The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the Senate section on pages S7324-S7341 on Oct. 9, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, today is day 9 of the government shutdown. House Republicans piously blame everyone except themselves, but there is no mystery about what is happening.
It is very simple: They continue to refuse to permit a vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government operating for one reason--
they disagree with one law, the Affordable Care Act.
That law, debated for months, voted on dozens of times, signed into law by the President, and ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, will finally make it possible for tens of millions of uninsured Americans to obtain affordable health insurance, including those with pre-existing conditions.
House Republicans and a handful of tea party Senators don't like it, and they have used all kinds of scare tactics to try to derail it. Yet, millions of Americans who know better, who want to protect their families, have already shown that they want to sign up.
Unyielding in their opposition, tea party members of Congress, for whom ``compromise'' is a dirty word, are on a crusade to hold the Federal government hostage until the Affordable Care Act is repealed. It is a form of extortion that has no place in a democracy.
Then, after a couple of days of angry phone calls from outraged constituents, in an attempt to blunt the criticism, the House Republican leadership abruptly changed course and decided to pick and choose which government agencies and programs to fund.
This latest ploy is revealing for what it says about tea party Republicans. It is as if they suddenly learned for the first time that the Federal Government is comprised of millions of hardworking Americans, in every State, who perform countless tasks the rest of the country depends on.
Did they not realize that many of the people who sent them to Washington depend on the Federal Government for their monthly pay checks? That every American depends on the Federal Government to inspect the safety of the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe? That America's students and farmers depend on loans from the Federal Government?
That countless needy families depend on Federally funded Head Start programs? That the Department of Health and Human Services pays for the vaccines that protect American children from polio, measles, and other diseases?
It has been interesting to hear the Speaker of the House. He wants the President to, ``sit down and have a conversation.''
President Obama has shown time and again he is willing to compromise, sometimes more than some would like. He sat down with the Speaker last week. But no President should negotiate the terms of keeping the Federal government operating. And no Member of Congress should recklessly toy with the United States defaulting on its debt payments for the first time in history, and when the world is finally recovering from a devastating global recession.
The Senior Senator from Maryland, the Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, has done an excellent job of explaining what is at stake--not only for American families but for the reputation of the United States, the world's oldest democracy. Senators should be aware of the impact of the shutdown on thousands of American companies that depend on financing from the Federal Government to export their products and invest overseas.
During this shutdown, the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation cannot provide new loans or insurance to U.S. companies. This means that every month those companies--U.S. companies--lose $2 to $4 billion in revenues, jeopardizing some 30,000 American jobs.
If the shutdown continues, the Department of State, which conducts all kinds of services for Americans and programs overseas, will be severely affected. In fiscal year 2011, when the Federal Government came close to shutting down, the Department estimated that 70 percent of its Washington staff would be furloughed.
Do our Tea Party friends think these Federal workers just sit idly at their desks doing nothing? That they are some kind of luxury we cannot afford? Wait until one of their constituents is falsely arrested and imprisoned overseas, or robbed, or badly injured, and there is no one at the State Department to help them. Almost 800,000 children under the age of 5 die of diarrhea annually, mostly due to unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. Those deaths are entirely preventable. A prolonged government shutdown would mean curtailing water and sanitation programs for millions of people in the world's poorest countries--programs that have always had strong bipartisan support.
Malaria causes half a billion deaths a year, 90 percent of them children. A continued shutdown would force the U.S. Agency for International Development to stop funding malaria prevention programs, putting tens of thousands of lives at risk.
Speaker Boehner is right. Shutting down the Federal Government is
``not a damned game.'' But what the House is doing is playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy and people's lives. There is no excuse for it, and the Speaker has two choices: stop it, or continue to roll the dice with the U.S. economy and the lives of millions of American families and programs that protect our Nation's security.
At the State Department, the shutdown has already forced the cancelation of International visitors programs that enable future foreign leaders to experience this country first hand. Instead of seeing what a great country this is, they see our political system in disarray. It is embarrassing for our embassies and should be embarrassing to all of us.
Despite the shutdown, the State Department still must ensure the health, safety, and welfare of nearly 10,000 academic exchange participants in the United States and abroad. Either those students and scholars will have to return home, or the organizations and universities that are responsible for implementing the exchanges continue operating without knowing if, or when, their costs will be paid.
We have heard about the impact of the shutdown on the U.S. national security establishment, including the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. But the shutdown may also affect the State Department's anti-terrorism programs that support law enforcement and border controls in countries highly vulnerable to terrorist threats, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kenya, and Niger.
The shutdown has halted trade talks between the EU and the United States on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Plan. This deal would harmonize U.S. and EU regulatory standards, and eliminate trade barriers. It would bring real benefits to the U.S. economy. Yet the Tea Party shutdown has prevented U.S. trade officials from traveling to Brussels to negotiate with their EU counterparts. Instead, EU diplomats remain at the ready to talk to nobody.
Because of the shutdown, President Obama had to cancel his trip to Asia this week. We hear quite a bit about the Administration's ``pivot to Asia,'' but it is hard to pivot in another direction if you can't even get one foot out of your own country.
Who made it to the Summit instead? China's President Xi filled President Obama's seat next to Vladimir Putin. Is this who the tea party wants to lead in the lower income Asian countries? For the sake of our economy and national security, we need our President to have a seat at the table.
The list goes on and on, but these are just a few of the impacts of the shutdown that are only beginning to be felt. As this needless work stoppage drags on and more people are furloughed and programs are cancelled, our diplomats, our international development programs, our leadership in international organizations, and our national security will suffer.
It is as foolhardy as it is wasteful.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I am pleased to be here on the Senate floor this afternoon. I am saddened by the circumstances we find ourselves in and look for a solid, responsible, and quick resolution to our differences in regard to continuing resolution.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from California Mrs. Boxer follow me upon the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, again, under the circumstances we find ourselves in, I look forward to a quick and responsible resolution to the differences we have and that we move forward with the funding of our Federal Government.
I would point out that a reason we are at this point is we need a continuing resolution because the Senate failed to do its work in the first place. While, for the first time in 4 years, the Senate passed a budget, it was never reconciled in conference with the House. I am certainly a Republican who would be supportive of that reconciliation of the conference committee to work out the differences between a House-passed budget and the Senate-passed budget.
The reality is that there are 12 appropriations bills--and I am a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I take that responsibility very seriously. I was excited to become a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee when I arrived here at the Senate. I saw it as an opportunity for us to establish our priorities and determine what we should be spending money on. Yet not 1 of the 12 bills that are required for us to pass across the Senate floor has been passed this year; therefore, on September 30 we ended up with no funding in place, and it creates this opportunity for us to have this debate and discussion about a continuing resolution at a time in which there is great leverage on that issue.
What I lament and what I wish would have happened is we would have passed 12 appropriations bills and then worked out the differences with the appropriations process in the House.
Today I want to speak about a particular issue related to the shutdown of the Federal Government--the lack of funding. Prior to that occurring--prior to September 30--both the House and Senate and the President signed legislation called Pay Our Military Act. It was designed to make certain that our military men and women had compensation should there be a shutdown. I appreciate that legislation passing and am pleased it is in place now we are in the circumstance we are in. There were rumors and concerns about how that bill would be implemented by the Department of Defense. The Senator from West Virginia Mr. Manchin and I led an effort in which we had 50 Senators in a highly bipartisan way ask the Secretary of Defense to interpret that legislation in a broad way that would make certain our furloughed civilian employees who support our military men and women, as well as our Reserve component--those who serve in the National Guard and Reserve--would be put back to work for the benefit of the Nation's security.
I thank Secretary of Defense Hagel for his decision to implement that legislation in a broad way that did exactly that--returned furloughed civilian workers at DOD, the Department of Defense, back to work, and gave the ability for our National Guard and Reserve members to continue in their responsibilities for defending our country. Again, I thank Secretary Hagel.
I am here today to point out that we have an additional problem, in fact, one that is equally, if not more, serious than that, and that is that we have read and heard that those who die in the active service of our country are not now able to receive the death benefits that come to their families upon their death. I can't imagine that there is a Senator of any political party or persuasion who thinks that is a desirable outcome.
With Senator Manchin and others, we worked at bringing this issue to the attention of the Department of Defense, asking Secretary Hagel, in a letter that was led by Senator Coons and Senator Blunt, to use every opportunity, full authority, wide flexibility--whatever circumstances the Department of Defense could find--to provide the benefits to those who died in service to our country.
There is a special tax-free payment of $100,000 to eligible survivors of members of the armed forces who are killed in action. Those benefits usually arrive within the first 3 days following the death of a service man or woman. This helps the family--certainly not overcome their loss--to have the necessary funds for funeral services, to travel in this case to Dover Air Force Base to meet their loved one as he or she returns home, and to overcome the lack of a regular paycheck. This death gratuity is such a small price to pay to honor and recognize someone's family who has lost a member of their family in service to our country.
At least the stories are, the reports are that this situation is due to the inability of us to resolve--to work with the President, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate--the continuing resolution, and so work is being done so that the death benefit will be available. My understanding is that the House of Representatives is poised to pass legislation to make certain that the Department of Defense has the authority to immediately pay those benefits. I hope that is a piece of legislation that is met with unanimity of support here in the Senate.
We have asked Secretary of Defense Hagel if he has the ability to do that within his current legal jurisdiction, within the law--if he has the ability to do that within the law that he does have--and we anxiously await and hope the Secretary can do that. But, if not, I hope this Senate will unanimously confirm that legislation that would allow the Secretary to pay those benefits immediately.
Again, I just can't imagine any of my colleagues ever thinking that under any circumstance, we ought not step forward to resolve this issue. Just because we can't resolve everything--it seems to me there is a method of operation too often here in the Senate that if we can't solve every problem, we are unwilling to solve any problem. On those things on which there is such significant agreement, we ought not let anything stand in the way of coming to the aid and rescue of a family who now so desperately grieves the loss of their loved one.
Honoring Our Armed Forces
Sergeant Patrick Hawkins
We know over the weekend there were five soldiers killed in Afghanistan. There are five families as of today who would be in this circumstance. I would like to pay tribute to one of those five: SGT Patrick Hawkins. He was born October 1, 1988. He graduated from high school and enlisted in the Army in his hometown of Carlisle, PA.
SGT Patrick Hawkins, according to his Italian commander, was described as a brave and incredibly talented Ranger. The description of his death revolved around the fact that he was moving to aid another wounded Ranger when he was killed. His actions, according to, again, his commander, were in keeping with the epitome of the Ranger creed, which is, ``I will never leave a fallen comrade.''
Sergeant Hawkins dedicated himself to serving us--to serving our families, to serving all Americans--and he ultimately paid for that service with the loss of his life. I pay tribute to this soldier as an example of many who have sacrificed in similar ways over a long period of time, but especially for those five who this weekend lost their lives in Afghanistan.
Sergeant Hawkins was awarded the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service Medal. He was awarded a Purple Heart. None of that replaces the loss of life. He is survived by his wife, who is a resident of Lansing, KS, and her parents, who are residents of my hometown of Plainville, KS.
So today, on behalf of my colleagues in the Senate, I pay tribute to a soldier who in serving his country lost his life, who leaves behind grieving family members and friends, and who epitomizes what we all should know in service here in the Senate, which is what I spoke about earlier on the Senate floor this week. That is, if we need a reminder about how this place should work, we should look to our service men and women who, for no partisan reason--no Republican or Democratic reason--
volunteered to serve their country. They concluded there were things much more important than life itself, and that being the ability to have a country that we know and enjoy as the United States of America, that has the freedom and liberties guaranteed to us by our Constitution, and creates the opportunity for every American to pursue what we all call the American dream.
Today, I pay tribute to one more hero, one more soldier, one more American who, through service to others, was willing to sacrifice his life for the betterment of his family back home and for the future of a country that we all love and call home, the United States of America.
