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Washington, DC – Congressman Jim Moran, Northern Virginia Democrat, delivered the following remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives today, expressing his deep frustration that House Republicans have continued holding the government hostage in an effort to repeal Obamacare.
House Republicans shut down the federal government Monday night for the first time in 17 years. 800,000 federal workers are facing the prospect of lost wages due to these reckless actions. Rep. Moran has introduced bipartisan legislation, the “Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act,” (H.R. 3223) to ensure all federal employees receive retroactive pay for the duration of a federal government shutdown, regardless of individual furlough status.
Here is Rep. Moran expressing his frustration with Republicans again on Wednesday:
“Mr. Speaker, this Republican shutdown is an outrageous abdication of Congress’ responsibility. And it didn’t need to be this way. In fact, if the House leadership were to call up a clean appropriations bill today, it would pass. There are a sufficient number of votes from both sides of the political aisle to pass the measure.
“So far, however, the House Republican leadership has refused to do so, afraid of extremists within its caucus, the so called Ted Cruz Tea Party faction, whose demand is to shut down the government until the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is either repealed or delayed.
“And so the American people’s government has shut down.
“90 percent of the employees of the Environmental Protection Agency have been furloughed. 84 percent of the employees of the Department of Interior all over the country, but mostly in the western states, have all been furloughed. 70 percent of the employees of our essential intelligence agencies have been furloughed.
“Recipients of Women and Infant Care, the most vulnerable women and children, have had their livelihoods jeopardized. The National Institutes of Health have had to turn away 30 children with cancer from clinical trials.
“We in this House must end this shutdown.
“This debate isn’t even about the budget. The President and the Senate have already agreed to trillions of dollars of cuts set by the so called Ryan Republican budget, even though this draconian budget will endanger basic government operations, disinvest in our children’s future and trigger even more federal employee furloughs and possible RIFs.
“Rather, this shutdown is about a measure that strengthens insurance coverage for the roughly 260 million Americans who have insurance. It will also eliminate preexisting conditions and lifetime limits, and makes health insurance available and affordable for roughly 40 million uninsured Americans through state exchanges where insurance companies compete to provide coverage and through expansion of the Medicaid program.
“The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. It has been affirmed as constitutional by the Republican dominated U.S. Supreme Court and by a five million vote majority of the American public with the defeat of the presidential candidate who promised to repeal it less than a year ago.
“Regardless of where one may stand on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, aka ‘Obamacare’, our democratic process for enacting laws and setting policy should not be held hostage to the threat of a government shutdown. It sets a terrible precedent for the future.
“My Republican colleagues continue to demand concessions with serious long-term consequences in exchange a short term spending bill at their preferred, inadequate spending levels. What unreasonable demands will be made when this latest CR expires in two months, or one month?
“These attempts to overturn the democratic results of the last election by threat-making and hostage-taking must end now.
“We should do our job, fund the government, and we should remove the looming threat to the global economy in the form of the expiration of the debt ceiling which will occur in just a couple weeks.
“Not content with the economic destruction and hardship wrought by their government shut down and their refusal to let the federal government play its historical role to stimulate a strong economic recovery, House Republicans continue to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.
“As President Obama noted, if the tables were turned and you had a Republican President and a Democratic Speaker, as you did during the Reagan administration, neither Speaker O’Neil nor the American people would tolerate what is going on today
In fact that’s the situation we have today, a broken Congress, a situation where the American peoples voice isn’t heard or represented. It’s time for us to lead the American people, to let the majority of this Congress determine public policy.
“Let’s stop the extremism. Let’s be responsible, let’s pass this continuing resolution please, and get on with the business of the government.”
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