Mike Honda: “As our past Senator Inouye would have said, mahalo, sister. Mr. Speaker, I come here from California. My friend, Ms.…”

“As our past Senator Inouye would have said, mahalo, sister. Mr. Speaker, I come here from California. My friend, Ms. Hanabusa, comes from the islands of Hawaii. All of us here in this body came here to do things that will make our country better, to help us build a more perfect Union. We have different ideas on how we would do that; but like in the medical field, we should observe one rule before all else: do no harm. We should not be causing unnecessary suffering, inflicting unnecessary pain on our country or on our economy and those who sent us here to try to improve their lives. Here we are on day 12 of the Republican government shutdown and less than a week from an unprecedented government default; and every day that the Republican majority does not allow a clean vote to reopen the government and give us a long-term certainty on the debt ceiling, they are violating that most important rule: do no harm. Critical child care, nutrition support, lifesaving research, small business capital, high-tech and groundbreaking research and development, home loans, affordable housing, veterans benefits, tax support, visas and passports are all negatively affected. And the list goes on and on to touch nearly every sector of the economy, with the cost to our economy compounding every day; $50 billion is the estimated cost to the economy over a month's time. As we get closer and closer to defaulting on our debt obligations, we are causing more and more undue harm to our economy.…”