I yield to the Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, would it be possible--because Senator Casey and I were each thinking we would get 10 minutes and we are willing to cut that to 15 minutes between the two of us--could we ask unanimous consent, if the Republicans don't mind, just slipping a little bit, because people took extra time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Thank you. So we will each have about 7\1/2\ minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, we are going to fix the injustice my colleague spoke about--the injustice to the families who lost their loved ones. Let me be clear about one of those five families who were denied the benefit and someone important to me a constituent of mine--
Army 1LT Jennifer Moreno from San Diego, who was killed this weekend in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb. Jennifer was 25 years old. Because of this shutdown brought to us by the Republicans, those families have to suffer even more than they are already suffering.
Let's be clear. This never had to happen. This government has been shut down by the Republicans for one reason, and John Boehner was honest about it. He said:
The American people don't want to shut down the government, but the American people don't want ObamaCare. They don't want the Affordable Care Act.
Let me say that to close down the government because a person doesn't like a law that was passed almost 4 years ago, to shut down the government because a presidential election was lost and which was based, in large part, on this--to shut down the government, to keep our people--millions of them--from getting affordable care for the first time, it is a disgrace. It is. There is no other way to say it, except maybe it was said beautifully here. It was said beautifully here by the chaplain: ``Enough is enough.''
We are going to fix this problem; of course we are, this indignity our military families had to face. But let's be clear: It never would have happened if the government had been open.
We have two things that are in our job description. I know the Presiding Officer knows that quite well. One is to keep the doors of government open officially. We do our best, but we don't always succeed. There are problems here and there. Keep the doors open. Just as a pilot has to fly a plane, just like a teacher has to teach a class, just like a nurse has to give a vaccination, we have a basic responsibility to keep this government open, and we know how to do it. They pass a budget over in the House, we pass it in the Senate, the conference is called, they hammer it out, and we have a budget plan, and none of this would be happening. Let's be clear. The Republicans have objected now 21 times--21 times--to Senator Murray, the chairman of our Budget Committee, so she can sit and confer with her counterpart, Paul Ryan, and hammer out the details of a long-term budget. But, no. The Republicans don't want to do that. They want to hold the country hostage. They want to put our backs up against the wall, or the backs of the American people. Why? They don't like the health care law.
If a person doesn't like a law, that person tries to repeal it. They tried to repeal it 43 times. It went nowhere. If you don't like a law, try to replace the people who support the law. Oh, they tried. They tried and they failed. I served with five Presidents, three of them Republican. I didn't like everything they did; believe me. But after they won and they had an agenda, I did what I could, and so did my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to carry it out the best I could, to fix it where I could.
Let me just say this: We are in a shutdown because they are throwing a temper tantrum about the health care law, the Affordable Care Act. I wish to share some news with them, because I went home to see how the health care law is working in my State. I want to say what I know. I know it is working. By now we have had more than a million distinct visitors to our site, coveredCA.com. We have tens of thousands of applications. We have completed more than 20,000. Small businesses by the hundreds are coming on to the site.
In the time I have remaining, let me read to my colleagues about one woman the Republicans want to stop from getting health care by shutting down the government. According to the Associated Press, nothing could dissuade Rachel Mansfield of La Quinta, who sent in an application to Covered California last week. Rachel has been waiting for the exchange to start so she and her husband could get health insurance. Rachel is self-employed. Her parents currently pay a $530 monthly premium for her coverage. Her husband has been rejected for health coverage because he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Rachel's new premium, instead of it being $530 for just her, will be $400 for both of them, with higher quality coverage than she currently has.
That is why the Republicans are having a temper tantrum, to stop my constituent from, for the first time, having peace of mind and having good insurance? Come on. If you don't like the law, work with us. We can make it better.
Then there is Melissa Harris. According to the Fresno Bee, Melissa stopped at a CoveredCA tent on campus. She is paying $600 a month with help from her family for insurance through her former employer. She has diabetes and hypertension and, under the Affordable Care Act--which prevents insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions--she can now afford health insurance on her own. And the quote from her, from my constituent is, ``It's a Godsend for me--a blessing.''
It is a blessing. And that is why the Republicans are shutting down the government, to stop my constituent from getting a blessing of health insurance.
There was another story of a man who waited on the phone for 40 minutes, and he finally got on. He signed up and he said: You know what, I have been waiting for years. Forty minutes was nothing.
So I say to my friends, the law is the law. Open the government, pay our bills, and we will negotiate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator's time is expired.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield the rest of the time to Senator Casey.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, thank you very much. I know our time is limited.
I want to start on an issue that I think all of us are coming together on no matter what party we are in, and that is what has been happening to our military families.
On Sunday, as noted by the Senator from Kansas a few moments ago, SGT Patrick Hawkins from Carlisle, PA, was killed in action in Afghanistan when his unit was hit with an IED, an improvised explosive device. Sergeant Hawkins was moving to the aid of a wounded Ranger when he was killed. Due to the shutdown, Sergeant Hawkins' family cannot receive the death benefit provided to soldiers to cover the funeral and burial expenses for that family.
Today I am joining an effort with a number of Senators writing to urge Secretary Hagel to use whatever discretion he has to provide the death benefits to the Hawkins family as well as the other families so we can meet the promise we made to those families. I know the President is working on this issue, is working with the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department on a solution to this problem.
Mr. President, I will move to the question of where we are now. This is a shutdown brought about by the tea party. We know that if Speaker Boehner would simply hold a vote on the bill that is before him, which would fund the government, this crisis would be over.
So we should continue to take steps, No. 1, to open our government; No. 2, to pay our bills and make sure we do not miss a bill and default; and No. 3, to negotiate--or I would argue to continue to negotiate because we already negotiated a budget number which was much lower than our side of the aisle wanted. We agreed to $70 billion less from the other side. If that is not a compromise and a negotiation, I do not know what is.
We know this sentiment and this position to make sure the government opens is a point of view that is shared by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents across the country. By way of example, nine Members of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation--four Republicans and five Democrats--are supportive of a so-called clean bill that does not have attachments to it, to open the government, to make sure we can have a functioning government, to pay our bills, and then work together on longer term solutions. Just a couple of examples--and I know our time is limited.
As this tea party shutdown moves into its second week, the Women, Infants and Children Program--we know it by the acronym WIC--will no longer be able to be funded in many States across the country. We know this program provides nutritional services to more than 8.9 million participants per month, including 4.7 million children and 2.1 million infants. A quarter of a million of my constituents in Pennsylvania depend upon this program. For now--for now--the State government is using carryover funds to keep the WIC Program running in Pennsylvania. If the government shutdown continues to stretch on, this may put the program in jeopardy.
We know the impact this shutdown is having on older citizens across Pennsylvania and across the country. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is no longer able to provide health care provider oversight. While Medicare claims are still being paid, the shutdown has caused a reduction in the number of initial surveys and recertifications for Medicare and Medicaid providers. If providers are unable to be certified, then they cannot serve beneficiaries.
Home- and community-based services are adversely impacted. We know that even though Social Security checks are going out, at the same time those who are hoping to be enrolled in Social Security do not have that opportunity.
Let me read from a letter we got from a constituent in northeastern Pennsylvania talking about this individual's parents.
Besides our personal difficulties due to the Budget Impasse, my elderly parents live with the worry of when and if they will receive their Social Security checks. At 85 and 83, they should not have this uncertainty. These should be their golden years. It breaks my heart to hear my Mother saying she can't sleep and has a stomach ache from the worry about where our country is heading. Middle and low income families cannot afford another economic downturn, we are just barely recovering from the last one.
That entire passage came from one individual in northeastern Pennsylvania writing about her parents, and I think that is the best summation I have read about what this is doing to people. The worry and the anxiety, in addition to the harsh impact, are things we should not accept.
Finally, I will conclude with some comments about national security.
I support--and I know this is widely shared--the passage of the Pay Our Military Act and welcome the Defense Department's decision to bring the majority of furloughed staff back. We mentioned the death benefits for families. We are all together on that. But all the while--all the while--that the Speaker does not put a bill on the floor that will open the government, we see the impacts on our national security. Seventy percent of the intel community's workforce has been furloughed. These are people who work every day to keep us safe from terrorists, and they are not able to work. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control has a skeletal crew, and they are not able to do their work, which is part of our national security.
So if we are doing the right thing, and if the Speaker and his party in the House are doing the right thing, they would vote today to open the government, to ensure that we pay our bills, and to continue to negotiate. It is very simple. What they have in front of them is a 16-
page bill. I think they could pass it this afternoon and reopen our government and give that family in northeastern Pennsylvania some measure of peace of mind instead of the worry and the anxiety and the fear that are caused by both the government shutdown and efforts made to even contemplate defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States of America.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 58
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, last Saturday the House voted 400 to 1 to express the view that a government shutdown should not interfere with the ability of military chaplains to provide services for our servicemembers. The House took that vote amid reports that chaplains were limited in their ability to minister to those who sought their services even if ministers were doing so on a volunteer basis.
We have heard reports that those who have scheduled baptisms might not be able to have them. Obviously, this is not a tolerable situation. We have a very large military presence in Kentucky. The folks at Fort Campbell and Fort Knox do not need this. We need to remedy the situation immediately and care for the troops who have volunteered to defend us.
The House has already taken a stand, in an overwhelming, bipartisan basis--only one vote against it. It is time for the Senate to do the same. So I would call on the majority to allow a vote to express the Senate's views that servicemembers in my State and every other State or overseas should be able to receive religious services. This is one vote we should have today. Some of my colleagues will talk this afternoon about some of the other votes we should also have. The government may be shut down, but our service men and women should not be caught in the middle of this impasse.
I had indicated to my colleague, the majority leader, that I would ask unanimous consent after my remarks, which I will proceed to do now. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 58, which was received from the House; I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, there is no question when we look across the Senate or across the House, people of different political parties, people of different faiths all support any kind of religious service for members of the armed services. There is no question about that. Our budgets indicate that every year. That is a widely held point of view.
Unfortunately, what we are seeing is a continuation of an effort to pick and choose what areas of our government should be funded. We should not have an exercise where we choose between our soldiers and our kids or between one priority versus the other. We should vote and work together to open the government. It is as simple as that. Open every service that is part of the Federal Government.
Open the government, pay our bills, and continue negotiations which started a long time ago on the current budget. I come from a State which has well more than 1 million veterans. No State in the country has contributed more to the armed services of the United States than Pennsylvania. I will take a backseat to no one when it comes to supporting our troops and supporting their families.
That is why we are all coming together to make sure the death benefit is paid for those who recently lost their lives, including Sergeant Hawkins from Pennsylvania. But this process we are going through today is just another attempt to not deal directly with the question of how we are going to operate the Federal Government.
We should urge our colleagues in the House to have a vote today. It would take a matter of minutes for the House to vote on a bill that will open the government, allow us to make sure we are paying our bills, and do everything we can to continue to work together on a longer term budget agreement.
So I would first offer a modification and ask unanimous consent as follows: that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, expressing the sense of the Congress that the House should vote on the Senate amendment to H.J. Res. 59, the continuing resolution passed by the Senate; that the concurrent resolution, as amended, be agreed to; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Republican leader so modify his request?
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. CASEY. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Republican whip.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 91
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there are obviously differences in this Chamber over the fiscal direction of our country, but we should be united in our efforts to do right by our uniformed military and their families and certainly their survivors. The way they have been treated is simply unacceptable--indeed, it is outrageous. The President's spokesman today said he is looking for a solution. We are here to offer one to him. Washington has not gotten a lot right lately but now is our chance. The legislation I will be offering a unanimous consent request on would right this wrong by ensuring that the families of the fallen receive four essential benefits: the death gratuity benefit, the coverage of funeral and burial expenses, coverage of travel to both the funeral and the dignified transfer of their loved one's remains and the temporary continuation of their housing allowance.
I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives H.J. Res. 91, making continuing appropriations for survivor benefits for survivors of deceased military servicemembers for fiscal year 2014, the measure be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, would my friend agree that we have just learned that the President said he would solve this in the next hour. Would my friend be willing to wait until 4 o'clock today and renew his request at that time if it has not been done?
