Marlin Stutzman: “I come to the floor today to share what I believe is a lack of cooperation in Washington, D.C. I come from Indiana as a…”

“I come to the floor today to share what I believe is a lack of cooperation in Washington, D.C. I come from Indiana as a farmer who served in the Indiana Legislature at times where we had divided government. My belief is that the only way you're going to solve a problem when you have issues is to talk. When you have one party who's at the table and is willing to discuss the problems that we face and you have another party who refuses to come to the table, we're not going to get anything done. The gentleman from New York asked a little bit ago: Who is in charge in the Republican conference, is the Speaker of the House or the Tea Party faction? I'll tell you who I believe is in charge, and that is our Speaker with the authority from the American people who elected each of us to come to Washington to represent them and to fight for them and to fight against an overaggressive Federal Government, $17 trillion of debt, and to fight a health care law that only intrudes more and more on American lives. As I think about history, we have been in a government shutdown before. Under those circumstances, we had President Ronald Reagan, who was a Republican, and we had Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill shut down government seven different times during President Reagan's time in office, but President Reagan didn't just sit at the White House and refuse to talk. He didn't go out traveling around the country pointing the finger back at Congress.…”