[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 45 (Thursday, March 31, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2013-S2015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I also wish to take some time to talk 
about a real crisis looming in front of us, which is the possibility of 
a Federal Government shutdown.
  I have lived through a Federal Government shutdown, and I can tell 
you, whether you are someone who is trying to get on Social Security or 
Medicare, whether you are living near a toxic waste dump that suddenly 
doesn't get cleaned up, whether you are concerned about enforcement at 
the border--I could go on and on--there will be a lot of suffering.
  If you are a Federal employee who works for a living, you will not 
get paid. Mr. President, for me, the issue is, if Federal employees do 
not get paid, then why on Earth should Members of Congress get paid? We 
are Federal employees. We work for the government at the pleasure of 
the people. Sometimes they are not so happy about it and they don't get 
much pleasure, but the fact is that we are elected and we work as U.S. 
Senators, and our paychecks come from the Federal Treasury. Why should 
we get paid if we

[[Page S2014]]

fail to reach an agreement to do the basic work of keeping this 
government open?
  Years ago, when we faced this, it was with Speaker Gingrich, who 
brought it on. I hate to say that, but I am very concerned that we are 
going to see a repeat from the Republican House. Let me tell you the 
reason. We had an election--and, boy, I noticed that one in 2010 
because I was in it. My Republican friends in the House are fond of 
saying ``we won.'' They did take back the House. They did. They won the 
House. Guess what. They did not take back the Senate. The Democrats 
have a clear majority here. The President is still the President, and 
he is a Democrat. People will have their say, and we will get to that 
in 2012.
  Here is the point. There are three parts of the government that are 
involved in the budget showdown, the budget dialog. Those three parts 
are the House--and we know where they are. They came up with $60 
billion worth of cuts. And then you have a bill that they wrote, H.R. 
1, that not only had $60 billion worth of cuts but all of these 
extraneous legislative riders that proclaimed the EPA has to stop the 
cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay; that EPA can no longer enforce the Clean 
Air Act relating to certain types of pollution; that there will be no 
more money going to Planned Parenthood--no matter that they serve 5 
million people and do all the necessary things to stop women's health 
problems, such as STDs--no, they are zeroed out. So there is a vendetta 
against them and against National Public Radio. That is what is in H.R. 
1.
  H.R. 1 was voted on here, and it did not pass. Now we are sitting 
down with our colleagues to try to work on the budget, not these 
extraneous riders. If you want to repeal the Clean Air Act, have the 
guts to come here, put it on the floor, send it through the committees, 
and let's see where you get. You won't get very far. That is why they 
are trying to do it through the back door. Let's have a budget bill.
  I believe that the Democrats, although we control two-thirds of the 
government--a third is the House, a third is the Senate, and a third is 
the White House--we are willing to meet them about halfway. Well, that 
is fair. That is more than fair. But we have rallies by the extreme 
rightwing. They have every right to do it, and I welcome them with open 
arms, but they do not speak for the majority of the people.
  I want to get back to why I think it is important that these Members 
of Congress who are talking very openly about a shutdown have some skin 
in the game. Let them have to suffer no paychecks. Why should others 
suffer no paychecks, whether you are someone who works the parks or 
someone who works at Social Security or Medicare or someone who cleans 
up toxic waste sites or someone who works on the border. There isn't 
going to be any penalty for them.
  I can only say that it has been 30 days--here it is on the chart--
since the Senate passed a bill that said: No budget, no pay. No raising 
the debt ceiling, no pay. That is what it said. We sent it over to the 
House, and what has Mr. Boehner done with that bill? Nothing. Now, that 
is plenty of time to talk about doing away with Planned Parenthood and 
about all these things they want to do to harm women's health. They 
want to repeal the entire health care bill. I guess now they want to 
refund the money or get back the money the seniors got to help them pay 
for prescription drugs. I guess they don't think it is good to be able 
to keep your kid on your policy until they are 26. I guess they think 
it is fine for the insurance companies to kick you out when you get 
sick. When it comes to saying we will not get paid if there is a 
shutdown, he has not taken up this bill. Thirty days.
  I intend to be on this floor every day--31, 32, 33, whatever the days 
are. That is plenty of time.
  By the way, there is a bill by Congressman Moran. Eric Cantor said we 
should not get paid. I don't know if you know what they did, Mr. 
President. They wrote a bill that said we won't get paid, but in that 
bill, it says H.R. 1 will be deemed having passed if the Senate doesn't 
pass it by April 6. So they have taken the most extreme bill in 
American history, with cuts that experts say--including Mark Zandi, a 
Republican economist--will lose us 700,000 jobs, a bill that is so 
extreme that it tells the EPA it can't enforce the law, and then they 
attach to it the ``no budget, no pay.'' Not good enough. H.R. 1 is not 
passing. They can say they deem it passed. That is like my saying I 
deem every bill that I write passed.
  I have written a lot of bills, including the Violence Against 
Children Act. Bills that I have passed give tax breaks to people who 
work at home. I have had bill upon bill. I would love to say that if we 
don't act on it, I deem it passed. What are they talking about over 
there? It is odd behavior. It is odd. I don't know what else to say.