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, responding to the distinguished majority leader, if that will help facilitate this getting done, we would be glad to work with him. Hopefully, we can find another area, as we did for military pay for our uniformed military, where we can begin to mitigate the hardship caused by this shutdown.
Mr. REID. I think on this issue it would be the best way to proceed; that we can do something together, and hopefully the White House will be in on what we are trying to do. So I ask my friend to renew this at 4 o'clock.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 70
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, if businesses ran their operations the same way the government is running this shutdown, they would be bankrupt. Oh, that is right. That is kind of where we are, isn't it.
Our national parks, particularly the ones that are revenue producers, are shut down. Yellowstone Park is a revenue producer. You pay to go into the park. You pay to travel through the park. The roads connect Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It is a thoroughfare. You have to pay to be able to do that. But right now you cannot do that, which means you probably have to travel an extra 300 miles to get to your destination.
The park does not get the revenue, and not only that, there are people in the park who are visiting there and they have been made to leave. They were made to leave in a very ungracious way. One of the tours was from Japan, Australia, Canada, and some people from the United States. They had reservations at Old Faithful. That is one of the historic places in the park, one place that everybody goes because they like to see the geyser go off. It is probably the most famous geyser in the world.
But they were told they had to leave. They had 2 days of reservations. They said: OK. You can stay for the 2 days. But an armed guard was outside of their room and they could not leave their room to go watch the geyser go off, which they do not have any control over, nor can they harm. It has been written up as Gestapo tactics that met senior citizens in Yellowstone Park.
So we are giving up the revenue and we are creating a bad impression. We should not be doing that. We ought to be taking revenue. The revenue is a little more difficult than that because we have concessionaires in the park, people who run the hotels and the stores and the filling stations and the other services in there. They pay a fee for doing that and a percentage of what they take in. So we are not getting that percentage now either.
They are losing about $4.9 million a week by not being able to be open. There are a lot of other things I could say about the way the parks are being treated here and around the country, but the ones that are revenue-producing are particularly egregious.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 203, H.J. Res. 70, making continuing appropriations for National Park Service operations; I ask further that the measure be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. I appreciate the motion of my colleague, as someone who comes from a State where tourism is the No. 3--and we have 38 million people--it is the No. 3 business in our State. We have national parks. But guess what. You fellows over there, you did not take care of all of my recreation land under the Army Corps. You did not take care of all of the BLM land.
This whole notion of funding the government piecemeal is absurd. This is the greatest Nation on Earth. All you can do is come with these little, mini, piecemeal bills. Let's face it. We would not be going through any of this angst, and my friend would not have to have any of that emotion if the Republicans had not shut down the government.
I wish to state the rest of my reservation. We certainly support the notion that our parks should open, but we also support the notion that this government should open. If the Senators don't like certain functions, let's duke it out and find out which ones we have the votes to do away with. I know a lot of you don't like the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act. Fine, let's fight that out.
I see my colleague from Wyoming is here. He and I are constantly debating the issue of what should be a priority, but we don't do it this way. We need the entire Federal Government open. People need to get paid. The communities around the parks, around the BLM land, around the Corps recreational lands, around our NASA Ames facility, and I could go on and on--they need to be paid because the mom-and-pop shops are suffering. We don't do government by piecemeal, not in the greatest Nation on Earth.
This reminds me of a woman who is drowning and someone goes to rescue her, but he only takes her halfway to the shore and leaves her to drown. This is what this is about. We don't say: I will save this child, but this one I don't have to save. I will save this community because I kind of like it, but this community, sorry. No one party has a right to do it, not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. We don't have the right to decide which kids live and which kids die, which families thrive and which sink, and which communities suffer and which communities don't. None should suffer, not in this Nation.
Open the government, pay our bills, and let's negotiate. Let's negotiate on everything.
I have a modification to suggest to the unanimous consent request, if I might.
I ask unanimous consent that the consent be modified as follows: That an amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. This amendment is the text that passed the Senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government and is something that is already over in the House and reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator from Wyoming so modify his request?
Mr. ENZI. Reserving the right to object, the reason we are in this mess right now is because we didn't do the budgets piecemeal. We are supposed to do them piecemeal. We are supposed to do 12 separate spending bills. We are supposed to do them one at a time. We are supposed to have the right to amend them. This way we can get into the details of what we are spending, instead of an Omnibus bill, which is what is being suggested by this amendment.
Had we gone through each of those, we could have had all of these discussions. This is how we should do it, which is our second most important task. Our most important one, of course, is the defense of our country, but the second most important one is the spending bills, and we are not doing the spending bills. I know the other side will say: Well, we brought out one, it was filibustered, and we didn't get cloture on it. We only did that one time. There should have been every one of these bills brought up with the right to amend and then they wouldn't have been filibustered. Then they could have been passed when the House sent their companion bill. Since we didn't do the process right, we are stuck with the continuing resolution.
Piecemeal is one way we can get it through. There was a request for a conference between the two sides. That was turned down by the Democrats. It would have been a chance to raise all of these things at once. That was turned down.
I object to the modification.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object to the original request.
I feel I must respond. Senator Murray and I looked at each other and said: It feels as though it is ``Alice in Wonderland.''
Where were my colleagues 21 times when the chairman of the Budget Committee or her representatives asked to go to conference on the budget resolution, in which the conferees would negotiate how to fund the various parts of government, and that instruction would be sent to the appropriators? I do not understand what is happening here.
All we hear on the other side is negotiate, negotiate. They won't remember--selective memory, perhaps--that they objected 21 times to going to negotiations on the budget.
I have to say, this is the saddest display coming from the Republicans, who serve in the greatest legislative body in the world, to try to fund this government on a piecemeal basis, leaving some of our families winners and some of our families losers. It is pathetic, and they have caused this Republican shutdown. They can end it.
Because I feel my friend's narrow, piecemeal approach to running this country is very wrong for this country, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Does the Senator from Wyoming still have the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming has the floor.
Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator from Wyoming yield for a question?
Mr. ENZI. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. HARKIN. My friend from Wyoming mentioned the fact that we should bring up appropriations bills. As someone who has been a member of the Appropriations Committee for quite a long time, I would remind my friend from Wyoming that earlier this year, on the first appropriations bill that we passed out of committee under the leadership of Senator Mikulski--it was the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill--if I am not mistaken, it had a number of Republican votes in committee. It was brought out onto the floor. An extraneous amendment was offered by the Senator from Kentucky, whereupon I believe Senator Mikulski, our leader, filed cloture on the bill so we could vote on the appropriations bill.
I say to my friend from Wyoming that all the Republicans on that side voted against cloture, voted against taking up that one appropriations bill--I am sorry, I am reminded that we had one Republican, the Republican from the State of Maine who did vote to go to cloture on that bill, one Republican out of all those on the other side.
I say to my friend from Wyoming, we tried to bring up the appropriations bill. It was Republicans who objected to even dealing with that appropriations bill. I would ask my friend from Wyoming if he had looked at that history and understood what had happened on the bill that came up at the time.
I thank my friend from Wyoming for yielding.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. I have looked at both of the histories that have been discussed. One of them is the budget. The failure of the budget to not have a conference committee did not stop the Appropriations Committee from going through and doing 12 appropriations bills. I think that is what I count on the calendar that could have been brought up. There was only the one brought up.
The Senator has said, appropriately, that in committee there ought to be some amendments, but on the floor there were none.
What we have spent a lot of time on around the body this year is try to negotiate how few amendments would be brought up. That has taken longer than it would have taken to vote on the whole issue.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article from the Eagle Tribune.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
`Gestapo' Tactics Meet Senior Citizens at Yellowstone
(By John Macone)
Newburyport.--Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week that was intended to showcase some of America's greatest treasures.
Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country.
Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.
The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.
When finally allowed to leave, the bus was not allowed to halt at all along the 2.5-hour trip out of the park, not even to stop at private bathrooms that were open along the route.
``We've become a country of fear, guns and control,'' said Vaillancourt, who grew up in Lawrence. ``It was like they brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, `we're sorry,' it was all like--'' as she clenched her fist and banged it against her forearm.
Vaillancourt took part in a nine-day tour of western parks and sites along with about four dozen senior citizen tourists. One of the highlights of the tour was to be Yellowstone, where they arrived just as the shutdown went into effect.
Rangers systematically sent visitors out of the park, though some groups that had hotel reservations--such as Vaillancourt's--were allowed to stay for two days. Those two days started out on a sour note, she said.
The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn't ``recreate.'' The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren't
``recreating,'' just taking photos.
``She responded and said, `Sir, you are recreating,' and her tone became very aggressive,'' Vaillancourt said.
The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to the Old Faithful Inn, the park's premier lodge located adjacent to the park's most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. That was as close as they could get to the famous site--barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at the door.
``They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can't go outside,'' she said. ``Some of the Asians who were on the tour said, `Oh my God, are we under arrest?' They felt like they were criminals.''
By Oct. 3 the park, which sees an average of 4,500 visitors a day, was nearly empty. The remaining hotel visitors were required to leave.
As the bus made its 2.5-hour journey out of Yellowstone, the tour guide made arrangements to stop at a full-service bathroom at an in-park dude ranch he had done business with in the past. Though the bus had its own small bathroom, Vaillancourt said seniors were looking for a more comfortable place to stop. But no stop was made--Vaillancourt said the dude ranch had been warned that its license to operate would be revoked if it allowed the bus to stop. So the bus continued on to Livingston, Mont., a gateway city to the park.
The bus trip made headlines in Livingston, where the local newspaper Livingston Enterprise interviewed the tour guide, Gordon Hodgson, who accused the park service of ``Gestapo tactics.''
``The national parks belong to the people,'' he told the Enterprise. ``This isn't right.''
Calls to Yellowstone's communications office were not returned, as most of the personnel have been furloughed.
Many of the foreign visitors were shocked and dismayed by what had happened and how they were treated, Vaillancourt said.
``A lot of people who were foreign said they wouldn't come back (to America),'' she said.
The National Parks' aggressive actions have spawned significant criticism in western states. Governors in park-rich states such as Arizona have been thwarted in their efforts to fund partial reopenings of parks. The Washington Times quoted an unnamed Park Service official who said park law enforcement personnel were instructed to ``make life as difficult for people as we can. It's disgusting.''
The experience brought up many feelings in Vaillancourt. What struck her most was a widely circulated story about a group of World War II veterans who were on a trip to Washington, D.C., to see the World War II memorial when the shutdown began. The memorial was barricaded and guards were posted, but the vets pushed their way in.
That reminded her of her father, a World War II veteran who spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
``My father took a lot of crap from the Japanese,'' she recalled, her eyes welling with tears. ``Every day they made him bow to the Japanese flag. But he stood up to them.
``He always said to stand up for what you believe in, and don't let them push you around,'' she said, adding she was sad to see ``fear, guns and control'' turned on citizens in her own country.
Mr. ENZI. I object, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. For the benefit of those on the other side of the aisle, I am not going to end my remarks with the issue of a unanimous consent, but I still have things I wish to say.
No one supports a government shutdown, not my side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle. Could we have avoided this situation? Sure. The government could be open and fully operating today but for the majority. There was an unwillingness to engage in a legitimate debate over proposals to amend ObamaCare or any other issues that have come before us, not even having a debate on those pieces that have come over from the other body. Hiding behind a motion to table is a way of avoiding debate.
As we know, the House passed and the Senate defeated three different continuing resolutions. Each one of those would have kept the government open and prevented a shutdown, but they were rejected by the Senate majority.
We are in this position because the majority refused to give the American people relief from the individual mandate and treat President Obama and his political appointees the same as all other Americans or as we now in Congress will be treated when it comes to health insurance.
We could have considered each of the 12 individual appropriations bills and passed them into law. But the Senate Democratic leadership has been derelict in that responsibility.
The Senate did not get into debate on a single one of those bills prior to the end of the fiscal year. I heard what my colleague from Iowa said, that one was brought up, then amendments were filed, and there wasn't a motion to move ahead. The point is the Senate is a deliberative body. Every Senator has a right to offer an amendment. We were denied that right by the majority or at least weren't assured of that right by the majority, and that is why cloture was not granted.
