Fairness is Not Letting the Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

Mrs. BEATTY. Mr. Speaker, so often we hear our colleagues saying, We come here to Congress to protect and to represent the American people. Well, the American people have spoken. They have asked us to open the doors of government, not shut them.

Mr. Speaker, I say to you that we cannot let you have a few of your Republican Members hold the government hostage because they dislike this President or they dislike the Affordable Care Act.

We cannot piecemeal this funding cycle, because fairness is not letting children starve. Eleven States will not be able to have grants for Head Start. The NIH has announced that they are not going to be able to have clinical trials for hundreds of patients. Thirty of those cancer patients are children.

Fairness is not starving small businesses. Fairness is not piecemealing it. It's like having a large family and asking the parents to pick three children to feed and let the others starve before their eyes.

We are starving America, we are starving government. And I say to my Republican colleagues, fairness is not shutting down the government.

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