San Antonio Congressman Joaquín Castro is urging his fellow congressmen to get past "hostage politics" of the past few years to avoid a government shutdown and also emphasized the importance of the Affordable Care Act.
Castro said the current stalemate over the federal budget has already had detrimental effects on the health of the country, saying the fiscal fights are giving the nation a case of high blood pressure:
"They’re affecting the market in negative ways, the stock market is taking a hit [and] our employment rates are taking a hit," Castro said. "In every way, this has been bad for the country."
Castro reminded Congress of the effects of the sequester, saying that has not turned out well for the nation. Castro told his colleagues that Sen. Ted Cruz was not speaking for 26 million Texans when he threatened to shut down the government over the ACA.
"And so I would just note that there are a lot of people in Texas who are excited about the Affordable Care Act and the fact that they are going to have a chance to afford to have insurance, some of them for the first time in their lives," he said.
Castro called the wounds of Congress "self-inflicted" and called on his colleagues to rectify the situation before the Monday night deadline.
