Jim Costa: “This Congress is making a habit, unfortunately, of acting in crisis mode, which is irresponsible and does a disservice…”

“This Congress is making a habit, unfortunately, of acting in crisis mode, which is irresponsible and does a disservice to the fate and the trust that the American public has placed in us as their elected representatives, and this has a direct bearing on our economy. The Pope spoke to the need for us to come together and negotiate bipartisan solutions for the many challenges facing the United States and the world. The first and most pressing issue is to fund government. Thankfully, tomorrow the House is expected to vote on a short-term continuing resolution to do just that. I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of a clean continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. There is no justification to shut down government. Yes, we have our differences. We negotiate that in a budget process. However, we know that this is a short-term fix and that a real solution to fixing our Nation's very real and very serious budget problems is in producing a long-term budget, and we should do that in December. Instead of moving from one crisis to another crisis, we must get back to the work of governing responsibly. Responsible governance requires that we come together, work hard, compromise on a bipartisan budget that will not result in poorly thought-out, across-the-board spending cuts, more commonly known as sequestration. Failing to govern responsibly and compromise will negatively impact industries so vital to America.…”