[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 5, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2112-S2116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BUDGET DIFFERENCES
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the responsible leaders in Washington are
working hard to find a compromise to fund the government through the
end of the year. Regrettably, however, many Republicans in the House--
spurred on by tea party radicals--are still threatening to throw a
temper tantrum and shut down the government if they don't get all of
their demands. This morning, the Washington Post reports that Speaker
John Boehner received an ovation from the Republican caucus when he
told them he had directed the House Administration Committee to prepare
for a shutdown, as Congressman Mike Pence, former head of the
Republican Policy Committee, shouted at a tea party rally last week,
``Shut it down!''
So it seems what we are confronting is kind of a monolithic House
driven by the tea party vigilantes, as I refer to them, to brook no
compromise. They want it all their way or they are going to shut down
the government.
Republicans are seizing on the budget crisis as a pretext for ramming
through their longstanding ideological wishes. In Iowa, Wisconsin,
Ohio, and elsewhere Republicans are using the budget crisis as the
pretext for an assault on public sector unions and their hard-working
teachers, firefighters, prison guards, and others. On Capitol Hill
Republicans are using this crisis to try to defund health care reform,
to gut Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and, yes, to cut tax
rates even more deeply for the wealthiest in our society. This tea
party budget is an unprecedented assault on the middle-class and
working Americans. It would drive down our American standard of living,
shred the economic safety net, reduce access to health care and higher
education, and do grave damage to our public schools and our ability to
prepare the next generation for the jobs of the future.
Let's be clear. This is not about reducing budget deficits.
Republican Governors and Republicans in Congress are demanding budget
cuts for the middle class. At the same time, they continue to push for
tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy. So call it what it is.
Republicans are waging a class warfare in America. Republican Governors
have the gall to attack teachers and firefighters, police officers, and
other public employees.
In the words of Indiana Governor Daniels, he called them ``the
privileged elite.'' Think about that. Our teachers, our firefighters,
prison guards, and others who are public union members are the
privileged elite in our society according to Governor Daniels.
Why are they the privileged elite? Well, I guess because they
actually have pensions. They actually have access to decent health
care, and they are making decent wages with decent working conditions.
That is the privileged elite. I guess now the middle class are people
who are working for minimum wage at McDonald's, with no health care, no
pensions, no retirement, and not enough to support their families. I
guess that is the new middle class in America, but the privileged elite
are those who have pensions, access to health care, and decent wages.
This is the worst kind of demagoguery against loyal and hard-working
public servants, our friends, and our neighbors. We shouldn't be
dragging people down because they have a middle-class life. We should
be working every day to give every American that opportunity.
Meanwhile, as the Republicans at the State and national level go
after the health care, retirement, and security of middle-class
Americans, they are going all out to pass more tax cuts for the
wealthy. The Republican Governor in Michigan called for a $1.8 billion
cut in corporate taxes. Wisconsin Governor Walker has called for $200
million in cuts. In Congress, just a few months ago, in December,
Republicans demanded and got hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax
cuts largely, again, for the wealthy.
Now, House Republicans--the tea party-driven House Republicans--are
demanding we reduce the top tax rate for high earners. Get this, reduce
the top tax rate for high earners from 35 percent down to 25 percent,
preserving every penny of the tax breaks given to the wealthy back in
2001. All of these tax cut proposals will make deficits far worse. So,
again, this whole battle we are talking about is not about deficits.
Indeed, the tax cuts congressional Republicans secured in December will
add, according to CBO, $354 billion to the deficit just this year and
even more next year.
Early this year House Republicans voted to repeal the health reform
law which would add $210 billion to the deficit over the next decade
and over $1 trillion in the decade to follow. Now, again, that is the
savings CBO said would come about because of the health reform bill we
passed. Yet these same Republican politicians in the House and around
the country are claiming to be worried about the deficit.
Well, I think this demagoguery is not fooling anyone any longer. It
is not about deficit reduction; it is about ideology. Republicans are
taking a meat ax to programs for the middle class--everything from
cancer research to Pell grants to health care. They are gutting the
safety net started and built up over generations, starting with
President Franklin Roosevelt. It is the same old Republican game plan:
give huge, unaffordable tax cuts to the wealthy and give budget cuts to
the middle class and the most vulnerable in our society, including
seniors and people with disabilities.
