Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) issued the following statement after the House passed a three-week extension for funding the federal government. The current funding is set to expire this Friday, and this extension, if approved by the Senate, will run through April 8.  Funding will then need to be extended or the government will face a shut down.  

“We have to put all of the partisan wrangling behind us and do what the American people want from Washington – bipartisan cooperation for the good of the country.  We need to address our deficit, but we must do it together.  We also need to stop doing tiny extensions which just puts off the inevitable – this is a microcosm of what got us into this mess in the first place.

“The $6 billion in cuts included in this bill are designed to allow us additional time to negotiate an agreement for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends September 30^.  This will allow us to then focus on next year’s budget.  The cuts supported by House Republicans, were a wholesale cutting of the social safety net and programs especially beneficial to the middle class.  These are programs they have opposed for decades.  Their method of cutting amounted to taking a meat ax to the budget, when a scalpel would have been sufficient.   This is not how our government should be working, and it is certainly not how you find a bipartisan solution.

“I am hopeful that the Republican Majority will work with the Democrats, the Senate and President Obama, rather than demand their way, or no way.  Only together can we make changes to our budget which will make an impact on our deficit without placing too large of a burden on working families and those Americans who can least afford it.  This is a serious issue which will only be solved when all sides swallow their pride and agree to make real concessions.

“In 1995, over 800,000 federal employees were unable to report to work.  Services to veterans were curtailed. New patients were turned away from the National Institutes of Health.  Delinquent child-support cases were delayed.  National parks and museums were closed leading to loss of tourism and revenues across the nation.  Hundreds of thousands of passport applications went unprocessed.   Prolonged shutdowns would stop new Social Security applicants and new applicants for veterans’ benefits, and constituent services from Congressional offices.

“This is not what the American people want, they want us to work together to solve our nation’s problems.  It is time we did just that.”

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