[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 6, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2149-S2150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BUDGET
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to the floor to speak in
morning business and to comment on the terrible situation we find
ourselves in. We are in a terrible situation. The Republican leader is
exactly right, the clock is ticking on a shutdown.
But I have a couple principles as we head into the midnight witching
hour on Friday. First of all, my first principle is no shutdown. Let's
have a sitdown. Let's not shut down government and cut off the funding
for private sector contractors that do business with the government.
Let's have a congressional sitdown and arrive at an orderly, rational
agreement that does create a more frugal government but does not
torpedo our economy.
But my second principle is, if we shut down the government and
Federal employees and contractors do not get paid, Congress should not
get paid. Not only should Congress not get paid, no back pay, no way. I
spoke about the congressional no-pay position yesterday.
Today, I wish to talk about the consequences of the shutdown. I am
against a government shutdown. Shutting down the government breaks
faith with Federal employees, jeopardizes our economic recovery,
threatens the viability of small- and medium-sized businesses that do
business with the Federal Government and even threatens the safety of
our families and our economy.
That is why I am for a congressional sitdown, not a shutdown of the
Federal Government. Democrats and Republicans should negotiate over
spending cuts. But what is not open for negotiation is whether the
Federal Government is worth keeping open. Parties must come together.
There is a belief that a shutdown will occur only in Washington. Oh,
the lights will go out in the Washington Monument, maybe a museum will
be closed here or there, maybe even a national park will be closed here
or there. Both on the Senate floor, the House floor, and even in the
media, it is followed by kind of a snicker or even a snarl. How
foolish, how they do not understand the functioning of the Government
of the United States of America.
I am afraid the lights will go out. I am afraid the government
agencies will be shuttered. I am concerned that people who work on
behalf of the Federal Government as those contractors, small- and
medium-sized contractors, disabled veteran contractors will not get
paid.
I am for cuts. I voted for the Democratic package with over $51
billion in cuts. In my own appropriations bill, I reduced agency
overhead by 10 percent. I cut out lavish conferences and so on by 25
percent. I could eliminate that year by year. But cuts alone are not a
strategy to reduce the deficit.
What I do not want is to make sure our government will not be funded.
There are other ways of doing it, and I will talk about that more
tomorrow, about how we can actually pay for this, but today I wish to
talk about the consequences of what we are doing. There is nobody on
the Senate floor talking about it. I appreciate the minority leader,
but on my side, if nobody is going to talk about it, I am going to talk
about it.
A possible government shutdown creates uncertainty in consumer
confidence and further damages the economy. Mark Zandi, the chief
economist of Moody's, says it will damage the confidence in the economy
and could result in the loss of 700,000 jobs. Well, let me tell you--
and everybody says: Oh, well, that is government. I am going to talk
about: Oh, well, that is government in a minute.
But let's take the private sector. Let's take that snickering and
snarling over national parks. Do you know the national parks--we have
365 of them, 49 States, 300 million visitors. Do you know those
national parks generate 270,000 private sector jobs in campgrounds,
restaurants, gas stations, vendors to the national parks.
[[Page S2150]]
Oh, yes, you can laugh about closing down Yellowstone, and maybe that
is not the explosive thing--270,000 jobs, mostly in the West. I did not
hear that the West had such a low unemployment rate that they do not
give a darn. Local communities near national parks will lose $14
million a day. That is the national park argument.
Let me go to the contractors. I represent the State of Maryland,
where we have a lot of contractors. Take the Goddard Space Agency,
3,000 civil servants who do everything from help run the Hubble
telescope and green science, to figuring out how we can fix the
satellites through robots in the sky. But there are 6,000 contractors--
6,000 contractors. Some of them are small business, 8(a) contractors
working their way up.
Many of them--some of them are women. Many of them are veterans who
started small- to medium-sized businesses. These people, if there is a
government shutdown, will not get paid. Hello, colleagues. This is not
only going to happen in my State, this is going to happen in your
State.
There was a major article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about
what the shutdown means to the private sector. Well, let's wake up and
let's move more quickly to this sitdown.
I wish to talk about essential versus nonessential. In my State, I
represent over 100,000 Federal employees. Three of them are Nobel Prize
winners I will talk about in a minute--Nobel Prize winners who are
civil servants. Those are not even the gangs at Hopkins and the
University of Maryland. Those are three Nobel Prize winners who are
actual civil servants.
Under this shutdown we are headed for, they are going to be told they
are nonessential. We have a Nobel Prize winner at NIST who works on the
development of new work on laser light. Secretary Chu was his partner.
We have a Nobel Prize winner at NIH who won the Nobel Prize for
proteins and cellular communication that could lead to a cure for
cancer and a Nobel Prize winner at Goddard in physics. I am not going
to call their names; I do not want to feel awkward. But what am I going
to do midnight Friday? Am I going to call these three Nobel Prize
winners and say: Hey, guys, you are nonessential. We know you could be
in the private sector making millions of dollars, but you are staying
here to do research to save lives, save the planet, and lead to saving
our economy. But, hey, I guess you are nonessential.
In other countries, they carry you around on their shoulders and so
on. But here, no, we are told they are nonessential. It is not only
Nobel Prize winners, it is all the other people who are working. We are
going to turn out the lights at the National Institutes of Health. We
are going to say to a researcher: I know you are working on that cure
for cancer. I know you are working on that cure for Alzheimer's or
autism or arthritis--sticking just with the ``A'' words. But you know
what, Washington, the Congress says, you are not essential.
What about Social Security? I have over 10,000 people who work at the
Social Security Administration. You say: Well, my God, that is a lot.
That is 24/7 to make sure it all functions properly and efficiently. We
have the lowest overhead of any ``insurance company'' in America. But
these lights are going to be shuttered at Social Security, not only in
Senator Barb's and Senator Ben Cardin's State, but it is also going to
be shuttered, Madam President, in your State. When people want to come
to apply for benefits they are eligible for, when people who are
disabled want to apply for those benefits, they are going to come to a
shuttered Social Security office. They are going to be told they are
not essential.
Well, then, let's wait until Monday morning. Are they not going to
come to work fired up, ready to work for America, ready to help America
be great again? They are America's essential employees doing the work
that goes on at NIH, Social Security, the National Institutes of
Standards. They come up with new ideas.
Then look at commerce. I represent the great Port of Baltimore. Ships
are going to come into the port. Who is going to inspect their cargo?
Traffic coming into airports, who is going to inspect their cargo?
But, oh, no, we are going to tell them they are nonessential. Well, I
am telling you, this is not going to be good. But you know what is not
good, not only the consequences but the way we are functioning.
Madam President--hello? Madam President. I do not know if my speech
is not that attention-getting, but can I have your attention?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has consumed 10
minutes.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Well, then, my time is up. Well, maybe the Senate is
not paying attention, but the American people are paying attention. I
am telling you, this is a situation of enormous negative consequence. I
think we are going to rue the day at the way we are functioning. We
need to come to the table, and we need to sit around and act like
rational human beings.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
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