Roy Blunt: “it is an honor to be yielded time by the distinguished gentleman and to speak after he referred to Harry Truman, a…”

“it is an honor to be yielded time by the distinguished gentleman and to speak after he referred to Harry Truman, a Missouri President who understood responsibility. The responsibility of the House today and tomorrow and however many days it takes is to get our job done. The responsibility of the House is to do the work of the people of the country. We have heard these motions over and over again. I heard this morning that what the rule proposes to do is squelch the free expression of the Members of the House. I advance the idea that the free expression of the Members of the House is more squelched by consistently delaying the process of the real debate that needs to go on here. As the former chief election official of our State, I have looked at some of these motions that have been filed, and I think any reasonable person would be hard-pressed to argue that we are not debating and reading and seeing introduced the same motion over and over again while the real work of the country stands undone. This week should not be about dilatory tactics. This week should not be about motions to adjourn. This week should be about doing the job we need to do to direct the foreign policy of America, to have a defense bill that puts our defense in place, to decide the debate on national testing that 295 Members of the House said they did not want in the Labor-HHS bill.”