Of course, what the American people deserve is fair consideration of all the money we appropriate. We don't get that consideration on a continuing resolution, we get it lumped into one piece of legislation. We should, as the Senator from Wyoming said, be considering separate appropriations bills.
I remember not too long ago that a chairman of an Appropriations Committee on the other side of the aisle, when they were in the majority, was bragging to the Senate that for the first time in a long time the Senate passed every single appropriations bill before the end of the fiscal year. If it could be done then, why can't it be done now? But it isn't going to be done if we aren't willing to debate the bills.
It seems to me the American people, the taxpayers, deserve a thoughtful and good-faith effort to find common ground on our spending matters. It is a duty to pass spending bills.
Passing a continuing resolution has become a new normal around here. That is not right. It is not acceptable. While we wait for the Senate majority and the President of the United States to come to the negotiating table and end their government shutdown, we should be working to fund or reopen areas of government where there is agreement.
This is what we did when we passed the Pay Our Military Act, where we all agreed to pay those both in and out of uniform who defend our freedom. We made a commitment to them because of their commitment to our country. The military people deserve that piece of legislation.
This is what we should be doing to open our national parks and monuments. That is what we should be doing to ensure the critically important work of the National Institutes of Health.
Why hold these widely supported and critically necessary areas hostage? Why is the majority insisting on an all-or-nothing approach? Why can't we agree to fund these things we agree on and negotiate the rest?
At the very least, a little bit of common sense ought to prevail. It was common sense, for instance, when the minority leader made the point about chaplains. It is common sense that chaplains have an obedience not only to the government but to a higher authority, and they ought to be able to exercise that wherever they are.
We have a situation that the parks aren't open. We have a situation where the World War II Memorial was closed down. Open-air memorials have never been closed down when we had shutdowns in the past. A little common sense prevailing would avoid a lot of these situations we are bringing before the Senate for consideration.
Remember, the House of Representatives has passed legislation to keep the government open, and the Senate has refused it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 85
Mr. COATS. There is an interesting debate going on without achieving any results. Let me take a crack at trying to make a more persuasive argument to see if my colleagues across the aisle would agree.
We can disagree on what is an essential function of government, what is a constitutional function, what we ought to be funding and not funding. That is some of the debate we are in today.
I don't think anyone can disagree that an essential function of government is providing for our national defense, providing for homeland security, protecting Americans from terrorist threats, and responding to natural disasters. There is an organization in the government called the Federal Emergency Management Agency--FEMA is the common name--which is there to provide support to first responders whenever a natural disaster hits, whenever an intended disaster through an act of terrorism threatens this country or threatens Americans. These are functions that have to be immediately responded to, and FEMA has, over the years, improved significantly its ability to play a critical, crucial role in responding to these types of efforts that put Americans at risk.
What I am bringing forward, because we now know that while some functions of FEMA are being supported and funded and manned, many of those who would be essential should a disaster hit, whether it is natural or manmade, have been furloughed and are not available to assist in that first response. So I am simply asking that we consider seriously and gain support for the funding of FEMA to its full extent.
We have recently seen natural disasters in the United States. We had tornadoes roar through southern Indiana. FEMA was there just last year immediately. We are still in hurricane season, though we have been very fortunate this year and have not had a major hurricane land on the continental United States. Karen was in the gulf, but it dissipated. I might remind my colleagues hurricane season runs to November 30, so we are not out of the woods yet.
We have just seen a disaster in the Upper Midwest with an unprecedented amount of snow falling affecting ranchers, affecting communities; and some of our Northern States--South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and others--have seen massive flooding and wildfires throughout the West. All of these are disasters that need to be responded to and FEMA plays a major role in all of that.
Who knows what potential terrorist attacks or threats are out there where we may need to have an immediate response. So what I am asking is that we consider funding FEMA at its current annual funding rate of
$10.2 billion. This bill will extend funding for FEMA until December 15, but funding in the bill could end sooner if Congress, hopefully, reaches a larger budget agreement before that time. Hurricane season doesn't end until November 30, as I said. We can ensure this critical government function is not in any way limited by passing this bill, which was supported by 23 Democrats in the House of Representatives. So it does have bipartisan support.
I, therefore, ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 210, H.J. Res. 85, making continuing appropriations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and I further ask unanimous consent that the measure be read three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The assistant majority leader.
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I wish to commend my colleague from Indiana for noting the important role the Federal Government plays when it comes to natural disasters. There is not a Senator on this floor who hasn't seen this Federal response in his or her own home State because of a natural disaster. The Senator from Indiana is proposing we respond to these natural disasters with the government agencies that have been authorized, that are appropriated--
usually appropriated--the funds to do so. He has picked one of them, FEMA, and he has picked it because of the possibility of a hurricane. That is a legitimate observation.
Unfortunately, the Senator from Indiana is not telling the whole story. FEMA plays an important role. Wouldn't the Senator like to have the National Weather Service fully funded so we could see the hurricane coming in advance? Sadly, it is a casualty of the Republican shutdown. Wouldn't the Senator like to have the Coast Guard available to have aerial observation of the oncoming hurricane and to provide that information to save lives? Sadly, it is not included in the unanimous consent request of the Senator from Indiana, and many of their functions are the victims of the Republican government shutdown.
I am sorry too that when it comes to the actual damage done by a disaster, FEMA plays an important role but not an exclusive role. The Senator from Indiana knows this, as I do from Illinois. Listen to the other agencies that are a critical part of responding to natural disasters: The Small Business Administration, they are usually the first on the scene with the Red Cross. Sadly, they are closed down because of the Republican shutdown of the government, and the Senator doesn't include them in his natural disaster request; DOT--Department of Transportation--and the need for emergency highways in the midst of hurricanes and tornadoes is not included in the request of the Senator from Indiana; the Corps of Engineers, the National Guard and Reserve, and the Public Health Service, none of these are included.
But the good news for the Senator from Indiana is we can take care of this together. I am going to suggest a modest modification to his request that covers all of the disaster agencies of the Federal Government that respond and keep us safe and do everything to put families back in their homes and businesses back in business. It is just a basic idea. Let's reopen the Federal Government.
I ask unanimous consent that the request of the Senator from Indiana be modified: that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
This amendment is the text that passed the Senate. It is a clean, no-
strings-attached continuing resolution for the entire government and every disaster agency of the Federal Government. It is something that is already in the House of Representatives and has, reportedly, the support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives.
I hope the Senator from Indiana will stick with me. Let's get the job done and accept this modification.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will Senator from Indiana so modify his request?
Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, I think my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, has made an important point. There are agencies that relate to the role FEMA plays when a natural disaster or our homeland security is threatened. I don't disagree with that. Therefore, I would be willing to modify my amendment to include the Coast Guard, the National Weather Service, and those agencies listed by the Senator from Illinois as a part of this. So directing this toward applying to natural disasters and threats to our homeland security, I think we should include those agencies. I think we could go forward with that request.
But I don't think that is what the Senator has offered. He offered a total CR, which we know is not going to go forward under the current circumstances, even though all of us want to get to that point. But as was discussed earlier by my colleagues, the regular order is usually to take appropriations--pieces of appropriations--and pass them on an individual basis. That simply is what we are doing, given the constraints we have that prevent us from doing that and coming forward.
I would say this: Three times the House has sent over opportunities to take up the full CR that have been rejected by the other side and a fourth opportunity to sit down and negotiate how we would go forward, which has also been rejected. So it works both ways.
If the Senator would be able to acknowledge the addition of what was listed directly related in his statement, then we could give that consideration here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request, as modified?
Mr. COATS. It is sort of a Ping-Pong game.
Mr. DURBIN. Which request, my request?
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. As modified by the Senator from Indiana.
Mr. DURBIN. Let me see if I can clarify.
Reserving the right to object, I understand the Senator from Indiana acknowledges that just appropriating money for FEMA does not respond to natural disasters in America. I have offered a continuing resolution which includes all of the disaster agencies. I think what he is asking me to do is to rewrite his original unanimous consent request.
I would just like a yes or no when it comes to my request to modify his original request. I am not certain what he has asked of me for further modification. So I would ask for clarification either from the Senator from Indiana or from the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Would the Senator from Indiana further modify his request?
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am not able to modify the request that has been made, as I understand it, by the Senator from Illinois, because he goes beyond what he listed as being needed to just address natural disasters and threats to homeland security. He listed a number of agencies that play into that role.
My understanding--and he can clarify this if I am wrong--is that he wanted to expand my request that he consent to adding the limited portion of what he mentioned relating to the role of FEMA and our national security issues and homeland security issues that we are faced with, but he added to that the request for funding of the entire functions of government, and that I cannot consent to.
Therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, this is why this approach is so awful. Coming to the floor with 11 requests for 11 agencies, we estimate there are another 79 requests that need to be made for us to fund our government.
Grow up, Senate. You can't do this one agency at a time. We will be here in December doing agency by agency. What we are offering is a continuing resolution to fund the government, including all of the disaster agencies.
I object to the original request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from North Dakota.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 3230
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 206, H.R. 3230, making continuing appropriations during a government shutdown to provide pay and allowances to members of the Reserve components of the Armed Forces; I further ask unanimous consent that the measure be read three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Reserving the right to object, we are again seeing a request to fund a small part of our government. This request refers to our National Guard and Reserve. These are amazing members of our American family who have given and sacrificed with great honor and who I find to a one are selfless. Not a one of them would say take care of me but do not take care of any of the other Americans who are home today or whose businesses have been hurt or who don't have the services they need because of this government shutdown. I would think the National Guard and Reserve would stand tall and say: Let's take care of every American. It is what I have sworn my own life to do, and it is what this Federal Government should do.
So instead of just taking a piecemeal approach--again, just asking to take care of the Guard and Reserve--I would say to the Senator that it is easy to do this. We can take up a unanimous consent request that has been offered a number of times on our side to simply open the government for all the functions and not those we pick and choose at the moment or by saying one American is more important than another American or one function is more important than another function. It would be like picking your children. We don't do that in our families and we shouldn't do it in the Senate.
I ask unanimous consent that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
This amendment is the text that passed the Senate--passed the Senate--and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government. It is something that is already over in the House and reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives. I ask unanimous consent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Dakota so modify his request?
Mr. HOEVEN. Reserving the right to object, the good Senator is talking about a resolution that has already gone from the Senate to the House. That has already been done. Why do we keep going back to things we don't have agreement on, rather than advancing on the things where we can get agreement?
We have instances where our National Guard is not getting paid. We have instances where our Reserve members are not being paid. We have instances where death benefits are not being paid to members of the military who made the ultimate sacrifice.
We passed the Pay Our Military Act. It went through the House, and it went through the Senate. We passed the Pay Our Military Act. All of our military members and the civilians who support them should be paid. We passed legislation to do that, whether it is Active Forces, Guard, or Reserve. We have done that.
What we are simply asking for here is a measure that would make sure that gets done. That is what we are asking for. Let's make sure they all get paid. We passed the legislation in both Houses. Let's start working on the things we can agree on. That is why I have asked for consent to proceed with the measure, and I object to the request to modify it.
Again, I ask unanimous consent that my original measure, H.R. 3230, Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act, be considered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. Is there objection to the original request?
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, because this request doesn't resupply the stocks for our Guard and Reserve, it doesn't buy the tools or spare parts, it doesn't provide the energy and support they need to keep their facilities open, their electric bills can't be paid, their base maintenance can't be paid, they can't get their GI education benefits or mental health programs they need to make the transition home, because I believe--and I think all of us here believe--we should open all of those functions, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Florida.
Unanimous Consent Request H.J. Res. 84
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, despite all the noise going on, despite the fight we are having, I think one thing we can all agree is the most important thing for our country is to restore and save the American dream.
