Ed Markey: “once again, the Government for 200 years stayed open when a President vetoed a bill. The Congress could sustain the…”

“once again, the Government for 200 years stayed open when a President vetoed a bill. The Congress could sustain the veto, the Congress could override the veto, but the Government continued to work. The only reason the Government is shut down is the Republicans have decided, after 200 years, they are going to use as a technique laying off hundreds of thousands of employees and the services that they provide for Americans, including their ability to walk into national parks across this country. Why are we going to suspend that constitutional, historical, and successful way of governing this country? Because there is an emergency in this country, and the emergency is that the one thing the Republicans cannot do is get this $245 billion tax break for the wealthy in America. That is what the whole debate is over. The bills which they are insisting upon the President passing include other parts of the Contract With America which include gutting of environmental laws. The historical mechanism by which we change environmental laws was through the appropriations process, by which you brought the EPA, Superfund, and the national parks laws out here separately. They do not want to do it that way. We are in emergency, martial law, to get that tax break for the wealthy. We will hold every ordinary Federal employee hostage. America held hostage to this tax break for the wealthy. That is what it is all about.…”