(applause)

Good to see all of you.

Please, please have a seat.

Well, hello, Rockville!

Let me start by recognizing three public servants

who fight hard every day

for Maryland families and businesses.

First of all, Congressman Chris Van Hollen is here.

(applause)

Yay, Chris!

Congressman John Delaney is here.

(applause)

And we have the acting head

of the Small Business Administration --

Jeanne Hulit is here.

(applause)

And I also want to give a big thanks to your bosses,

Cidalia and Natalia, for being such gracious hosts.

I had a chance to meet them at the White House.

(applause)

Thank you.

Now I know where they got their good looks from,

because I had a chance to meet mom and dad,

and their beautiful families.

So I'm so glad to be here.

And I had a chance to learn a little bit about their story.

So when their parents brought them from Portugal to America

almost 40 years ago,

no one in the family spoke a word of English.

But that didn't stop their father, Manuel,

and their mother, Albertina, from having a big dream --

believing that if they worked hard, they could get ahead,

and that even though they'd never had any schooling,

maybe their daughters could go to college;

maybe in America you could make it if you tried.

That's what they believed.

So they started their own construction company

with a pickup truck and a wheelbarrow.

And when Cidalia and Natalia turned 14,

they began to help --

cleaning tools, translating documents.

And they became the first in their family to go to college.

After graduation, they started their own business,

and later they bought the family business from their parents.

So today, M. Luis Construction is a $60 million company

with about 250 employees.

(applause)

And I understand you're opening your fourth office

at the end of this month.

So this story is what America is all about.

You start off -- maybe you don't have a lot --

but you're willing to work hard,

you put in the time, opportunities out there,

and you're able to pass on an even better life to your family,

your children, your grandchildren.

And it's good news that after how hard the construction

industry got hit during the recession,

things are starting to get a little better.

Remember, it was just five years ago

that our economy was in free fall.

Businesses were shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs

every single month,

and the recession ultimately

cost millions of Americans their jobs,

their homes, their savings --

everything they had worked hard to build.

Today, over the last three and a half years,

our businesses have added 7.5 million new jobs.

(applause)

Our deficits are falling.

Our housing market is healing, which means construction

is improving; manufacturing is growing;

the auto industry is back.

America is on pace to become the number one energy producer

in the world this year.

(applause)

More small businesses have gotten loans

so they can grow and they can hire --

just like M. Luis did

with the help of the Small Business Jobs Act

that I signed three years ago.

So that's part of what allowed this company to grow.

(applause)

So we still have a long way to go.

We've still got a lot of work to do,

especially to rebuild the middle class.

But we're making steady progress.

And the reason I'm here is,

we can't afford to threaten that progress right now.

Right now, hundreds of thousands of Americans,

hardworking Americans, suddenly aren't receiving their paycheck.

Right now, they're worrying about missing the rent,

or their mortgage, or even making ends meet.

We can all relate to that.

Imagine if suddenly you weren't sure

whether you were going to get your next paycheck,

with all the bills that might be mounting up.

Well, that's what's happening right now

to hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country.

Companies like this one worried that their businesses

are going to be disrupted, because obviously,

particularly in an area like Maryland, Virginia,

where there are a lot of federal workers,

you don't know how that's going to impact the economy.

Veterans, seniors, women --

they're all worrying that the services they depend on

will be disrupted too.

And the worst part is, this time it's not because

of a once-in-a-lifetime recession.

This isn't happening because of some financial crisis.

It's happening because of a reckless

Republican shutdown in Washington.

Audience Member: That's right!

(applause)

The President: Now, we've all seen the offices locked down,

the monuments closed.

We've heard about services denied,

we've heard about benefits that are delayed.

But the impacts of a shutdown go way beyond

those things that you're seeing on television.

Those hundreds of thousands of Americans --

a lot of whom live around here --

don't know when they're going to get their next paycheck,

and that means stores and restaurants around here

don't know if they'll have as many customers.

Across the country you've got farmers in rural areas

and small business owners who deserve a loan,

but they're being left in the lurch right now.

They might have an application pending as we speak,

but there's nobody in the office to process the loan.