With all this talk of an economic recovery, it would shock people around this country who are struggling to find a job or perhaps have a job but the job is a dead-end job and it doesn't pay enough that they can't live off of what they are making--there are a lot of reasons that is happening, but one of the reasons that is happening is because in the 21st century, the jobs we need in order to make it to the middle class require a higher level of skill and education than they did in the past. This is particularly chronic and is hurting people who are growing up disadvantaged, especially children growing up in dangerous neighborhoods, with little access to education and broken families. They are struggling to get ahead, and we are seeing the impact of the societal breakdown every day.
We have a program called Head Start. This program helps children 5 years of age and younger. There are about 1 million kids a year who benefit from this program. It helps them get meals, it helps them get access to medical screenings, physical therapy for children with disabilities, and access to quality prekindergarten education for these children. This is not a perfect program. I would like to see reforms. I would like to see this program become portable so that children and their families can access the best provider possible. But now is not the time for this debate. Now is the time to do everything we can to protect this program in the short term because as we speak there are thousands of children around this country already being impacted. In my State of Florida, almost 400 children have already been cut off from these services.
The reason I think this issue is different from the other ones that have been debated here is because the one thing you can't get back is time. Every day that goes by is one less day of education these children get. You can never give them back the time. You can always go back and pay somebody the money you owe them, but you can't give them back time.
So I would like to make a request that I hope will be accepted. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 84, which makes continuing appropriations for the Head Start Program, which was received from the House; I further ask that the measure be read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak before I object to the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Florida, now wants to fund the Head Start Program. That is all well and good. We all recognize how invaluable the Head Start Program is. But I must say that listening to this request and the previous request and the other requests that have come up reminds me of an analogy.
The Republicans, quite frankly, have torn down the wall of government, and now they want to rebuild it brick by brick, but the way they want to rebuild it is by stacking the bricks. Here is a stack of bricks here, here is another stack of bricks, and here is another stack of bricks. Anyone will tell you that if you build a wall like that, it will be very weak. It won't hold together.
Our government is built from a wall of interconnected bricks. Look at a brick wall sometime. See how the bricks are interconnected. It provides strength. They all rely upon one another. They are interconnected. They provide a bulwark. If you stack those bricks one after the other, you will have a weak wall.
Now what the Republicans are saying is: Well, we have torn down that wall by shutting down the government. Now we want to build it brick by brick, but we will just stack them. We will have a brick here and a brick there.
This is what I am getting at with that analogy. The Senator from Florida wants to fund the Head Start Program--all well and good--but the Head Start Program is not a separate brick in that wall, it is interconnected to so many others.
A variety of other Federal programs are used in the Head Start Program. For example, States use the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program. They use the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families--
TANF--Program. They use the social services block grants to provide wraparound services. In this way, for example, they can use some of those funds to extend the Head Start day from half a day to a full day. They can extend it from a full day to later hours for parents who have different working hours and working conditions. Under a shutdown, we don't have these other programs. So you might have the Head Start Program, but these other ones are all shut down.
Head Start providers use funding from the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which is funded under a whole different auspices of the government, but this food program comes in to provide healthy meals and nutritious services. I say to the Senator from Florida, I have visited a lot of Head Start centers, and they have nutritious food for these kids. That doesn't come under the Head Start Program, that comes from the Child and Adult Care Food Program. That is also shut down right now.
So, again, you could fund the Head Start Program, but all these other programs interlock and provide the support necessary for a good Head Start Program.
I might also say that the Head Start Program is a need-based program. So if someone wants to get their child into a Head Start Program, sometimes documentation is used and needed--documentation such as last year's tax returns. What was your income? Well, as long as the IRS is closed right now--out of 94,000 active IRS employees, 87,000 are furloughed--the IRS is not processing those.
The point I make to all and to the Senator from Florida is that it is not enough just to say: I want to reopen the Head Start Program. All of these bricks are interlocked. That is why it is so important to get the government running again.
If the Senator from Florida wants to cut funding for some of these other programs, there is plenty of opportunity to do that through the legislative process and the appropriations process. But just to say we are going to fund the Head Start Program, I say, with all due respect, that is a cruel irony to hold out to all of the families who use the Head Start Program that somehow, yes, we want to fund Head Start, but all the other things that go to support it and make it work, we are taking that away, and like a wall built of stacked bricks, it will fall over because it won't have the other supports that are needed.
So I respectfully object to the request from the Senator from Florida.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Objection is heard.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 70
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, let's be very clear here today. Republicans have come to the floor to reopen the government. We have offered request after request to reopen the government. We have offered to negotiate. From the other side, we hear: We will not negotiate, we will not compromise, and we will not reopen the government.
We have offered 13 different compromises today to reopen the government. We are willing to open the government.
They say: You must agree to everything or we will open nothing. We will not compromise.
We say to them: Why don't we open the parts of government we agree on?
Can we not end this farce of putting security guards in front of the World War II Memorial? My goodness, it is an open park. They spent more money closing it than we spend keeping it open. We spend more money guarding the World War II monument than we do protecting our Ambassador in Libya. It has become a farce.
Eighty-five percent of your government is open. We have offered today to open another 10 percent. Compromise means coming together and voting on some of the things on which you agree.
Every program we have wanted to open today--the national parks, NIH, Veterans Affairs, allowing funerals, for goodness' sakes, for our military heroes who have died in action--they say: We agree to it, but we won't agree to it.
So let's be very clear. Republicans have offered today very specific proposals for opening the government. The Democrats have uniformly rejected every appeal to open the government. So when one of our heroes can't have a funeral, when one of our people cannot be buried in Arlington Cemetery, when a World War II veteran goes to the monument and is barricaded and kept from viewing the monument to celebrate their service, be very clear that Republicans have asked to open the government, and the Democrats have rejected opening it at every point. In fact, they are very explicit with their strategy. We will not negotiate, they say. The President says he will not negotiate under pressure. My question is, When will he negotiate?
We have had one good thing happen for the American taxpayer in the last 5 years. The bad thing is $7 trillion has been added to your kids' and your grandkids' tab. One good thing happened, and it happened under duress, and it happened with regard to the debt ceiling. The sequester actually cut the rate of growth of spending. It didn't cut spending, but it is cutting the rate of growth of spending. The sequester happened under duress. The other side loves debt, loves spending, and doesn't care how much your kids or grandkids will have. They don't care. They have rejected every compromise.
What we are saying is that $7 trillion of debt under President Obama is too much. The country is struggling. Economists say 1 million people are out of work because of the economy and because of the debt and because of the burden. And what do they want to do? Heap more debt on your kids and grandkids. I say enough is enough.
Let's reopen the government. Republicans today have said we will open the government. Let's open the parts we can agree to.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 207 for H.J. Res. 70 to open the national parks, to make continuing appropriations for the year 2014; that the measure be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it was my understanding that the Senator from Kentucky was going to make a request relative to the Veterans' Administration. The request relative to the national parks has been made earlier today. Is the request for the National Park Service?
Mr. PAUL. Yes. And I can go on. I want it to be very clear that the Senator is objecting to funding the national parks, so when people go to the national parks, they know they can call his office. We want to open the national parks, and we want to make it very clear that the Democratic side is objecting to funding the national parks.
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. I would like to clarify a few points relative to statements made by the junior Senator from Kentucky.
The first statement: The Democrats will not negotiate. Well, let me remind the Senator from Kentucky--and I am sure he has not forgotten this--the spending level for the continuing resolution is the Republican's spending level which we agreed to in negotiation, $978 billion on an annual basis.
Mr. PAUL. It is the law.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
Mr. DURBIN. It is the figure Republicans placed as part of the negotiations, which the majority leader agreed to. That was a negotiation which led to that number which Speaker Boehner agreed to.
Secondly, this argument by the Senator from Kentucky that the Republicans are here today to open the government--let me at least remind the Senator from Kentucky that it is their failure to pass the continuing resolution by the Republican majority in the House that has closed the government for 9 straight days. We passed the continuing resolution to keep the government open at Republican spending levels. The House has refused. This is a Republican shutdown.
Point No. 3.
Mr. PAUL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DURBIN. Let me finish my statement. I reserved the right to object and I have the floor--I stand corrected. The Senator from Kentucky has the floor, but I can stand and speak reserving the right to object to his unanimous consent request. Is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The right is at the sufferance of the Senator who has the floor.
Mr. PAUL. I will suffer longer.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Kentucky because I went through a period of suffering a few moments ago.
The point I would like to make to the Senator from Kentucky about the national parks is one I hope he will understand. We want to open the entire government including the national parks and other lands, recreation facilities that are owned by the Federal Government beyond the national parks. When it comes to the World War II memorial the Senator made reference to, I was just there. We had a group of honored veterans from World War II who came from Illinois last week and I met them. They had access to the World War II Memorial. The reason there was any restriction was because the Republican shutdown took the employees away, which made it impossible for them to man their post.
Here is my offer to the Senator from Kentucky. It is not new, but it tells the story. Do the Republicans want to reopen the Government? Here is your chance.
I ask consent the Senator's request be modified as follows: That the amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the joint resolution, as amended, be read a third time and passed; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. This amendment is the text that has passed the Senate, it is a clean continuing, no-strings-attached resolution for the entire government including the national parks and many other important things. It is something that is already over in the House. It could be called in a matter of minutes and passed by a bipartisan majority in the House.
Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. PAUL. I am not opposed to a clean CR. If we want to have a clean CR at a level at which we can balance the budget, I am all for it. If the Senator would accept a modification of a top-line number of $940 billion to replace $988 billion where appropriate throughout the continuing resolution, I can support his unanimous consent for a continuing resolution to go back over to the House.
Mr. DURBIN. Does the Senator object to my modification?
Mr. PAUL. I am offering a new modification to your modification and asking unanimous consent that the Senator accept as a new top-line number, where 988 appears, that $988 billion appears throughout the continuing resolution, that if your objective is to have a clean CR, let's have a clean CR. I am happy to do it. But we need to do it and restrain the growth of spending in our government because your party has added so much our country is drowning in a sea of debt.
If you will agree to a top-line number of $940 billion to replace
$988 billion throughout the continuing resolution where appropriate, I would agree to your consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois so modify his modification?
Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, holding the floor at the sufferance of the junior Senator from Kentucky, I would like to ask him to respond to a question without yielding the floor.
Mr. PAUL. Sure.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator tell us when was the last time our Federal Government had a surplus in the budget and who was the President at that time?
Mr. PAUL. Could I ask for a germane question?
Mr. DURBIN. Not really.
Mr. PAUL. Part of the answer is it was divided government. The interesting thing about divided government is divided government can work better, and with more conversation, I think we could get beyond this impasse. I think if we would negotiate--and here is the problem. I know now there are some in your party saying you will negotiate but the President said at least, oh, 20, maybe 30, maybe 40 times on national television he will not negotiate until he gets his way and that is still essentially what you guys are saying. You will negotiate after you get your way. The problem is, we think you will not negotiate unless there is a deadline, because the thing is, when you finally did negotiate--and here is my question to the Senator from Illinois through the Presiding Officer--did you vote for the sequester?
The sequester was not a Republican bill, it was voted on by many Members of your party. The numbers are yours.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Kentucky has expired. Procedurally----
Mr. DURBIN. I object to the modification to reduce the top-line budget number. This was a number negotiated between Speaker Boehner and the majority leader. Speaker Boehner said this was a number he could pass. I believe since we took a $70 billion cut in the budget resolution that has already passed in the Senate, I will not agree to further cuts in the programs.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection to the request?
Mr. DURBIN. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original request of the Senator from Kentucky?
Mr. PAUL. Is there objection to the original--the modification of my motion? I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. DURBIN. I believe what is pending is the original unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original unanimous consent request?
Mr. DURBIN. For the record, the last time we had a surplus was under a Democratic President, President William Jefferson Clinton, and I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, what is the order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
Mrs. MURRAY. I yield 1 minute of my time to the Senator from California.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. While the junior Senator from Kentucky is on the floor, I want to make sure the American people know the answer to the question my friend from Illinois asked him--who was President the last time there was not only a balanced budget but a surplus? The answer is Bill Clinton. And I was here when we had that vote. So, I think, was the Senator from Illinois. We did not get one Republican to join us in that budget that actually worked so well that we had a surplus until the Republicans put a huge tax cut for billionaires on the credit card, and two wars.
