On the recordOctober 4, 2013
House Speaker Boehner is sending the Senate a series of bills to put one Band-Aid at a time on the House Republicans' government shutdown. It is an obvious attempt to fool the American people into thinking House Republicans are acting to end the shutdown. But their transparent tactic is not fooling many people, and here is why: The people of this country know the harm of the government shutdown isn't about the handful of programs that House Republicans will dangle in front of us. The House Republican gambit will not put food inspectors back to work. It will not put Centers for Disease Control experts back to work tracking outbreaks of infectious diseases. It is not going to reopen Head Start classrooms for kids. Their piecemeal approach won't restart lending to small businesses or bring back the FAA inspectors who make sure commercial aircraft are safe, and it won't restore hundreds of other vital services and functions. No matter how many rifleshot bills the House Republicans try, all they do is leave our government full of holes. We could spend months legislating in bits and pieces while House Republicans ignore the obvious solution: The House should vote on the clean continuing resolution the Senate has sent to them, because that vote will end the shutdown.…





