Jon Tester: “people all around this country--and Montana is no exception--are looking at the actions in Washington, DC, and they are…”

“people all around this country--and Montana is no exception--are looking at the actions in Washington, DC, and they are shaking their heads in disbelief. They are shaking their heads in disbelief because the government has shut down, but yet a bill has passed the Senate. If the Speaker of the House would offer it on the House floor, it would pass the House and the government wouldn't have to be shut down. Then all the resolutions put forth on the other side, and some on this side, quite frankly, about opening different areas of the government, would all be settled because government would be open. A previous speaker this morning said: We shouldn't be dealing with overall government. We should be dealing with this in piecemeal fashion. Really? Who determines who gets help and who determines who doesn't? The fact is the government provides some pretty essential services to folks across the board. To stand on this floor and cherry-pick certain pieces of the government to fund and not to fund is totally unfair. Quite frankly, those groups know they are being used as political pawns in this process. We started out these negotiations with a CR that was at $1.58 trillion. We compromised that down to a point of $986 billion, somewhere around a $70 billion reduction. This is real money, a significant compromise. The House came back and said: No, that is really not good enough. We want that $986 billion figure, and then we also want to defund the Affordable Care Act.…”