Let's be clear here, what this is about. We have to open the government, we have to pay our bills, and then let the good Senator from Washington go negotiate with Congressman Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee, and yes, we can see our way to a balanced budget. But let's not play these games of government by piecemeal spending.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as we now know, the government has been closed for business for more than a week. Across the country, newspapers are now filled with stories about how the shutdown is costing us jobs and slashing paychecks and interfering with everything from Head Start to the VA claims. This shutdown has already cost American workers and families a lot of pain and its impacts are only going to get worse. That is why what we heard this weekend from Speaker Boehner was so frustrating.
Speaker Boehner said:
The American people expect in Washington when we have a crisis like this, that the leaders will sit down and have a conversation.
Listening to Speaker Boehner, you would think a government shutdown fell out of the sky last week and caught everyone by surprise. The truth is it was completely avoidable. Senate Democrats tried to start negotiations to avoid this shutdown 18 times before October 1, and each time an extreme minority of Republicans stood up and said no. Speaker Boehner himself even spoke out in favor of delaying negotiations.
This shutdown did not happen by accident. We did not have to have this crisis. This shutdown happened because tea party Republicans and the Republicans who would not stand up to them chose brinkmanship over negotiations for 6 straight months. Now that we have reached this point, Republicans say they are ready to have a conversation--but only if we allow the government shutdown to continue.
Democrats are more than happy to talk about the budget, but Republican insistence on keeping the government closed during these negotiations makes no sense at all. It suggests that they are not thinking about how this shutdown is impacting our families and our businesses, which cannot afford talk at the expense of action.
I would like to talk about some of those impacts today. At a time when we should be focused on creating jobs and growing our economy, this shutdown is hurting workers and businesses and our recovery. From the sandwich shops that rely on Federal employees who come by for lunch every day to construction companies that cannot get contracts because of all the economic uncertainty to major corporations such as Boeing, that are considering furloughs, it is clear the shutdown is putting both public and private sector jobs at risk. Because Federal workers at agencies such as the IRS and Social Security Administration are out of work, thousands of potential home buyers will be unable to get their mortgages approved, which could damage our housing recovery which has boosted our economy.
Our Nation's veterans deserve our gratitude and our respect and all the support we can offer. But this shutdown is creating uncertainty for these men and women who have heroically served our country.
Veterans make up nearly 30 percent of the Federal workforce--30 percent. They are feeling the effects of furloughs. The shutdown has worsened the backlog in disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and veterans across the country are now watching and waiting for an end to this shutdown because, if it goes long enough, their benefits could be threatened. Nearly 640,000 veterans in my home State of Washington alone are at risk of losing their VA benefits if this shutdown extends past October. It should not have to be said, but they deserve much better. So do the struggling families who are now wondering how much longer they will be able to put food on their table.
This shutdown will stop funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which helps more than 8.9 million struggling moms and young children get healthy food. Many of our States are now scrambling to find money to keep those WIC operations going. The USDA now estimates that we will only be able to continue as usual until the end of October, until their funding runs out.
Other struggling parents wonder where they will send their children while they are at work. More than 7,000 children and their families have lost access to Head Start due to this shutdown. And, by the way, that is on top of the 57,000 slots as a result of the sequestration that has impacted so many.
As much as Republicans may not want to acknowledge it, the effects of this shutdown are far-reaching and severe and, should this government stay closed, it will only get harder for agencies to continue providing services that are so crucial to our families and communities. So when Speaker Boehner says the American people expect their leaders to sit down and have a conversation--you know what. That is what I have been saying for the last 6 months. But what I will not accept and what I strongly believe the American people will not accept is starting a conversation while we are in this shutdown, which is hurting our economy and some of our most vulnerable children and families, and does even more damage. Now is not the time to talk about avoiding a shutdown, it is the time to actually do it.
Speaker Boehner has said there are not votes in the House to pass a clean continuing resolution that will simply keep our government open. If that is the case, I would like him to prove it. Speaker Boehner should bring up the Senate's clean continuing resolution and allow Democrats and Republicans to vote on it. Then he should join Democrats in preventing a default, without delay and without strings attached because, I want to be very clear, a default on U.S. debts would be unprecedented and devastating.
I held a hearing a few weeks ago in our Senate Budget Committee to talk about the impact of brinkmanship and uncertainty on our economy. The economists who joined us warned us that for families in my home State of Washington and across the country, default would mean mortgage rates and student loan costs would rise, making it harder to afford home ownership or even afford tuition; that home prices and stock prices would fall and businesses of all sizes would have trouble financing their activities, which would of course lead to layoffs and surging unemployment.
I am not going to let the tea party cause Washington State families that kind of hardship. But after we have reopened the government, prevented this default, and made sure our families and communities are no longer paying the price for tea party brinkmanship, I would be more than happy to begin the negotiations that Democrats have been out here requesting to have for months. It is clearer every day that there is bipartisan support for those responsible steps. Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much, but I think a lot of us on both sides of this aisle have had enough of tea party brinkmanship and seen enough of governing by crisis.
We are ready, together, to resolve our differences in a way that works for the American people and our economy, and I sincerely hope Speaker Boehner will not let the tea party stand in our way.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, the U.S. Treasury says that in exactly 8 days it will not have enough money to pay the government's bills. We are not in this position because the Secretary of the Treasury or the President spent more than they were supposed to. The Constitution allows them to spend only what Congress tells them to spend, and that is exactly what they have done.
We are not in this position because investors refused to buy our bonds. Investors are lining up around the block to buy those. We are in this position for one reason and one reason only: Congress told the government to spend more money than we have. Congress told the Treasury to run up our debt to pay for it, but now Congress is threatening to run out on the bill.
If that strikes you as bizarre, you are not alone. The United States is the only democracy in the world where the legislature debates whether it should pay the bills it has already incurred. The United States is the only democracy that regularly considers whether to run out on its bills; that is, to voluntarily default on its debt.
Congress exercises direct control over the amount the Federal Government spends and the amount the Federal Government brings in through taxes and fees. Our national debt is simply a function of those two things--the money coming in and the money going out--and so Congress exercises direct control over the amount of debt we have. If Congress is unhappy with the size of the debt, it should change how much it spends or how much it brings in. There is no other option. The idea that we can somehow renege on our debts without paying a huge price is a fantasy, a dangerous fantasy.
Consider what happened in 2011, the last time the government came up to the edge of a voluntary default. Even the possibility that the government would not make good on its debts spooked investors and pushed up interest rates. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the interest rate increase from the last time the United States even talked about default will cost the government $19 billion over 10 years. That is $19 billion that could have brought back funding for Head Start, Meals On Wheels or our military. That is $19 billion that could have eased the interest rates on student loans or been invested in medical research. That is $19 billion that could have been used to pay down the debt. Instead, that is $19 billion that was just flushed down the drain. Does anyone here care about wasteful government? Well, then, that is it.
The last time the government came to the edge of a voluntary default, consumers and businesses got spooked too. The S&P dropped by more than 17 percent, $800 billion in retirement assets vanished, mortgage rates went up nearly three-quarters of a point, costing every new homeowner real money. The net result was less consumer spending, fewer business investments, lower home ownership rates, and slower job growth.
That is what happened the last time Congress came to the edge of a voluntary default. What happens if Congress actually defaults? If that happens, there is widespread concern among economists of every political persuasion that we would plunge into another recession.
Government debt may seem to be an abstract and complicated thing, but, in fact, it is pretty simple. The government owes money to two main groups of people. It owes payments on U.S. bonds, which are mostly owned by foreign governments, and it owes money to the American people for things such as Social Security payments and Medicare reimbursements for hospitals and physicians. It owes paychecks to the military and retirement checks to veterans.
If the Treasury does not have enough money to make all of its payments, then it will likely try to minimize the damage to America's credit rating, and that means making payments on the bonds held by foreign investors, leaving others to absorb the losses.
Who will not get paid? Will it be seniors who rely on Social Security to live? Will it be hospitals that rely on Medicare to operate? Will it be our servicemembers who rely on paychecks to help their families back home? Will it be Federal contractors, large and small, who support millions of jobs nationwide?
The Treasury makes 80 million payments a month and many of them will be delayed. As more time passes, unpaid bills will pile up. From there, it just gets worse. The Federal Government's inability to pay its bills could set off a chain reaction of defaults, sending the financial system into turmoil. Millions of people who rely on Federal payments might not have the money they need to keep current on their student loans or their mortgages or their small business loans. That could cause interest rates to spike, leading to a wave of further defaults, while the financial markets would be faced with the very real possibility that the United States would not have enough money to make payments on its bonds.
American Treasury bonds are considered safe investments. They are considered so safe that they are used as collateral in millions of financial transactions around the world. If the United States does not have enough money to pay its bills, parties to these transactions will demand more collateral or different forms of collateral. That has a domino effect throughout the economy. The end result could be the kind of freeze of the credit markets that we saw after the failure of Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the freeze that triggered the financial crisis.
The idea that we can renege on our debts and not pay a huge price is a dangerous fantasy. I have heard some extremists in Congress argue that even if the United States runs out of money to pay all its bills, it will not be so bad because the Treasury will be able to keep current on its bond payments and avoid a technical default.
That is a heck of a best case scenario, making bond payments to foreign governments, mostly China and Japan, while holding up Social Security payments, hospital payments, and military payments here at home. It is a terrible idea. People count on those payments to live.
It is also a terrible idea that would not work. Just ask top Wall Street executives, including the CEO of Goldman Sachs who said publicly and unequivocally that prioritizing bond payments would still create
``insurmountable uncertainty for investors,'' causing a spike in interest rates that would immediately increase monthly payments on student loans, mortgages, other personal debt, and would cripple job growth. Like it or not, the threat of default will cause this country a lot of pain.
I want to make this absolutely clear: If we run out of money to pay our bills, the world will view this as the first default in the history of the United States. Wall Street and the global financial markets will view this as the first default in the history of the United States.
This fight is about financial responsibility. Financially responsible people don't charge thousands of dollars on their credit cards and then tear up the bill when it arrives. Financially responsible Nations don't do that either. When we put our name on the line saying that a debt is backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States, we follow through. We protect our good name. We protect our good credit.
For many things that we do in Congress, we can make a mistake and then back up and fix it. A default on our national debt is not one of those things. If we default and pay late, the damage could be irreversible.
The first time we flirted with default was the first time in history that America's credit rating fell. If we actually default, some economists estimate we will add $75 billion a year to the debt in additional interest payments. That is three-quarters of $1 trillion over the next 10 years. There are a lot of good things to do with that money. Flushing it down the drain is not one of them.
If we default on our debt, we could bring on a worldwide recession, a recession that would pummel hard-working middle-class people, people who lost their homes and jobs and retirement savings and who are barely getting back on their feet. Maybe we can escape a recession--maybe--but we are playing with the lives of every American, and it is not what the American people sent us to do. This is no time to act out dangerous fantasies.
We must raise the debt ceiling. We must raise it now. A bedrock financial principle of government is to tell the world that the United States always pays its debts in full and on time. That is who we are.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in taking the floor to stress the urgency of action. I agree with my colleague from Massachusetts and her comments about the devastating impact the failure to pay our bills would have on our economy, on our Nation's reputation, and on the worldwide economy. That would make absolutely no sense at all and would put our Nation at great risk.
I thank the Senator for taking the time to explain the specific consequences if we were to allow the U.S. Treasury to be put in the position where it could not honor all of the obligations that have already been incurred.
This is not about increasing spending. This is about paying the bills we have already incurred. Whether it is for those who hold our bonds, those who are entitled to a payroll check or those who are entitled to a contractor's check, we have to honor our bills. That is what America's great reputation is all about.
I thank the Senator for bringing that up.
The combination of a government shutdown combined with not paying our bills will have an impact on our economy that will be very hard for us to overcome. We have already been harmed. This government shutdown has already hurt America. It has hurt us internationally.
This past week President Obama was supposed to be at the Asian economic summit. The Presiding Officer--the Senator from Delaware who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee--knows very well the importance of that particular conference.