This new tea party Republican budget proposal gives new meaning to
the word ``extreme.''
Look at what they have proposed. The new budget that has just come
out on the House side would basically eliminate Medicare as we know it.
It would create a new voucher program with seniors in the future paying
out of pocket for many lifesaving health care costs. Estimates are that
this would raise premiums and cut benefits of over 25 million seniors.
It is a massive giveaway to private insurers, a system that CBO--the
Congressional Budget Office--tells us is much more expensive and, we
know, less efficient than Medicare. By design these vouchers would not
keep up with rising health care costs, so they would lose value every
year with seniors paying the difference or ending up uninsured. Again,
the assault on Medicare is a transfer of wealth from the middle class
to insurance companies and their shareholders, their stockholders.
The House budget would reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole
requiring seniors to pay $3,600 a year more for prescription drugs.
They propose to block grant Medicaid and cut $1 trillion in health care
services which would end vital services that seniors and disabled
Americans depend on such as coverage for nursing homes or home health
agencies by shifting the cost to the States. This would worsen State
budget deficits and lead to higher property taxes. Seventeen Governors
sent a letter to congressional leaders opposing this, saying it would
shift costs and risks to States. States would be forced to bear all
costs after hitting the annual cap just as the baby boom generation is
entering the retirement years with likely steep increases in their
[[Page S2113]]
health care and long-term care costs. The ensuing funding shortfall
would leave States with an untenable choice between increasing taxes,
cutting other State programs or cutting eligibility, benefits or
provider payments.
That is a letter 17 Governors sent to the President.
I remind my colleagues that Republicans complained bitterly in the
last Congress when we approved support for the States to maintain
health programs for the poor in the recent recession--a level of
support the Republicans are now trying to slash in the States. The
House budget would put future seniors in the same budget fight, and the
Republican budget proposal doesn't stop at dismantling the safety net
and programs that the seniors rely on for a secure retirement. It makes
profound and destructive cuts to the entire range of programs that
underpin the American middle-class standard of living--everything from
education, student grants, loans, law enforcement, clean air and clean
water, food safety, biomedical research, highways, bridges, and other
infrastructure--in short, all the programs and services Americans rely
on for a decent way of life.
The Republican assault on the middle class is breathtaking, both in
the scope and in its depth. It cannot come at a worse time for working
Americans, who are already under enormous strain and fear that the
American dream is slipping away.
It is no secret people are working longer and harder than ever
before, but they still can't meet the cost of basic, everyday needs
such as education, transportation, housing, and health care, let alone
put away enough money to support themselves in old age.
Even before the great recession, during boom times, working people
weren't sharing in our Nation's prosperity. Real wages peaked in the
1970s, and they have not moved since. Think about this. Real wages,
accounting for inflation, are about where they were in 1979. Think
about that. The middle class in America has not made any headway since
1979. We wonder why people are upset. They see the middle class way of
life slipping away from them and their children.
I don't think we can say the wealthiest 400 or 500 people in America
are at the same place they were in 1979--not at all. In fact, in the
mid-1970s, the top 1 percent of Americans, in terms of wealth, had
about $8 trillion in assets. Today, that same 1 percent has over $40
trillion in assets. It is not the same as where they were in 1979.
The top 1 percent has seen their income soar. Last Friday, our
colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, was on the floor, and
he had some very startling statistics. He pointed out that the 400
highest income earners in America earn an average of $344 million a
year. Got that? They earn an average of $344 million a year, and they
paid an effective tax of 16.7 percent. The average person working
around here--the police we see here, the janitors, the food service
workers, and others in the Capitol--do you know what they pay? They are
probably paying 29, 30 percent of their income in taxes. But the 400
highest income earners only paid 16.7 percent. We wonder why people
think things aren't quite on the up and up or quite fair.
Do you detect people who are just kind of feeling uneasy about where
this country is headed? People are profoundly anxious about the future,
but look at what the House Republicans are doing. They are going to
make it worse on the middle class. People are worried they will not be
able to have a decent house or enough food for their families or pay
for their kids' college education. People are working harder, and they
don't even take vacations any longer because they can't afford it.
If we learned anything from the great recession, it is that most
families, even though solidly in the middle class, are one pink slip
away from economic catastrophe. Everybody keeps talking about a
recovery. Many of our friends and neighbors aren't seeing that.
