Republican-controlled House. These great conservative stewards of the taxpayers' dollars refuse to let our Federal workers work; and now, today, they approved legislation to pay them for not working. Getting nothing for your tax dollar. That's the new Republican-Tea Party concept of fiscal responsibility. Of course, the Federal workers, even though they have paid leave now, are justifiably unhappy because of the uncertainty of not knowing from day to day whether they will be called to work and not knowing whether that paid leave will arrive in time to meet their bills at the end of the month. Paying Federal workers not to work--a new level, truly, of absurdity in this politically manufactured government shutdown.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, thirty-seven of 40 National Park Service workers at the Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio have been sent home because of this shutdown nonsense. I'd like to have them back at work, but what about the 90 percent of the Small Business Administration field employees across town who've also been sent home? Suzanna Cabellero, president of Texas CDC, called this morning, just one of the agents processing small business loans, to tell me that this Small Business Administration shutdown is jeopardizing four of her small businesses that could create 214 Texas jobs. In two cases, the delay may cost a small business person to lose a purchase contract and earnest money. This latest Republican shutdown nonsense discriminates against small businesses; and to some of those small businesses, that discrimination may be fatal. What if a worker is killed this afternoon in a construction accident? Who from the largely shuttered doors of Occupational Health and Safety will be there to assure that another worker doesn't experience the same fate. Of course, the shutdown caucus is happy, gleeful, delighted that they've been able to shut down 94 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency. Their only trouble is that they didn't get the other 6 percent, because they don't really believe in protecting, with effective safeguards, the quality of the air we breathe and the water that we drink. Instead of shutting down this whole government, this resolution says let's just have a little dismemberment. Through all of this reckless Republican maneuvering, it's not only the United States that cannot pay its bills, but it's so many of our families who are out there wondering how they're going to make the next truck payment or the next rent or mortgage payment. Shut down the Republican shutdown caucus before it strangles America the way it has strangled the House Republican Party.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. They come every 17 years. They make a strange and unpleasant noise, and then they shut down. Like those periodic cicadas that trouble different parts of the country, an irresponsible segment of the Republican House caucus has reverted to the old GOP shenanigans of a government shutdown that they've left in some burrow for the last 17 years. That Republican ``Shutdown Caucus'' has taken over the leadership of the Republican Party. They've hijacked it. But we cannot permit them to hijack America. This is more than a backyard nuisance. It is an attempt to interfere with the lawful rights of millions of Americans to gain access to the health insurance that they have been denied in the past. We must stand for their right to protect their family and secure their future. We must reject those who appear every 17 years to shut down our government. And we must stand up for America.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. For well over a year, Republicans have forced our country to lurch from one politically manufactured crisis to another. Last year, they cost us over a billion dollars in a manufactured crisis over the debt limit. They began New Year's Day with a last-second pullback from a plunge over the fiscal cliff. And now they're up to their old shenanigans of shutting down the government--and that manufactured crisis is just a few days before the next one they've manufactured over the full faith and credit of the United States. This is no way to run a Congress, and it's no way to run a country. The only path out is the same path that allowed us to escape the disaster on New Year's Day, the same path that we took that finally got relief for the Hurricane Sandy victims and the only way we passed the Violence Against Women Act--and that's to let majority rule apply on the floor of this House. And until we do that, we will have a crisis.

Mr. DOGGETT. What we have to do is end the hammerlock of the ``shutdown caucus'' in the Republican Party. When the Speaker finally lets a majority of this House, a bipartisan majority of Republicans and Democrats, vote on continuing the necessary operations of our government, if they'll do that tonight, it will pass in 5 minutes. It's just a question of whenever they decide to stop letting the ``shutdown caucus'' control what happens to the future of this Congress. It's the way we got relief on New Year's Day. It's the way we addressed the concerns of the Hurricane Sandy victims. It's the way we passed the Violence Against Women Act. And it's the way this country must move forward.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this Republican ``let them starve'' bill would undermine what Professors Miguel Ferguson, Stacey Borasky, and Scott Harding recently described in an article as a ``modern antipoverty marvel.'' SNAP, they report, ``improves access to healthy meals for nearly one in three children. It also reduces chronic illness and hospitalizations and significantly reduces poverty and the severity of poverty.'' It ``keeps kids healthier, happier, and better prepared to do their best in school.'' And SNAP ``is one of the most efficient government programs, with a rigorous application process, high rates of payment accuracy, and low rates of misuse (about a 1 cent on the dollar).'' The main limitation is not that it helps feed too many people or costs too much but that almost 30 percent of those eligible get nothing. We cannot snap our fingers and snap away poverty, but this bill will snap a vital lifeline. It must be rejected.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, 19 days, in just 19 days, millions of working Americans can apply to receive premium assistance tax credits to help them get health insurance. These are neighbors who were previously denied coverage, or who were excluded because of a preexisting condition, or because a small employer could not afford to provide health insurance. And today's bill is about one thing, and that is to deny those Americans their lawful opportunity, on October 1, to obtain health care security. This bill is certainly not about fraud because there is already a comprehensive system to prevent overpayment and verify income. This very afternoon, a family that suffers severe injuries in a traffic accident on I-35, or a San Antonio family that is notified of a dread disease, those families that lack affordable health insurance are suddenly overwhelmed with medical bills, and they deserve an alternative; and that alternative is coming on October 1, if these folks can't stop it. This bill would pull the affordability rug right out from under our working families, just as they're beginning to learn about its availability. Yes, this is the 41st time that they've tried to delay and dismantle and deny the rights of American working families. We know it won't be their last vote. In fact, next week they're so intent on blocking American families from getting health insurance coverage, they're willing to shut down the entire Federal Government. And as if that weren't enough, next month they propose to default on the full faith and credit of the United States of America for the first time in our history for the sole purpose of denying American families that don't have insurance now some health security. I think it's wrong. They talk about trust. Well, I don't think we should trust these zealots with our health care future.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. The majority leader is absolutely right about scare tactics. If you are an uninsured American and you get a diagnosis of cancer this morning or you are hit in a head-on collision this afternoon or you have a child born with a disability, you ought to be very scared. He's also absolutely right about the need for patient- centered health care. We're concerned about that. We're concerned that patients without insurance today are centered--they're centered right into bankruptcy court. More and more Americans are faced with a health care crisis. This bill has nothing to do with the Internal Revenue Service or the Treasury Department or restricting their rights. It's about restricting your rights. Now that we finally have a chance to protect Americans from insurance monopoly price gouging, from fine print in the contract for those who do have insurance that denies rights at the very time that you need them the most, that kind of protection about to go into effect, along with the right of so many Americans who are uninsured to go to a competitive private insurance marketplace and pick the policy that is best for their family, and for many Americans to have a premium tax credit, a tax credit that they want to deny to you. And what alternative do they offer? Well, the best source is the official Republican Web site. I urge you--although you will find plenty of misinformation there--to go to GOP.gov because you'll find one very revealing fact. When you look there to see what the Republicans have to offer as an alternative to ObamaCare, it says two words: ``in progress.'' It's been in progress since 2 and a half years ago, when they voted the first time to repeal ObamaCare, right up to today, when they vote for the 40th time to do it. They have only one alternative to ObamaCare, and it's called NothingCare. It's called do nothing but allow these insurance monopolies to continue to deny rights to our people.