Cliff Stearns: “we are all concerned about our Federal workers and the need to find a way to end this shutdown. While no one wants to…”

“we are all concerned about our Federal workers and the need to find a way to end this shutdown. While no one wants to see this situation continue, there is an even more overwhelming concern that is being voiced by the majority of the Members in the House. Their greatest fear is that if we comply with requests to pass a continuing resolution [CR] to get us through this month then the President will renege on his promise once again. As we all know, in an effort to work in a bi-partisan manner, back in November we passed a CR that would run through December 15. We did this in good faith. What happened to the promise made by the President to produce a balanced budget in 7 years using congressional budget numbers? We are still waiting that document to be put on the table. You know, Mr. Speaker, it makes it tremendously difficult to negotiate when only one side has produced the necessary budget that meets all the requirements that were previously set down by the President in his State of the Union Address in January of 1993. What caused this shutdown? Quite simply, the President vetoed appropriations bills that currently force this partial shutdown.”