Corporate America is sitting on over $1 trillion in cash, while 14
million Americans are out of work. That is just the official number.
That is not counting another 15 million who are underemployed or who
have quit looking for jobs because they have been shut out of the job
market.
This doesn't look like a real recovery to me. It is a repeat of the
last recession, when the recovery went to the wealthiest and the
working people were left behind. Republicans have proposed a budget
that will destroy the middle class in this country. That is what the
Republican budget is about.
Many Republicans apparently believe that as public sector workers and
others lose their jobs, it will be somehow good for the economy. Two
weeks ago, the Republican staff on the Joint Economic Committee
released a report arguing that widespread layoffs would actually
increase jobs. How about that for funny reasoning?
As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out, this is a
throwback to the thinking of Depression-era Treasury Secretary Andrew
Mellon, the idea that by driving down wages and benefits, we will
increase employment. This is now ``the official doctrine of the GOP,''
he points out. If we drive down wages and benefits, we will somehow
increase employment. I suppose we could. I suppose if we got everybody
down to working for $1 an hour, there might be a lot of jobs out there.
The idea is not a job. It is not just having someone work. The idea
is to have a good job. I have pointed out in speeches in the past that,
when we think about it, in our sordid history of America, every slave
had a job. Think about that. Every slave had a job. Were they free?
Were they happy? Did they keep their families together? Were they able
to build up a middle-class nest egg? Did they have decent retirement
and health care? No. But they had a job. Is that all we are after is
just a job? It seems to me that we are after jobs that pay decent
wages, with decent working conditions, and allow people to have time
with their kids and their families.
What is wrong with having a job that has a decent wage and decent
working conditions and you get to take a decent vacation and you have
health care coverage and you have a pension for your old age? What is
wrong with that kind of a job? These are the kinds of jobs we want for
Americans--not just a job. But the Republican philosophy seems to be
just a job. Forget about the pension and your standard of living, just
be thankful that you have a minimum-wage job. That is where this
Republican budget is driving us.
I could not help but think about this in terms of what is happening
in the world--in Libya and what happened in Egypt and in Syria and in
Yemen and what is happening in other places around the globe. When
stripped away from all of it, it seems to me that in all these
countries, people are saying we have had enough of a system where a few
at the top get everything and nobody else gets anything and we are all
at the bottom. In so many of these countries, these revolutions are
going on so people can have a more decent life, a better share, if you
will, of the products of their own society. So they are going in the
direction of trying to establish a better middle class, a stronger
middle class.
What are we doing in America, the bastion of middle-class virtues. We
are going in the other direction. We are destroying the middle class,
taking away the kinds of livelihoods that built the middle class. That
is what this is about. The future of our Nation depends on our ability
to ensure that the benefits from economic growth are widely shared.
That means putting policies into place that build a strong and vibrant
middle class, with good jobs, fair wages, and good benefits. That is
the America I want to see, one where people who work hard and play by
the rules can have a decent life.
Tragically, the tea party budget plan would take us in exactly the
opposite direction. It would gut the whole range of programs that
support the middle class in our country. It would dismantle the safety
net that has been built for seniors, those with disabilities and the
low income--a safety net created under President Roosevelt and has been
strengthened since.
The Republican tea party budget is built on bad priorities, bad
policies, and just plain bad values.
As columnist E.J. Dionne points out, Americans can now see ``how
radical the new conservatives in Washington are, and the extent to
which some politicians would transfer even more resources from the
have-nots and the have-a-littles to the have-a-lots.''
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I don't believe the American people will stand for this unwise,
unbalanced, unfair assault on their economic security and their way of
life. We must stand strong and oppose these grossly misguided proposals
in every way we possibly can. This is a battle that is joined and we
cannot be faint of heart or weak in spirit. We must stand strong for
middle-class values and what allowed America to become a strong middle-
class nation. I believe the American people are definitely on our side
in this battle.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, what is the order?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is in morning business.
Mrs. BOXER. Is there any time limit on Senators?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Ten minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that I be given an additional 10
minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about the
possibility of a government shutdown and to say that such an
alternative will be very hurtful for the people of this country. I was
here when the government was shut down before by another Republican
Speaker, and I can tell you that my small businesspeople around
Yosemite National Park, for example, who count on tourism still
remember the sting of losing over $200 million because people had to
cancel their trips. That is one example.
