[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
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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
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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.
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