Bob Wise: “if the Congress were a New Year's bowl game, then the legislative Heisman Trophy has to go to House Republican new…”

“if the Congress were a New Year's bowl game, then the legislative Heisman Trophy has to go to House Republican new Members for most successful tackles of a Federal Government: 19 days so far. No one is scoring political touchdowns in this, Mr. Speaker. The public is throwing the yellow flag on all of our Houses, including this one. My constituents have gone from expressing general frustration to specific anger. They are asking about the thousands of passports that are not being processed, the private vendors who are not being paid, the 2,500 housing loans a day not being processed, the $40 million a day of small business loan guarantees not being processed, millions of dollars a day in export licenses not being issued. One Federal supervisor in Charleston told me, Bob, we run complex operations. You cannot turn us on and off like a switch. A Federal fraud investigator reminded me that he cannot be ferreting out millions of dollars in fraud from a furloughed status. Mr. Speaker, while the budget negotiators do their work, this House should let hundreds of thousands of Federal workers do their work. Please end this shutdown now.”