I know Superfund site cleanups were halted in their tracks. We had
issues at the borders. We had a whole series of problems. It seems to
me it is a reckless way to go, but it also seems to me the House
Republicans want us to have a government shutdown.
Why do I say that? I say that because Republicans gave the Speaker of
the House an ovation when he informed them ``to begin preparing for a
possible shutdown.'' An ovation. I would hope we would reserve our
ovations for our leaders when they tell us that because of our work in
funding the National Institutes of Health, we now have a cure for
cancer. I would like to have an ovation about that.
I would like to have an ovation for our firefighters and our first
responders who are brave every single day. I would like to have an
ovation for them.
I do not think having an ovation because we might have a government
shutdown is appropriate, but it was an honest response. That is what
they want. One has to ask why. Why do they want this? Because they want
to cut $100 billion from the President's budget, when Democrats have
already agreed to meet them with $73 billion in cuts?
There are three parties to these negotiations: the President, who is
a Democrat; the Senate, which is Democratic; and the House, which is
Republican. Since when does one-third represent a majority? Since when
is one-third allowed to say: My way or the highway? Apparently, that is
what they are doing.
They put H.R. 1 before the House that has all these cuts--but not
just cuts, political vendettas attached, such as zeroing out funds for
Planned Parenthood. Nothing to do with abortion funding because we
cannot use Federal funds for that, but the other work of Planned
Parenthood in preventing unwanted pregnancies, the work they do to
ensure people can have contraception, the work they do to make sure
there is not a spread of communicable diseases sexually transmitted.
The work they do--and, yes, no matter what the rightwing says, to do
breast cancer screenings.
There was a big article in the paper: Senator Boxer is spreading a
big lie that Planned Parenthood does breast cancer screenings. They do
breast cancer screenings. Although, I understand, one of their clinics
does mammograms, they definitely say to someone, if they find a
suspicious lump in that breast cancer screening, they will help people
get the help they need.
They do Pap smears. They make sure they talk about the dangerous
spread of HIV/AIDS. Five million people go to those clinics. They want
to shut them down.
They want to shut down title X--the whole program--which is family
planning. On the one side, they do not want abortions. Nobody does. On
the other side, they turn their backs on family planning. This does not
make sense. That is what was in H.R. 1.
Also, in my State, $700 million would have been cut in Pell grants,
which meant 1 million California students who rely on these grants
could no longer rely on them and, therefore, would have to drop out of
college. That is what was in H.R. 1. That is what they want us to
accept.
Head Start--everybody knows Head Start. It is a success story. The
fact is, H.R. 1 would slash it by $1.1 billion and would lay off 55,000
teachers and staff and more than 218,000 low-income children would be
cut from the program. In my State, 24,000 low-income kids would lose
access to Head Start. They are doing all this while they are giving
huge tax breaks to the billionaires. It is wrong.
They would cut community health care centers--457,000 Californians.
That is a big number. There are some States that have fewer than that.
But 457,000 Californians would lose their health care if they went to
community health care centers. Twelve centers would close. Why on Earth
would anyone want to do it? They want to do it. We can figure out other
ways to get to those cuts. There are other ways to do it.
What amazes me is that Democrats are the ones who balanced the budget
with Bill Clinton. We took deficits as far as the eye could see and
turned them around, balanced the budget, and created surpluses. Now we
are being lectured that if we do not do it the exact way our friends
want, which is to hurt children and education and environmental
protection and, by the way, safety issues, such as making sure our
airplanes do not develop holes in them, an important point, they go
after all of this.
There are cuts to afterschool programs. That breaks my heart because
I know 11,000 kids in California would be shut out. We all know kids
need help after school. If they are alone, they get in trouble. If they
get in trouble, it costs us money. These cuts are ridiculous.
We can sit together and work together and do it in a much more fair
way, if people pay their fair share. If everybody takes a little bit of
a nick, we can get there. We have shown them how to get to $73 billion
worth of cuts. That is just for the next 6 months. They are demanding
$100 billion, their way or the highway. This is a ridiculous situation
to be in.
I am going to say again, if you control one-third of the power in
this trio where you have the President is a third, the Senate is a
third, and the House is a third, and you are in the House and you are
the only one run by the Republicans, by what measure do you have the
right to say my way or the highway? I don't think the American people
would think that is right. They want us to work together and that is
the message of the President.
