Tonight, Congressman David Scott spoke on the House floor in favor of the budget agreement to end the government shutdown. The agreement, H.R. 2775, was passed by a bipartisan majority and signed into law by the President. The new law reopens the government, puts hundreds of thousands of federal employees back to work and provides lawmakers the opportunity to reach an agreement on a long-term budget. A budget conference on long-term deficit reduction must make recommendations by December 13, 2013. You can watch a video of his remarks at YouTube/RepDavidScott.
This is the text of the Congressman's remarks from the Congressional Record:
Madam Speaker, I rise to support this very needed legislation.
Let me make a point here. There is a very important part of this legislation which sets up the budget commission. I would just like to make an appeal to that commission to not only get to us a good budget by December 15, but take some time to see how we can get some mechanisms in place to prevent us from ever again shutting down the Federal Government.
We take a solemn oath here to defend the Federal Government, to support the Federal Government, to uphold the Federal Government. We must honor that. Maybe we can do mandatory arbitration in its place. But we have got some smart people in this place. We hurt too many people when we shut down the Federal Government.
Hopefully, we can put the Mitch McConnell rule in place. God bless that Senator from Kentucky, and the courage that he had to step forward in a bipartisan way so that we can put that mechanism in place so that we will never again put our good faith and credit at risk in this country.
Finally, let us, Democrats and Republicans, work together, beginning tonight, and pass this bill.
All bills and statements in the Congressional Record can be found online through the Library of Congress' Thomas site.