  By the way, we have 15 people on our bill. They are: Senators Casey, 
Manchin, Tester, Nelson of Nebraska, Bennet, Warner, Wyden, Coons, 
Harkin, Hagan, Menendez, Stabenow, Merkley, Rockefeller, and you, Mr. 
President, Sherrod Brown of Ohio. We are willing to say, if there is no 
budget deal, we should not get paid.
  I do not know whether the American people understand this, but if 
they did, I think they would be very upset because we have a special 
statute that protects our pay. Our staff is not protected. To my 
knowledge, the people who work here are not protected. Members of 
Congress and the President are protected in the case of a shutdown. 
There is a special statute. They get paid.
  All we are saying is that is wrong. If this government shuts down, 
that is wrong or, if we fail to raise the debt ceiling and we start not 
making our payments and defaulting and America goes into a cycle we 
have never seen before, we do not deserve a penny of pay.
  By the way, our bill says no retroactivity either. The American 
people have a right to expect us to work. Social Security checks must 
continue to arrive. Veterans must receive their benefits. Passports 
have to be issued. Superfund sites have to be cleaned. Oil wells have 
to be inspected. Export licenses must be granted. Our troops must be 
paid. If we fail to keep the government open because of politics, 
because some group is rallying--I do not care what end of the spectrum 
they are from--if we cave to that kind of pressure, we do not deserve 
to be paid. It is as simple as that. We should be treated like any 
other Federal employee--no better, no worse.
  This is so deja vu because, in 1995, similar legislation passed the 
Senate. But guess what. It never passed the House.
  We have a Member of Congress complaining that he does not make enough 
money. Let's talk about that, I say to everybody. In a video, tea 
party-described Republican Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin said he 
could not pay his bills on his $174,000 salary.
  Now listen, he has a lot of compassion for himself, but he does not 
seem to have that compassion for people who earn $50,000 or $60,000 or 
$40,000 or $20,000--a lot less than he makes. But he says it is real 
tough to live on $174,000. I know he has a big family. God bless each 
and every one of them. But let us not be so selfish. If you have 
compassion for yourself, have it for your fellow human beings. No 
budget, no pay, Mr. Duffy. I am sorry.
  If our colleagues over there who are very extreme--and I know there 
was a big article that Democrats are calling the budget proposals over 
there extreme. They are. If they are going to stand on that far right 
line and hurt the women of this country and hurt the families of this 
country and hurt the children of this country and hurt the seniors of 
this country and they are not willing to meet us halfway when they only 
control one-third of the government and they do not agree and this 
government shuts down, yes, Mr. Duffy, you should not get your pay. We 
need to have the same pain inflicted on us as is inflicted on others.
  The Speaker and Eric Cantor can say anything they want over there. 
They can say whatever they want. Free speech, absolutely. But their 
actions speak louder than their words. When they say, oh, they don't 
think they should get paid, but they fail to pass a freestanding bill 
as we did, they are not serious at all. They put it in a bill that is 
ridiculous on its face. I never heard of passing a bill that says 
another bill is deemed law. Yes, it is hard for me to explain that.
  Anyone who studies how the Federal Government works knows we pass

[[Page S2015]]