I have to tell you, this budget by the Republicans, H.R. 1, that we
voted down here, would lead to nearly 900 fewer Border Patrol agents
nationwide. Everyone wants to make sure our border is safe. Nine
hundred would be gone. How about a $1.3 billion cut in the National
Institutes of Health, working as they are to develop new treatments and
cures for cancer and Alzheimer's? If you ask the average family what
they fear, they will mention we fear that somebody in our family is
going to suffer from one of these diseases.
It is outrageous. They are going to kill an Energy Department loan
program when we know we cannot be dependent on foreign oil. We need to
find those alternatives. Energy research and development is slashed by
almost $2 billion. Transportation infrastructure is slashed. There are
Draconian cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency.
And then all these riders. There are a whole bunch of them, as I know
you
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are aware, on the Environmental Protection site. Here is the irony. The
Republicans want to destroy the EPA, which was created by Richard
Nixon, a Republican President. Former Administrators of the EPA
Ruckelshaus and Whitman wrote a beautiful op-ed in the Washington
Post--I believe it was the Washington Post, or the Times, I am not sure
which--in which they clearly say this is a bipartisan matter. Yet the
Republicans, in H.R. 1, want to stop the EPA from enforcing the clean
air law, which will make our skies dirtier. Our kids will get asthma,
premature deaths, and all the rest. Big surprise, we voted it down
here. It only got 44 votes. It is radical. We can meet them way more
than halfway--we already have--without hurting our people and still
getting the budget cuts we need.
I am here to say it has now been 35 days, 35 days since the Senate
passed S. 388. What is S. 388? S. 388 says, if there is a shutdown,
Members of Congress and the President will not receive their pay. Why
do I think this is important? Because most people do not know that,
although our staffs will not get paid, although many Federal employees
will not get paid, Members of Congress have a special protection built
in because we are paid under a statute and so is the President. So 35
days ago we sent over to the House a very simple bill. It said if there
is a shutdown, basically that means failure on our part to keep the
Government going--what could be more basic than that--we should not get
paid and we should not get paid retroactively. Our colleagues over
there have taken no action.
If you ask them, they will say: Yes, we did, we put that in another
bill and passed it. You know what the other bill is? The other bill is
an illegal bill. The other bill would make our Founders roll over in
their graves. This is what the bill they embedded ``no budget, no pay''
in says. Follow me--and I especially hope the young people listening to
this debate will follow me because you have learned how a bill becomes
a law.
It goes through a committee usually. It doesn't have to. It goes to
one House, they pass it; the other House passes it; so you get the
House and the Senate, and then it goes to the President. He either
signs it or vetoes it. If he signs it, it is law. If it is vetoed, two-
thirds can override it.
Guess what, they put ``no budget, no pay'' into a bill that says the
following: If the Senate has not acted by a date certain on H.R. 1,
this horrible bill that I talked to you about, that bill will have been
deemed to be the law. It is a new deal: ``we deem.'' In other words: I
have 20 bills that I have introduced, today I deem them law. I have
some great bills. One is a Violence Against Children Act, very
important. Another would help many of my transportation folks. I deem
them all law.
How is that legal? It is illegal. They are saying if we do not act on
H.R. 1, again, it is deemed the law. It doesn't even pass the smell
test, the laugh test, and they have embedded in it ``no budget, no
pay.'' So, big surprise, we are not going to pass it over here in that
form.
I am saying this is a maneuver, and a little dance by Speaker Boehner
and Eric Cantor, who is the leader over there, to make it look as
though they are not for them getting their pay but to do nothing about
it.
Let me tell you what I have done. I have written a letter. It has
many colleagues on it. I will read the letter. We are sending it by the
end of business tonight.
Dear Speaker Boehner:
We write to discuss a meeting with you to discuss House
passage of S. 388, legislation to prohibit Members of
Congress and the President to prevent any Members of Congress
from receiving pay. Over 1 month has passed since the Senate
unanimously passed our bill. Despite written requests for
immediate House consideration, you have failed to schedule a
vote on stand-alone legislation that would treat Members of
Congress and the President no differently from other Federal
employees during a shutdown. Our bill is simple. If we cannot
do our work and keep the Government functioning, we should
not receive a paycheck. If we can't compromise and meet each
other halfway, then we should not get paid.
