On the recordSeptember 24, 2013
we now start 30 hours. I would hope we can yield back the vast majority of that time. I have no problem with Senators being allowed to speak under what the rules are postcloture. But I would hope we can expedite this. We have a lot to do. We should get there as quickly as we can. As I have indicated before, every hour that we delay is an hour closer to shutting down the government. There were all kinds of articles written today about the disaster of that. Closing the government will hurt our gross domestic product by tens of billions of dollars just like that. This is leading up to the real battle we have of raising the debt ceiling; that is, to have the government pay its bills which we have already incurred. So I hope everyone would keep that in mind. Again, as I said at some length earlier, we have wasted enough time of the American people the last few months. Let's start moving forward and get things done rather than just stalling, stalling. Everything is a big slow walk. We have to get past that. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.





