On the recordMarch 6, 2013
While the Defense funding in this package is something, as I said, I would like to vote for--it would continue support for critical national security programs important in my district, but more important than that, important in our country--if Congress continues to face every manner of manufactured crisis every other month, we cannot govern rationally, and it will hurt our people, our economy, and our security. When dysfunction rusts the wheels of Congress, it is the American people who suffer. And our defense community and the industries that support it will also suffer greatly from the uncertainty that results. I want to vote for appropriations bills that keep the promise we made to each other. I want to vote for appropriations bills that enable us to limit the negative impact of sequestration on our defense community and the most vulnerable in our society, but this CR does not do that. This vote will do nothing to lessen the effects of the sequester, whose impact is already being felt in my district and throughout the country. That is what compels me to vote ``no'' on this CR. I represent 62,000 Federal employees. I do not want this government to shut down. That is a more irrational policy than even sequester. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