As we noted in a previous letter, while appearing on the CNN program
``Crossfire'' in 1995, Mr. Boehner offered his support for a bill
identical to S. 388, so it is unclear why he has not scheduled a vote
on stand-alone legislation. Embedding ``no budget, no pay'' in a bill
that has no chance of passage isn't fooling anybody. We request a
meeting with Speaker Boehner as soon as possible, whether in person or
via conference call, to discuss how we can work together to immediately
send this legislation to the President.
Here is a bill that passed here without a dissenting vote. It is
basically 100 to nothing. In a time when we cannot agree on the color
of that wall, we agreed to pass this ``no budget, no pay'' legislation.
But Speaker Boehner, who got a standing ovation--maybe it was a sitting
ovation; it didn't say standing ovation--but he got an ovation for
talking about preparing for a shutdown, has not done one thing to make
sure his Members and he do not get paid in case of a shutdown.
I think it is appalling. It is embarrassing. I am stunned. The reason
I am pressing this is I believe that people should be treated equally.
I believe that if they are cavalierly applauding and giving an ovation
to Speaker Boehner when he talks about planning for a shutdown, I
believe they want a shutdown and they have no skin in the game. They
pay no price. They get paid.
We had one of them over there complaining he didn't get paid enough
money. He gets paid over $170,000. It wasn't enough money. Sorry, boo-
hoo. There are people in this government who get paid $60,000, $40,000,
$30,000, and they are not going to get paid. Sorry.
I am going to keep coming to this floor, 36 days, 37, 38, 39, 40--
this is just plain wrong.
I want to say who has signed our letter. You can see it is a good
selection of the caucus, from liberal to conservative: Joe Manchin,
Claire McCaskill, Michael Bennet, Ben Nelson, Bob Menendez, Debbie
Stabenow, Jay Rockefeller, Kay Hagan, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, Mark
Warner, Sherrod Brown, Tom Harkin, Chris Coons, Jon Tester, Sheldon
Whitehouse, and Senator Mikulski and Senator Begich. Myself and Senator
Casey are the first two names because it happens to be our bill. It is
the Boxer-Casey bill.
In closing, I want to spread the word from here over to the House
side that we are serious, those of us who signed this letter. We are
keeping this issue in front of the American people because I assure
you, if you walked out and asked anyone who happened to be walking down
the street who was not involved here, who didn't work for the Federal
Government, and you said this: In case of a shutdown because the two
sides fail to negotiate an agreement, the only people who are assured
of their pay would be Members of Congress and the President, what do
you think? I think the average person would say that is wrong; they
should pay a price. This is a basic function of theirs, to keep this
government running, to keep this country going.
I could tell, because I remember the last one, the pain and the hurt
from people who wanted to get on Social Security, to veterans who
trying to figure out their disability payments, frankly to everyone who
calls your office or my office in deep trouble because they are having
problems with a Federal agency, they need the help of a Federal agency,
they want to make sure to get their Medicare taken care of, their
Social Security taken care of, or they are contractors who have private
employees and they are fixing the road or fixing a bridge. This is
wrong.
We are trying to find out exactly who would be affected, but I can
tell you right now is not the time to lose, for example, inspectors who
are inspecting the safety of our aircraft. I hope they would stay on,
but we do not know.
What about those who are inspecting our nuclear powerplants? You
know, we have 23 reactors that are the same exact reactor as the ones
that have these problems in Japan. We don't want to stop those
inspections; they have to move forward. We don't want to have the USGS;
that is, the U.S. Geological Survey, close down in the middle of making
new earthquake maps. I care about this a lot. I have two nuclear
powerplants that are on or near earthquake faults.
I say to my friends on the other side, I know my message is not
pretty to you. It is not pretty to say you don't deserve to get paid in
case of a shutdown, but that is my message. Once the American people
wake up to this,
[[Page S2116]]
that we are getting paid but our staffs are not getting paid, I think
there is going to be an outcry. So I ask the Speaker on behalf of all
those colleagues whose names I read to take up S. 388 without delay. It
is sitting at the desk. What does it say? Members of Congress and the
President should not be paid in case of a shutdown.
That is pretty simple.
I know my colleagues are on the Senate floor. Let me guess, Senator
Blumenthal and Senator Lieberman, might you be here to discuss what
happened last night? And I am going to--since my remarks were not
happy, I am happy to give up the floor at this time and listen to their
remarks. I congratulate both of them on a great victory.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
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