Mr. President, we are now three days into a completely unnecessary, completely unavoidable
Republican shutdown, and there is more talk than ever about our inability of our leaders
to find common ground on central economic and fiscal issues of our time.
The government shutdown is throwing a major wrench into a fragile economic recovery.
Nearly 1 million federal employees are sitting at home for no reason, and other public servants
are working but not earning a paycheck.
Cancer patients are being turned away from clinical trials at the NIH.
Veterans’ benefits are at risk.
Basic nutrition services for pregnant women and new moms will be disrupted.
Small businesses won’t be able to get federal loan guarantees.
And all this is happening on top of the idiotic sequester – drastic, across-the-board spending
cuts – that have crippled Meals on Wheels, Head Start, and investments in medical research.
We all know how we got here.
For years now, we’ve heard a small minority in this country rail against government.
When I hear the latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, I am struck by
how vague these complaints are.
From their rhetoric, you’d think they believe that anytime that we the people come together
to improve our lives that the nation is committing some terrible wrong.
From their rhetoric, you’d think they believe that the government that functions best is
a government that doesn’t function at all.
So far, they haven’t ended government but they have achieved the next best thing: shutting
the government down.
But behind all the slogans of the Tea Party and all the thinly veiled calls for anarchy
in Washington, behind all that there’s a reality.
The American people don’t want the extremist Republican’s bizarre vision of a future
without government.
They don’t support it.
Why?
Because the American people know that without government, we would no longer be a great
nation with a bright future.
The American people know that government matters.
The anarchy gang is quick to malign government but when was the last time anyone called for
regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children’s toys?
Or for food inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling
with deadly bacteria?
Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in little
babies?
We never hear that, not from political leaders in Washington and not from the American people.
In fact, whenever the anarchy gang makes headway in their efforts to damage our government,
the opposite happens.
After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us
to protect funding for our national defense and keep the air traffic controllers on the
job.
And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government, holding the country hostage
because of some imaginary health care bogeyman, Republicans almost immediately turned around
and called on us to start re-opening parts of our government.
Why do they do this?
Because the bogeyman government is like the bogeyman under the bed.
It’s not real.
It doesn’t exist.
What is real, what does exist, are all those specific and important things that we as Americans
have chosen to do together through our government.
In our democracy, government is not some make-believe thing that has an independent will of its
own.
In our democracy, government is just how we describe the things that we the people have
already decided to do together.
It’s not complicated.
Our government has three basic functions: Provide for the national defense, put in place
rules of the road – like speed limits and bank regulations that are fair and transparent,
and build the things together that none of us can build alone – roads, power grids,
schools – the things that give everyone a chance to succeed.
We are a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, growing small businesses and thriving big
businesses.
But our people succeed – our country succeeds – because we have all come together to put
public institutions and infrastructure together.
We all decided to pass laws to put cops on the beat so that no one steals your purse
on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street.
We all decided to invest in public education so that businesses have skilled workers and
a kid with an idea can create the next breakthrough company.
We all decided to invest in basic science so there is a great pipeline of ideas to create
our future.
These achievements aren’t magic.
They didn’t simply occur on their own or through dumb luck.
In each instance, we made a choice as a people to come together.
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills that we take are antibiotics
and not baking soda.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure that all
new cars have effective breaks.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that baby’s car seats don’t collapse
in a crash and the toasters don’t explode.
We don’t know who they are.
But there is no question that there are Americans alive today, Americans who are healthier,
Americans who are stronger because of these and countless other government efforts.
Alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.
The anarchy gang at the House can dump on their make-believe version of government all
they want.
But when the real government fails to live up to the high expectations we have all set
for it, politicians in both parties rush to outrage.
Why?
Because the American people know that government can work and believe government should work.
Today – that’s right, today – marks the fifth anniversary of President Bush signing
the bank bailout into law.
That financial crisis cost us upwards of $14 trillion.
That’s trillion with a T. That’s $120,000 for every American household, more than two
years worth of income for the average family.
Billions of dollars in retirement savings disappeared.
Millions of workers lost their jobs.
And millions more families lost their homes.
In April 2011, after a two-year bipartisan inquiry, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations released a 635 page report that made it plain regulators could have and
should have used their existing tools to prevent the crisis.
Republicans and Democrats, a bipartisan group, found strong agreement that – you better
believe it – government matters.
The attacks on government are abstract, but the consequences of this shutdown are real.
Less accountability for cheaters and rule breakers.
Less opportunity for our children.
Cracks in the foundations that businesses need to succeed.
And a tilted playing field that limits opportunities for all of our people.
We know the government doesn’t always work.
We know that no institution is infallible.
People make mistakes.
Ideas fail, and sometimes we get things wrong.
But our response isn’t to give up.
Our response isn’t to sit back and say, “I told you so.”
We’re not a nation of quitters!
Our response – the American response is to fix it, to make government work better.
Our democracy is an experiment, and it’s always evolving.
We constantly re-design and re-imagine and improve on what we do together.
But time and time again throughout our history, we have reaffirmed the simple truth that government
matters.
And right now, right at this moment, if you look closely, you’ll see that we are reaffirming
it once again.
It’s not an accident that the desire to shutdown government is confined to one extremist
faction of one political party of one chamber of Congress of one branch of government.
It is not an accident that this extremist faction must resort to absurd hostage tactics,
threats to turn off the government, threats to default on our debts, threats to tank the
economy, to force their views on everyone else.
And it’s not an accident that this faction is doing everything in its power to make government
appear dysfunctional.
In a democracy, these hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win
their fights through elections, can’t win their fights through Congress, can’t win
their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in court.
But these threats are not working and they will never work because this is a democracy,
and for more than 200 years our democracy has defeated extremists and rejected the idea
that government doesn’t matter.
So, Mr. President, to those who have forced us to the brink, to those who rail against
a make-believe government, to those who seem to rejoice in anarchy, to those who have salivated
at the chance to shut down our government because their extremist views have left them
disconnected from the experiences of the American people, it is time to hear a simple message:
You can do your best to make government look like it doesn’t work when you stop it from
working.
You can do your best to make government look paralyzed when you paralyzed.
You can do your best to make government look incompetent through your incompetence and
ineffective through your ineffectiveness.
But sooner or later, the government will re-open because this is a democracy and this democracy
has already rejected your views.
We have already chosen to do these things together we all know that we are stronger
when we come together.
When this government re-opens, when our markets are safe again, when our scientists can return
to their research, when our small businesses can borrow, when our veterans can be respected
for their service, when our flu shots resume and our Head Start programs get back to teaching
our kids, we will have rejected your views once again.
We are not a country of anarchists.
We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is “I got mine, the rest of
you are on your own.”
We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air or toxic mortgages.
We are not that nation.
We have never been that nation, and we will never be that nation.
Today, a political minority in the House that condemns government and begged for this shutdown
has had its day.
But like all the reckless and extremist factions that have come before it, their day will pass,
and our democracy will return to the important work that we have already chosen to do together.
Thank you.