The White House
David Simas

We’re now three days into a shutdown of the federal government. Real Americans are being hurt, and our economy is paying the price. Reports have come out detailing how hundreds of thousands of people don’t know when their next paycheck will come. Millions of Americans, including veterans and seniors, are at risk of losing the benefits they’ve paid for, earned, and rely on.

For all that, we’re exactly where we were Monday night: If Speaker Boehner dropped his demands to sabotage Obamacare and instead put a routine budget funding the government to a simple yes-or-no vote, it would pass -- just as it did in the Senate. In fact, since the shutdown began, enough House Republicans now publicly say they’ll support a bill like this that we know it would get a bipartisan majority.

We don’t need to wait another day: it’s time for the House to just vote -- without further delay.

As the President said earlier this morning, this shutdown is a crisis manufactured by a small faction of one party in one chamber of one branch of our government. Republicans have tried and failed more than 40 times to prevent Obamacare from coming online, but they won’t even schedule one vote to reopen the government they were elected to run.

Keeping the government open isn’t a compromise, it’s their job.

The President is willing, if not eager, to negotiate over how to enact policies that will strengthen the middle class, further cut the deficit, and even improve the Affordable Care Act. But he’s been clear that he won’t negotiate when Republicans are playing political games that hurt our economy.

Speaker Boehner could end this shutdown today -- he just needs to put the interests of the American people before a failed partisan agenda.

Please take a moment to tell us how the government shutdown is affecting you.

Thank you,

David Simas

Deputy Senior Advisor

The White House