The SBA gives a billion dollars of loans a month

to small businesses --

a billion dollars a month goes to small businesses

all across the country.

Right now those can't be processed

because there's nobody there to process them.

Veterans who deserve our support are getting less help.

Little kids who deserve a Head Start have been sent home

from the safe places where they learn and grow every single day.

And of course, their families then have to scramble

to figure out what to do.

And the longer this goes on, the worse it will be.

And it makes no sense.

The American people elected their representatives

to make their lives easier, not harder.

And there is one way out of this reckless

and damaging Republican shutdown:

Congress has to pass a budget that funds our government

with no partisan strings attached.

(applause)

Now, I want everybody to understand what's happened,

because sometimes when this gets reported on

everybody kind of thinks,

well, you know, both sides are just squabbling;

Democrats and Republicans, they're always arguing,

so neither side is behaving properly.

I want everybody to understand what's happened here.

The Republicans passed a temporary budget for two months

at a funding level that we, as Democrats,

actually think is way too low because we're not providing help

for more small businesses,

doing more for early childhood education,

doing more to rebuild our infrastructure.

But we said, okay, while we're still trying

to figure out this budget,

we're prepared to go ahead

and take the Republican budget levels that they proposed.

So the Senate passed that with no strings attached --

not because it had everything the Democrats wanted.

In fact, it had very little that the Democrats wanted.

But we said, let's go ahead and just make sure that other people

aren't hurt while negotiations are still taking place.

So that's already passed the Senate.

And we know there are enough Republicans and Democrats

to vote in the House of Representatives

for the same thing.

So I want everybody to understand this:

There are enough Republicans and Democrats

in the House of Representatives today that,

if the Speaker of the House, John Boehner,

simply let the bill get on the floor for an up-or-down vote,

every congressman could vote their conscience --

the shutdown would end today.

The only thing that is keeping the government shut down;

the only thing preventing people from going back to work

and basic research starting back up,

and farmers and small business owners getting their loan --

the only thing that's preventing

all that from happening, right now, today,

in the next five minutes,

is that Speaker John Boehner

won't even let the bill get a yes-or-no vote,

because he doesn't want to anger the extremists in his party.

That's all.

That's what this whole thing is about.

We've heard a lot from congressional Republicans

in the past couple of days

saying they don't want this shutdown.

Well, there's a simple way to prove it.

Send the bill to the floor, let everybody vote -- it will pass.

Send me the bill; I will sign it.

The shutdown will be over and we can get back to the business

of governing and helping the American people.

(applause)

It could happen in the next half hour.

National parks, monuments,

offices would all reopen immediately.

Benefits and services would resume again.

Hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants

who are worrying about whether they're going to be able

to pay the mortgage or pay the car note,

they'd start going back to work right away.

So my simple message today is: Call a vote.

Call a vote.

Audience: Call a vote!

(applause)

The President: Put it on the floor and let every individual member

of Congress make up their own minds.

And they can show the American people,

are you for a shutdown or not?

If you're not for a shutdown, you'll vote for the bill;

if you're for a shutdown, you won't vote for a bill.

We don't have to twist anybody's arms.

But that way, the American people will be clear

about who is responsible for the shutdown.

Or, alternatively, more hopefully,

they'd be clear that this is something that doesn't make

sense and we should go ahead and make sure that we're looking out

for the American people.

It should be that simple.

But as I said, the problem we've got

is that there's one faction of one party,

in one half of one branch of government

that so far has refused to allow that yes-or-no vote

unless they get some massive partisan concessions in exchange

for doing what they're supposed to be doing anyway,

in exchange for doing

what everybody else agrees is necessary.

And they won't agree to end the shutdown

until they get their way.

And you may think I'm exaggerating,

but just the other day, one tea party Republican

called the idea of a shutdown "wonderful."

Another said that a shutdown is "exactly what we wanted."

Well, they got exactly what they wanted.

Now they're trying to figure out how to get out of it.

Just yesterday, one House Republican said --

I'm quoting here, because I want to make sure people understand

I didn't make this up.

One House Republican said,

"We're not going to be disrespected.