On the recordJuly 23, 2013
In reclaiming my time, regarding shutting the government down, those are the gentleman's words, not ours. I don't think you've heard that at all from this side. It's not about shutting the government down; it's about passing 12 appropriations bills. That's really what we are supposed to be doing, and we are committed to doing that. We don't want to see a government shutdown, and I think our bringing appropriations bills to this House floor shows, in fact, that that's not the intent and that that's not the desire. With that, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, just to build on what my colleague Mr. Van Hollen was talking about, the reason we are so frustrated over here is that it seems that the Republican leadership is hellbent on doing nothing--on stopping everything. We have 16 legislative days left until the end of the fiscal year. You've only passed three appropriations bills. Notwithstanding the fact that the House passed a budget and the Senate passed a budget, there has been no conference on the budget. We have a debt limit looming, and I hear rumors that you're trying to figure out what pound of flesh you can obtain in order to avoid our defaulting on our financial obligations. This is not the way to run a government. I would just plead with my colleagues on the other side that you need to get serious about sitting down and negotiating our differences.…
