'You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job... just because there's a law you don't like'

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excerpt from President Obama's address:




. . . The idea of putting the American people's hard-earned progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility, and it doesn't have to happen.

Let me repeat this. It does not have to happen.

All of this is entirely preventable if the House chooses to do what the Senate has already done, and that's the simple act of funding our government without making extraneous and controversial demands in the process, the same way other Congresses have for more than 200 years.

Unfortunately, right now House Republicans continue to tie funding of the government to ideological demands like limiting a woman's access to contraception or delaying the Affordable Care Act, all to save face after making some impossible promises to the extreme right wing of their party.

So let me be clear about this. An important part of the Affordable Care Act takes effect tomorrow, no matter what Congress decides to do today. The Affordable Care Act is moving forward. That funding is already in place. You can't shut it down. This is a law that passed both houses of Congress, a law that bears my signature, a law that the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional, a law that voters chose not to repeal last November -- a law that is already providing benefits to millions of Americans in the form of young people staying on their parents' plan 'till they're 26, seniors getting cheaper prescription drugs, making sure that insurance companies aren't imposing lifetime limits when you already have health insurance, providing rebates for consumers when insurance companies are spending too much money on overhead instead of health care. Those things are already happening.





Starting tomorrow, tens of millions of Americans will be able to visit healthcare.gov to shop for affordable health care coverage. So Americans who've lived for years in some cases with the fear that one illness could send them into bankruptcy, Americans who've been priced out of the market just because they've been sick once, they'll finally be able to afford coverage, quality coverage, many of them for the first time in their lives.

Some of them may be sick as we speak. And this is their best opportunity to get some security and some relief. Tens of thousands of Americans die every single year because they don't have access to affordable health care.

Despite this, Republicans have said that if we'd lock these Americans out of affordable health care for one more year, if we sacrifice the health care of millions of Americans, then they'll fund the government for a couple of more months. Does anybody truly believe that we won't have this fight again in a couple of more months? Even at Christmas?

. . . one faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn't get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election. Keeping the people's government open is not a concession to meet. Keeping vital services running and hundreds of thousands of Americans on the job is not something you give to the other side. It's our basic responsibility. It's something that we're doing for our military and our businesses and our economy and all the hard-working people out there -- the person working for the Agricultural Department out in some rural community who's out there helping some farmers make sure that they're making some modest profit for all the hard work they're putting in.

. . . That's who we're here to serve. That's why we're supposed to be carrying out these responsibilities. That's why we should be avoiding the kinds of constant brinksmanship. It's something that we do in the ordinary process of this extraordinary system of government that we have. You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you're supposed to be doing anyway, or just because there's a law there that you don't like . . .




full transcript:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-sept-30-remarks-on-looming-government-shutdown/2013/09/30/87437ea6-2a10-11e3-b139-029811dbb57f_story_2.html

http://t.co/ZnFBpgGwNg

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1. .

[Coyotl]

12. Jon Stewart skewers them

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/mon-september-30-2013-bill-o-reilly

[Coyotl]

13. WATCH at whitehouse.gov

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/09/30/president-obama-makes-statement

Check out the changes at whitehouse.gov

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. K&R

[KoKo]

3. I'm thinking some and many DU'ers were Puzzled by POB's Address.

Thanks for the Transcript. It often takes time to parse through to get to the meat of an argument.

Transcripts are Good for that.

[kairos12]

4. Baggers see it, not as ransom, but tribute to their immense intelligence

[KoKo]

5. I really liked what he said HERE in his Speech:

The American people sent us here to govern. They sent us here to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make their lives a little bit better -- to create new jobs, to restore economic security, to rebuild the prospects of upward mobility. That's what they expect. And they understand that there are differences between the parties, and we're going to be having some tough fights around those differences.

And I respect the fact that the other party is not supposed to agree with me a hundred percent of the time, just like I don't agree with them. But they do also expect that we don't bring the entire government to a halt or the entire economy to a halt just because of those differences. And that's what they deserve. They've worked too hard for too long to recover from previous crises just to have folks here in Washington manufacture yet another one that they have to dig themselves out of.

So Congress needs to keep our government open. It needs to pay our bills on time and never, ever threaten the full faith and credit of the United States of America. And time's running out. My hope and expectation is that in the 11th hour once again that Congress will choose to do the right thing and that the House of Representatives in particular will choose the right thing.

Thank you very much.

[etherealtruth]

6. One faction of one party does not get to shut down the government

...to fight the results of an election, President Barack Obama said.

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7. .

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8. ..

[pampango]

9. Elizabeth Warren agrees.

[HappyMe]

10. k&r

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11. .

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