Mark Pocan: “This is a sad day for the American people and for American democracy. For weeks, I've told my constituents that I know…”

“This is a sad day for the American people and for American democracy. For weeks, I've told my constituents that I know things look bad, but the Republicans won't shut down the government. There's too many adults on that side of the room to let this happen. And now, after watching what happened yesterday, I can barely explain this to myself. The best I can say is I feel like I'm serving in the Nation's largest kindergarten, only we're in charge of the Federal checkbook and the nuclear arsenal. The fact that so many Republicans are holding their breath because they don't like the Affordable Care Act--Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. The President signed the bill into law. The Supreme Court has upheld the law. And yet this body keeps voting to try and repeal the Affordable Care Act, not just once or twice, getting the message, but 46 times. And it's still operational today. What happened last night, in the final half hour before closing down our government? The Republicans came up with a last-ditch effort: let's go to conference committee. I serve on the Budget Committee. We have been asking, for 6 months, to have the Republicans appoint conferees so we could have a budget in this country. The only obstacle between this country having a budget and not is the fact that the Speaker would refuse to appoint conferees to a budget.…”