these bills and then we send them to the President and then they are 
the law. What he says is, even though we already voted down H.R. 1, if 
we do not pass something else, H.R. 1 is deemed to have passed and then 
it goes to the President. This makes no sense. It is a new way of 
passing bills that is made up by the Republicans in the House.
  It is interesting that the Members whose paychecks the Speaker is 
protecting are the same ones who are saying we should have a government 
shutdown. Today we know the tea party is holding a rally demanding a 
government shutdown if H.R. 1, with all its political vendettas against 
women and children and families--that, in fact, there ought to be a 
shutdown if H.R. 1 does not pass, even though a leading Republican 
economist, Mark Zandi, said it would cost us 700,000 jobs.
  The Senate voted down H.R. 1. It only got 44 votes. Wake up and smell 
the roses. It is gone. H.R. 1 will never rear its head again. So if you 
are rallying for a bill that only got 44 votes, that makes no sense. 
Why not rally to call on us to come together, to meet in the middle, to 
compromise? That is what the American people want. Do you think I want 
to meet the Republicans in the middle and slash the type of programs we 
have to slash? No; I am very unhappy about it, but I am willing to do 
it for the good of the country. Then let the American people decide in 
the next election if these are the priorities they share.
  H.R. 1 would kick hundreds of thousands of kids out of Head Start. It 
would stop tens of thousands from getting grants to go to college. How 
does that make us stronger? It does not.
  Representative Tom Rooney, a Republican from Florida, said: I don't 
see how we can avoid a shutdown. I have news for him. We can by working 
together, by crafting a budget where the numbers are right in the 
middle, and then any of these political vendettas should come back in 
the form of other legislation.
  Congresswoman Martha Roby said yesterday the tea party ``would not 
settle for a split-the-baby strategy,'' which I guess means she is not 
for compromising. It is my way or the highway. I want to ask the 
American people rhetorically: Is that fair? The people who run one-
third of the government want 100 percent of it their way. I do not 
think so. I do not think it would work that way in a family. That is 
not right. They control one-third of the government and they want 100 
percent of what they want. It is not right on its face.
  Seventy-three percent of the American people say a government 
shutdown would be a bad thing for our country. So when the tea party 
says: Shut down the government if we don't get 100 percent of what we 
want, they are out of touch.
  We will do our part. I am glad Speaker Boehner is back at the 
negotiating table, but I have to say, we are not going to get anywhere 
if anyone says at that table: My way or the highway. That is over.
  H.R. 1 is gone--because you pass a bill that says if the Senate does 
not act and pass the bill it is deemed law sounds like an April fool's 
joke. Today is the 31st. Maybe that is what it is, an April fool's 
joke. Again, I do not know how they came up with this idea.
  Where we are is very clear. We are in a situation where we hope the 
government will not shut down, but yet there are Members in the House 
who are threatening a shutdown. We have a situation where 30 days ago 
we passed no budget, no pay for Members of Congress and the President, 
and they still have not taken it up.
  We sent a letter to Speaker Boehner. I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record the letter to Speaker Boehner.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                   Washington, DC, March 30, 2011.
     Hon. John Boehner,
     Office of the Speaker,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Speaker Boehner: Nearly one month has passed since 
     Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came together and 
     unanimously passed S. 388, legislation to prohibit Members of 
     Congress and the President from receiving any pay during a 
     government shutdown.
       Despite the Senate's bipartisan effort, and requests from 
     members for immediate action, you have taken no steps to hold 
     a vote on this important legislation.
       As you know, in the event of a government shutdown, Members 
     of Congress and the President would be treated differently 
     from millions of other Federal employees. While Federal 
     employees would not get paid, Members of Congress and the 
     President would still receive a paycheck because we are paid 
     through mandatory spending, rather than through annual 
     appropriations.
       Recently, a number of House Republicans have publicly 
     stated that a government shutdown is unavoidable, and have 
     gone so far as to significantly downplay the negative impact 
     it would have on our economy.
       Since members of your caucus are openly predicting a 
     government shutdown, the time to pass this bill is now. 
     Members who want to shutdown the government should not 
     continue to receive a paycheck while the rest of the nation 
     suffers the consequences. Members of Congress and the 
     President should be treated no differently than every other 
     federal employee; we too should have to face the consequences 
     of our actions.
       While appearing on the CNN program ``Crossfire'' in 1995, 
     you offered your support for a bill that is identical to S. 
     388, so it is unclear why you have not scheduled a vote. The 
     closer we get to the expiration of the Continuing Resolution 
     without passage of this legislation, the more it becomes 
     apparent that your primary interest is in protecting the 
     paychecks of your colleagues.
       It is essential that we work together to avoid a government 
     shutdown, but if we cannot do our jobs and keep the 
     government functioning, we should not get paid.
       We again request that the House immediately take up and 
     pass this legislation in the same bipartisan spirit 
     demonstrated by the Senate. We ask for your immediate 
     response.
           Sincerely,
         Barbara Boxer; Debbie Stabenow; Jon Tester; Ron Wyden; 
           Michael F. Bennet; Sheldon Whitehouse; Robert P. Casey, 
           Jr.; Robert Menendez; Joe Manchin, III; Jeff Merkley; 
           Claire McCaskill; Daniel K. Inouye; Barbara A. 
           Mikulski; Mark Begich; Jeanne Shaheen; Richard 
           Blumenthal.

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we call on him and say: It has been 30 
days, let's get our act together. We need to feel the pain ourselves 
just as all the others will feel the pain.

                          ____________________