Paul Tonko: “Sure. Well, the gentleman from Texas gave a great rundown of the dynamics that have brought us to this moment. It's a…”

“Sure. Well, the gentleman from Texas gave a great rundown of the dynamics that have brought us to this moment. It's a sad day in this House with a government shutdown. The Republican shutdown of government is something that I think bears great consequences. And we've seen it and heard about it already. I wasn't here for the last such episode, which is about 17 years old in duration, but I do know that hearing from constituents already about concerns for vital services, about furloughing, about the impact on family budgets for our many, many Federal workers is real. So we need to move forward, I think, in a way that allows us to address a clean CR. People say, Well, what is a clean CR? What is a CR? A continuing resolution allows for a short-term continuation of a Federal budget, absent a negotiated budget. And I think that we find ourselves in this situation where we require a CR. Hopefully it will be a clean one. No bells and whistles, no attachments. And the desire to attach the Affordable Care Act and to call it on this floor in those discussions, in those debates ``a bill'' is disingenuous. It's an act. It is a law that was signed into place by the President and that was given constitutional approval when reviewed by the highest Court in the land, the Supreme Court. So let's call it what it is. It's a law. This is unprecedented in trying to take a law and repeal it as part of a negotiating process to move a budget forward.…”