TJ Cox: “I certainly want to join in the comments of my colleague from California. We are here tonight addressing the House of…”

“I certainly want to join in the comments of my colleague from California. We are here tonight addressing the House of Representatives on an issue that could not be of greater importance to every one in this country. That is whether or not we can come to agreement on a funding bill for the whole Federal Government. After that is accomplished, obviously we will have an election. We will see if we have a new President. But for the meantime we are trying to work in a bipartisan cooperation to fund the Federal Government's operations. The leadership of this Congress, the other body and the House, have both said under no circumstances will we tolerate a repeat of what happened last year. We will not shut down the Federal Government and, as a consequence, the leadership in the other body and in this House of Representatives have been asked by the President of the United States and acceded to his request to add billions of dollars, specifically $6.5 billion to our spending bills that was not approved by the House, was not approved by the Senate, complete add on, complete derogation of our interest in fiscal responsibility and balancing the budget and so on.”