The headliner of that conference should have been President Obama pointing out how important the rebalanced Asia is to America's economy and that we are open for business; instead, America was closed for business. The headliner at that economic summit was President Xi of China. That is not what this Nation needed. We were harmed by that government shutdown and the President's inability to travel to Asia. Make no mistake about it, it hurt America.
Our economy has already been hurt by the shutdown. Every day that the government is shut down, it hurts our economy. I can give a lot of specific examples. For instance, there was a report in this morning's paper about the State of Colorado and how it recently experienced one of the worst floods in its history which caused a devastating impact on its economy. They are now telling us that this shutdown is approaching the economic damage to Colorado that nature did to it a couple of weeks ago by the floods. However, there is a major difference: We can't stop what nature does--we can try to mitigate it--but we can stop this government shutdown. This is a government problem that we have imposed on the people of Colorado, the people of Maryland, the people of Delaware, and the people of our entire country.
This shutdown has hurt the taxpayers of this country. I have heard my conservative friends say that we want to make sure we don't spend so much money. We want to help the taxpayers. In this short period of time already the shutdown has cost the taxpayers of this country a reported
$2 billion. That is just wasted taxpayer dollars. We have a responsibility to care for the public funds. The way to do that right now is to open government and stop wasting taxpayer dollars.
I have been on this floor many times to talk about the harm we are doing to the Federal workforce. Yes, we are harming the Federal workforce; there is no question about it. I am particularly sensitive because this region has more Federal workers--of the 800,000 who have been furloughed, over 300,000 come from this region. By the way, 30 percent are veterans. The people who have served our Nation are now being furloughed because of this government shutdown. Maryland's workforce is about 10 percent of Federal workers. So this has had a real impact on the State I have the honor of representing in the Senate. Each one of those 800,000 people whom we represent is real. They are not just numbers. These are real people who have been harmed by the closing of the Federal Government.
Let me speak about a couple of people whom I have heard about or who have called me. Kayla is a 15-year-old who I spoke to on the telephone. She told me about how her parents are worried. Both of her parents are Federal workers, and she, a 15-year-old, sensed the fear in her parents as to whether they will be able to pay their bills. We put that family at risk by failing to keep government open.
Melissa Ayres is a furloughed Federal worker at the Social Security Administration. Her husband was unemployed for 2\1/2\ years as a result of our economic downturn. Now his company is recovering, but Melissa was the principal wage earner. She stated:
I have always been the primary earner until Monday. Now I think: What do I do to support my family?
The government shutdown has hurt Melissa Ayres and her family.
I heard from a farmer on the eastern shore of Maryland's Cecil County. He is part of the conservation stewardship program. I know the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Delaware, is well aware of that. But what this person has done is taken some income away from his farming activities by planting buffer crops. Those buffer crops help with reducing the amount of pollutants that run off into the Chester River, in this case, which will flow into the Chesapeake Bay. So he is being a good steward of the environment, and he enrolled in the conservation stewardship program. As part of that, he gets a payment from that fund, because he is giving up some of the income of his farming activities in order to help us preserve the Chesapeake Bay. During this shutdown, that payment is not being made.
He has put himself in a tough position. He did the right thing. He has put his family at risk. He told me he has a young child who is undergoing certain treatment for his eye. He doesn't know whether he has the money for his child to continue in that medical treatment. He needs the check for his participation in this program.
This government shutdown has had a real impact on real people.
Johnny Zuagar who works at the Census Bureau--I should say used to work at the Census Bureau because he has been furloughed. Of the 5,000 employees at the Census Bureau, less than 40 are currently working--
forty out of 5,000. The budget he has for his family is based upon his paycheck. If he doesn't get his full paycheck, he can't pay his bills. So his question is which bills should he pay and which not pay.
That is the situation we are putting people in as a result of this government shutdown.
Marcelo Del Canto was here earlier this week. He works with helping in the fight against substance abuse. He has been a Federal worker for 8 years. He is in the unenviable position that he and his wife both work for the Federal Government, and they have both been furloughed. He is a Marylander and just recently bought a home in Maryland. He has a mortgage. If he doesn't get a paycheck, how does he pay his mortgage? The mortgage company is not going to say: Oh, government shutdown. You don't have to pay your mortgage payments.
This shutdown is having a real impact on real families in my State of Maryland and in every State in this Nation.
Then there are agencies that just can't do their work that will hurt our country. The Environmental Protection Agency currently has 93 percent of its workforce on furlough. That means we are at risk with our public health--clean air, clean water. Our environment is at risk. The Chesapeake Bay is at greater risk because the people out there doing the monitoring and doing the enforcement are not there. Scientists are not doing what they need to be doing in order to help us with public health and to deal with our environment.
Let me tell my colleagues that it is also directly hurting our economy. In Baltimore, one of the most important economic development sites, Harbor Point, in downtown Baltimore, which is being developed is a RCRA site, which requires the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency in order to move forward with the economic development plan. The people who would do that approval process are on furlough. That project is now on hold and the economic development that would help Baltimore and our State economy is now on hold.
The shutdown is having a real effect on real people.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, which is located in the State of Maryland, does work that is so important for innovation, for science, and technology. They do work to help us have a competitive edge internationally. Ninety-one percent of their workforce is on furlough. How do we expect to be competitive?
This year, the SAMMI Awards were recently given out. The SAMMI Awards are given to Federal workers who excel in public service. These are our frontliners. These are the people who are serving their nation, and we want to honor them. I want to recognize some of the people who were being honored at the SAMMI Awards this year. One is Daniel Madrzykowski. He works at NIST. I mention him because he has been there for 28 years. The work he does is to figure out how he can keep our first responders who fight fires safe. He does the research as to how they can go into a building in a safer way. Well, he is furloughed, and our first responders are at a little bit greater risk today as a result of the government shutdown.
The shutdown is having an effect on real people.
I read with interest how we celebrated the Nobel Prize in medicine going to James Rothman and Randy Schekman for the incredible work they did. I don't know if I can explain what they did, but I will tell my colleagues that it is incredible. They were able to reach that pinnacle in their careers and reach their accomplishments because during their career they were supported by the National Institutes of Health. NIH does basic research which is so important--the building blocks for discovery in America. It provides incentives for young people to go into science and to go into research.
Will we have the next group of Nobel laureates? Today it is less certain than it was a week ago. NIH cannot support those types of research grants today. Their people are on furlough. America is not open for business. Real people are being hurt by what is happening.
It is not just in government employment. I can talk about private sector employment.
It was just reported today that Lockheed will be laying off 400 Maryland workers as a result of the shutdown. I can give many more examples of private companies that are laying off people as a result of this shutdown.
The bottom line is this: We hear from some of our Republican colleagues in the House that we have to negotiate, we have to pick winners and losers; we have to wait for a crisis to occur in a particular agency before they will consider a special bill to open some of those agencies. So let me just conclude by the quote I cited once before on the floor of the Senate from the Baltimore Sunpapers. It says, in regards to negotiations and what we should do:
The gun isn't raised to Mr. Obama's head or to the Senate's. The Democrats have no particular stake in passing a continuing resolution or in raising the debt ceiling other than keeping public order and doing what any reasonable person expects Congress to do. No, the gun is raised at the nation as a whole. That's why descriptions like ``ransom'' and ``hostage'' are not mere hyperbole, they are as close as the English language gets to accurately describing the GOP strategy.
It is time for Speaker Boehner to put down the gun. It is time for us to open government and to make sure we pay our bills, and then, yes, we want to negotiate. For 6 months, we have been trying to negotiate a budget. Open government, pay our bills, and then let's negotiate a responsible budget for this Nation.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the twin manufactured crises that are facing the country: A hobbled government and the threat of default.
I have seen some describe this as a game, and I have heard others say it is just partisanship posturing. But this situation is neither. This is serious business. In fact, I am deeply troubled about this--not only as a Senator representing the State of Rhode Island, but as an American--about where my country is going.
I am dismayed that some on the other side have decided that for whatever reason--and those reasons seem to keep changing--the only way to achieve their goal--and their goals seem to keep changing--is to shut the government down and suggest that defaulting on our debt will have no consequences.
It would be a nice fiction if we could say: Well, America really didn't have to pay its bills. That we don't have to pay for the trillions we spent in Iraq and in Afghanistan, or for the significant tax cuts under President Bush that benefited the wealthiest Americans. I didn't support the operations in Iraq, and I didn't support those tax cuts. I think we could have invested the money much more wisely and helped America.
But the reality is all these bills are coming due, and the United States Treasury has to pay them.
Some of my colleagues on the other side are suggesting: Well, we can prioritize payments. No one will be upset. No one will be hurt if we don't pay the bills as they come due. We will just pick the ones we want to pay.
But these are not Democratic bills. They are not Republican bills. These are America's bills. They were approved by the Congress of the United States under Republican Presidents and Democrat Presidents, under Republican Congresses and Democrat Congresses. And as they come due, they must be paid.
But we are here today in this manufactured crisis that essentially locks out and blocks the American people from accessing their government--from accessing basic government services. Women and children receiving food under the WIC program, Head Start--a whole panoply of Americans who are literally being denied benefits they earned, or benefits that are necessary not just for their health, but for the health and vitality of the fabric of America. Then, on top of that, is the added threat of a default on our obligations--already accrued, already authorized, already appropriated obligations--not new borrowing for new expenditures. These bills are coming due.
We have seen this ever-changing theme from the other side about why they have to do these things. At first it was an effort to repeal ObamaCare. Then it was a 1-year delay of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Then it was just a delay of part of the law. Then it was repealing a tax that was part of the law. Now, we have heard about Canadian oil pipelines, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and cutting Medicaid. The rationale keeps changing and suggesting that the reasons behind this lockout are not only unclear to the American public, they are unclear to the proponents. In fact, some are suggesting that this is also about cutting Social Security and Medicare and other programs that are central to every family in this country. Indeed, it seems as though they have transitioned from ``let's take ObamaCare and repeal it'' to ``let's take the New Deal and repeal that.'' In fact, one of our colleagues in the House apparently suggested he didn't know what he wanted; he just knew he wanted something in exchange for an open government that is functioning and a government that pays its bills.
It is hard not to draw the conclusion that many of my colleagues on the other side have simply committed themselves to extracting major policy concessions, whatever they can get, by threatening to default on our debt and by continuing to lock out the American people from its government. They are sadly using potential economic chaos to get their way.
Now I don't think Republicans are debating seriously--and we have heard this argument from them for years going back--for decades, in fact--to the initial debate on Medicare, that it is evil socialized medicine. Now I am sure during the discussion of the New Deal, there were criticisms of growing central government, but to seriously take away these programs I think would cause the American people to stand up and say no, since most if not every American fundamentally depends on them. Particularly as they get to the point where they are retired or they are approaching retirement.
So now the Republican story has shifted, as they have gotten closer and closer to what seems to be some of their real motivating factors: shrinking government dramatically, not just those parts that are popular. Now they are beginning to hint that this is about something more fundamental. This is about tearing up the basic social contract where people have worked all their lives, paid into Social Security, and will get Social Security benefits. For them, this is about tearing up the social contract that if you have worked, you have paid into the Medicare system, you will get Medicare benefits.
Of course now they have shifted their current story again, and now it is all about negotiation, that we have not negotiated. That is why they have to shut down the government and default on the debt of the United States. The irony, of course, is that Democrats have been, indeed, trying to go into serious and bipartisan negotiations about our budget for many months. Indeed, months ago, in March, as I recall, the Senate, after taking 47 rollcall votes, passed a solid, balanced, and sensible budget plan and asked to negotiate with the other body in a conference. Indeed, at the beginning of the year, the Speaker called for following the budget process, for following regular order.
At one point, the other side even demanded that Senators and Congresswomen and men should not be paid if there was no budget resolution. But, sadly, months later, after we had passed our budget, a handful of colleagues in this body, on the Republican side, have been blocking us from going to conference. They are insisting that as any precondition to a bipartisan conference we could not talk about raising revenue, or take actions that will ensure the government be able to pay its bills. They have essentially stopped regular order.
