Alan Simpson: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just respond. The gentleman from Virginia is…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just respond. The gentleman from Virginia is correct in that this is no way to run the government. I would remind the gentleman from Virginia that we did pass resolution after resolution, and we sent them to the Senate to keep the government operating. Unfortunately, they were rejected by the body on the other side. Now, I suspect that you might have a different take on why that was done. So, finally, we said let's go to conference to try to work out our differences. No, they wouldn't even do that. They rejected that. So is it fair to punish those people who have planned for months, sometimes years, to bring their families to Washington, D.C.? They've saved. They've put aside money so that they could come out here to show the American people our National Capital or to go to the Yellowstone National Park or Yosemite. Is it fair to punish them? This opens them and keeps them open for those people so that they can enjoy those natural things that you and I both love. There is absolutely no reason to punish them.”