On the recordOctober 16, 2013
The House of Representatives has put this country through a spectacle these past few months; and it was a spectacle that was based on the proposition that it was legitimate to actually have a discussion about whether we had to pay our bills. Mercifully, we are on the threshold of a bipartisan agreement whereby, number one, the Affordable Care Act will be the law of the land, and the debate in the future is not about its repeal; it is about improving it. It is about facing the challenges of implementation. Number two, we are repudiating as legitimate tactics to get your way, by any faction--it could be Democrats in the future--the use of tactics that do damage, threatening to default on our obligations and shutting down the government and inflicting pain on innocent people. So this struggle has damaged the institution, but the principles that were at stake are now resolved: one, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land; two, you cannot use the tactic of shutdown or the tactic of default as a way to get your way on your agenda. ____________________