For his part, the Speaker of the House refused to appoint conferees for months, as well, apparently fearful that Republicans might have to actually vote on some of their proposals that have been incorporated over the years in various Republican budgets with respect to Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs.
But now as we approach default, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying: Oh, it is time to negotiate on the budget.
It was time months ago when we asked to go to conference. It was time weeks ago. Now it is time to ensure that we pay our bills and we open the government.
We have come to the Senate floor 21 times so far to seek to go to conference to negotiate with the House on the budget. What do we hear? When we ask to go to negotiate, no. But, when we ask them to open the government, to pay our bills, they say no let's negotiate. That is not the way to conduct the business of this government. It is not the way to provide the confidence our economy needs to go forward. It is not the way to provide families the confidence they need to face the rigors of daily life--of educating children, of taking care of their health care, of contributing to their community.
We have had consistent and constant objections, which frustrate our ability to go to conference and negotiate, over many, many, many months. But after all their other rationales--defund ObamaCare, delay ObamaCare, delay the personal mandate--now it has come down to let's negotiate, when indeed, Republicans have rejected that approach 21 times on the floor of the Senate.
It is time for the other Chamber to reopen the government and agree to pay our bills. They can do that by bringing to the floor very quickly--and they can procedurally: a clean CR--a term of art that was Washington speak until a week or two ago, but now everyone knows. It simply sets for a few weeks the amount of money we can spend and allows us to open the government.
Americans are being hurt by the shutdown, and they will be hurt even more grievously if we default on our debt. It is continually amazing to me that the other side persists in shutting down the government and threatening to default on the debt.
But, you have a response by the other side, particularly, that is consistent with what we heard during their primary campaign for the Presidency: Let's shut down some government agencies. Now it is the other side of that coin: Republicans will just open a few government agencies, not the whole government, but the ones--and they change or they increase each day--that they think are important. Each day they seem to have another idea about: Well, we have to open this. It will be a good headline. It will be a good talking point.
For example, they have talked about opening the national parks, the Smithsonian, and other museums. But, let's remember that in the House, Republicans have proposed cutting the allocation for the Department of Interior Appropriations Bill by $5.5 billion from last year.
So we have to go forward and we have to resolve this situation. We cannot allow this lockout to continue. We have to do what Leader Reid has said quite succinctly: open the government, pay our bills, go to conference on the budget, and then negotiate everything that is within reason to negotiate. Let's do that for the American people. We are ready to do it. I hope our colleagues will agree to do it also.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I would like to start by reading a letter I received this week. So many of us in the Senate are operating with furloughed staff, and we are doing our best to read and respond to the letters we are getting from home, the calls that are coming into our offices. This one touched me in particular. It began:
My name is MSgt Corey P DiLuzio. I am an Air Reserve Technician at Dover AFB. I have served this great nation for 12 years without question or reservation. Every time I have been called upon, I have answered the call, left my family behind, and served proudly as maintainer for the C-17 aircraft. I know you understand the reach and the mission requirements for such an aircraft. I tell you this not for a thank you or any type of acknowledgement. I tell you this--
Master Sergeant DiLuzio writes--
because I am also a husband to a woman who has stood by my side in support for every deployment. I tell you this because I am the father of a three-year-old boy who doesn't even question the answer Daddy's at work. I understand a man in your position has made . . . sacrifices as well, however, today I had to tell my family I am unable to work. Not because of anything I have control of, but because of decisions made by individuals who will not miss a paycheck; individuals who will always know when the next check is coming. I write this understanding that it will fall on deaf ears, and I am usually one that remains quiet and follows the orders for those appointed above me, however, enough is enough. Please do your part in resolving this issue so I can get back to serving my country and my family.
Sincerely yours, MSgt Corey DiLuzio.
It pains me that the master sergeant thought his letter would fall on deaf ears, that no one here--that neither I nor any of my colleagues--
would hear or care about the concerns of a man--his wife, his family--
who has served this country and who stands ready to continue serving this country but whose family is being harmed by the mindless, purposeless shutdown of the government that is now in day 9--this first government shutdown in 17 years, and by all indications one that will continue into another week.
I start by saying to Master Sergeant DiLuzio: I am sorry. I am sorry for the needless pain and difficulty this shutdown is imposing on your family and so many other families across this country. Roughly 800,000 Federal employees have been furloughed at different times in the last 9 days, and while some may be returning to Active service, they will be getting IOUs rather than regular paychecks. All over this country, private contractors, as we have heard from other colleagues today, are also laying off people because they cannot get the permits or work permission or the site access they need to move forward.
This shutdown is continuing to harm our country, our reputation, our economy, our families. It is a needless, manufactured, self-imposed wound.
I wrestle with this because we are facing twin manufactured crises, as Senator Reed of Rhode Island just finished saying: hobbled government due to this shutdown on the one hand and the steadily increasing risk of default on the other--these twin manufactured crises seeking some purpose that is unclear from day-to-day. When this government shutdown started, it seemed to be aimed at what, repealing the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare, and then 1 day later it seemed to be aimed at delaying the Affordable Care Act, and then when that clearly was unsuccessful, it seemed to be aimed at seeking some partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act and now it is an ongoing crisis in search of a purpose. The menu of potential demands is growing, and the impact on our families and our communities is growing as well.
The House has been wasting its time on mini microappropriations bills in an attempt to give reporters and folks back home the sense that they are actually doing something, when it is just misdirection. They think all the activity will keep the American people from noticing that Speaker Boehner is not bringing up the one bill that could reopen this government in a matter of minutes--a so-called clean continuing resolution, a simple extension of current spending levels.
I know to all who watch--Master Sergeant DiLuzio and many others--we sometimes speak in language that is opaque, that is difficult to understand. We talk about sequester and continuing resolutions and so forth. So I am going to try and work through these issues in a way that is accessible and direct.
Let's be clear. This government is shut down right now because the House would not pass a 6-week extension--an extension to November 15--
of what is required to keep us open. Today that would be just over 4 weeks. We are literally fighting over a 4-week funding bill. How absurd is it that all of this is over a measure that would have only funded the government in the first case for another 4 weeks from now. There is, frankly, nothing about this situation that is not absurd.
Every day the House Republicans show up with a new strategy, a new press conference, a new message, and, as I said, all the while not explaining exactly why the government is shut down. Initially, it was shut down to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but that is moving forward, as it was always going to be because it is an enacted program.
So what is the current message from the House? They say they are the only ones ready to negotiate, that they are alone at the table, sitting there with jackets off, in their bright, starched, white shirts, waiting for Senate Democrats to meet them at the table and negotiate. Another farce, another fantasy.
I am, frankly, tired and frustrated with the games that seem to be played here. I would like to highlight, if I could, a few of our real efforts to work collaboratively, to answer the question, why won't you negotiate, by saying we have been negotiating.
Once the House votes to keep the lights on and to pay our bills, we will continue to negotiate. I have a simple question. Does the House want us to continue to be a closed-door nation, a nation where we have locked out hundreds of thousands of Federal workers? Does the House want to threaten that we will become a deadbeat nation, a nation that fails to meet its obligations built up over many administrations and many Congresses, Republican and Democratic, or are we going to reopen the government, become an open-door nation, and are we going to pay our bills and become a responsible nation, as we have been in the past?
How did we get here? As a member of the Budget Committee, let me first start, if I could, with the budget resolution. That is how our rules work. We are supposed to begin with a budget resolution that sets a framework for what we are going to spend in the next fiscal year.
For the last 3 years I have been serving here as a Senator, over and over on this floor the call was: Why won't the Senate pass a budget? Well, this year this Senate passed a budget resolution with significant Republican input. Between this floor, where we ultimately passed it, and the committee on which I serve, the Senate adopted more than 40 amendments offered by my Republican colleagues.
We compromised. We worked toward a shared goal. Week after week, as I said, Republicans had asked in past years: When is the Senate going to pass a budget? Yet we did, more than 6 months ago--200 days ago, to be precise, we passed a budget in this Senate.
Our chair, Senator Murray of Washington, has tried to take our budget to conference with the House to do as the rules provide, to reconcile and to responsibly negotiate over our fiscal differences--18 times. She has tried over and over and over to take us to conference and responsibly open formal talks with the House to resolve our fiscal differences. Every time that motion has been blocked, denied, barred, all by a very small group of tea party Republicans in this Chamber who have refused to let us go ahead and negotiate as the rules say we should.
I also serve on the Appropriations Committee. Once the budget is framed, once the budget is resolved, we are then supposed to move to appropriations and set our spending levels. As a member of that committee, I have been a part of the process in which we have, in fact, passed 11 spending bills out of committee, 8 of them with bipartisan support.
In order to try to move that process forward, months after the budget was passed, we brought the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill to this floor. It passed out of committee by a vote of 22 to 8, with 6 Republican votes, a strong bipartisan bill to be passed out here on the floor.
What happened? It was blocked. Again, a small number of the other party came and objected and blocked the passage of that bill, a bill that would put Americans to work and strengthen our infrastructure and help support the housing recovery, a bill that would have moved us forward.
Despite every attempt to fund this government through what we call regular order, the budget process and the appropriations process, we, even after that, came to the table, ready to compromise on this continuing resolution.
The Senate budget calls for a top-line spending number of $1.058 trillion, a balanced approach that reduces Federal spending in some areas, raises revenue in others, and makes progress by replacing the sequester. That is the budget we passed in the Senate. It would call for spending $1.058 trillion. The House budget instead called for $988 billion. As you have heard our leader Senator Harry Reid say on the floor this week, he compromised. He agreed to a short-term funding bill at $988 billion, a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year, a major and painful concession for Democrats, particularly those of us on the Budget Committee who had not voted for a $988 billion number.
We have already slashed spending. People are already suffering through the sequester, another thing that was enacted due to comparable tactics the last time there was a near default in 2011. The sequester has resulted in across-the-board spending cuts. It has been dangerous and painful and which I have spoken about on this floor repeatedly, reading letters from Delawareans, such as the master sergeant, commenting on how it is not the smart way to make cuts, it is an across-the-board way, an irresponsible way to make cuts.
That same Air Force base, Dover Air Force Base, suffered furloughs for hundreds of airmen and their families because of the sequester cuts. We had worked out a budget that would have replaced it and would have avoided those sequester cuts in a balanced and responsible way. But instead, in order to compromise, our majority leader agreed to a
$70 billion cut for this fiscal year. It was tough for a lot of Democrats to swallow. So, frankly, when I see House Republican leaders go on TV and say Democrats will not negotiate, Democrats will not compromise, I have to say: That is not the case. That is not the facts I have before me. We have compromised. We have negotiated. In fact, we have tried for months on this floor, more than 6 months, to get the compromise, to get the negotiation to move this forward. Instead, we find when we give an inch, they take a yard.
Today there are some, some in the other party, suggesting that if they are not granted a great big wish list, they will force us to default on our country's sovereign debt. We keep hearing from the other side about the need to compromise and negotiate. I could not agree more. The whole way this body is supposed to work is by following the rules, following the process, going to conference, negotiating and achieving a responsible result.
We have repeatedly solicited Republican input, accepted Republican amendments, and made painful compromises. Now my message is simple: We should be following the rules. We should be following the process of this body. We should turn on the lights. We should pay our bills. I would be happy, honored to continue working with Republican colleagues to find real solutions to our fiscal problems, the way we are supposed to, in a conference negotiating over the budget that was passed here more than 6 months ago.
To the colleagues with whom I share this Chamber but with whom we have some differences over why this government is shut down today, I hope you will listen to Master Sergeant DiLuzio and his family and to the thousands and thousands of other Americans who are writing in and calling our offices. They deserve better. This country deserves better. We need to show we can be the model of democracy that achieves responsible principled compromise.
To my colleagues and my friends in the other party: Stop blocking progress. Let's go to conference on the budget. Let's negotiate. But, first, let's get our folks back to work. Let's get the government open. Let's move forward in a way that honors the best of our traditions and our rules.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
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