Congressional Record, Volume 157 Issue 50 (Thursday, April 7, 2011)

[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 50 (Thursday, April 7, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2243-S2261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I didn't get a chance to elaborate on the
subject that was covered by the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn. I think
it is very important when we are faced with the shutdown of the
government. I happened to be here in 1995, and I remember, frankly, it
wasn't as bad as everybody said it was going to be. This is something
that is totally avoidable now. We have an opportunity to do a 7-day
extension that would take care of the military's needs, and I think it
is important to do so.
I wish to also mention the vote that took place yesterday--the last
vote; we had four--having to do with the overregulation, I will call
it, of the Environmental Protection Agency. The first three amendments
before they came to mine were offered by Democrats for whom I have a
great deal of respect. In each amendment, they made it clear that the
author--all Democrats--thought it was not the place for the
Environmental Protection Agency to do what Congress is supposed to be
doing in terms of regulation of greenhouse gases.
The votes were overwhelming in terms of the fact that they didn't
have Democrats supporting them because they were temporary fixes. The
only real vote that took place was on mine.

[[Page S2244]]

I introduced legislation several weeks ago, in concert with my
colleague over in the House of Representatives, Fred Upton, to take out
from the Environmental Protection Agency the jurisdiction of regulating
greenhouse gases. We all know how it happened. We know that since 2003,
Members of this Senate have introduced legislation to call for cap and
trade under the assumption that catastrophic global warming is taking
place from anthropogenic gases, and we have been able to defeat all of
those.
So while there has been a real effort by this administration to
regulate greenhouse gases and do it by legislation, when they finally
realized that wasn't going to happen, that they were not going to be
able to garner sufficient votes to pass a bill that would allow for a
cap-and-trade system--by the way, the cap-and-trade system would have
amounted to between $300 billion and $400 billion a year as a tax
increase, which would have been the largest one in the history of this
country.
When President Obama decided--in the wisdom of both the House and
Senate--we were not going to pass anything that would be a cap-and-
trade bill, he said: That is fine, we will do it through regulation.
That is how this whole thing started. So the effort was for the EPA
to come up with an endangerment finding which would say that greenhouse
gases--anthropogenic gases, methane--were dangerous to health. Well,
this has to be based on science.
I remember asking the Director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, whom I
respect--I said: If you are going to have an endangerment finding, it
has to be based on science. What would that be? Well, it was the IPCC,
which, for the edification of anybody who is not aware, is the United
Nations. They are the ones who started this whole thing, and they are
the ones who would be in a position to try to force the regulation.
Anyway, the time has gone by now, and since that time, we have almost
unanimity in this body and in the other body, also, that we don't think
the EPA has the ability or the authority to regulate greenhouse gases
and to do administratively what we refuse to do through our own bills
we pass.
That is where we are today. One of the things I am thankful for is
that my amendment got 50 votes. It was 50-50, pretty much down party
lines. But the people who are voting against my amendment are saying:
We want to have the EPA have this authority--the authority of
overregulation of not just the oil and gas industry but all other
industries also. The primary target for them would be fossil fuels.
The fact that we have oil, gas, and coal--by the way, there is a
fairly recent finding by the Congressional Research Service that we
have the largest reserves in the United States--recoverable reserves--
of oil, gas, and coal of any country in the world. This is not
something you hear on the other side.
We have heard President Obama say several times that we only produce
3 percent of the oil and yet we use 25 percent or whatever it is. Those
are proven reserves. The difference is that a proven reserve means you
have to drill and prove it is there. But the government won't let us
drill. I am talking about the east coast, the west coast, the gulf, the
northern slope--83 percent of our public lands are off limits. If we
were to open that up, we could be completely independent of the Middle
East for our ability to run this machine called America. That is why
this issue is very important.
I have already served notice, but I will do it again to make sure it
is clear. While we needed 60 votes, we only had 50 votes. I am going to
put that amendment on as many bills as come up so we have an
opportunity for people to know the seriousness of this problem.
I suggest to you--and I will not name names--that if people, prior to
this vote, would have called different individuals, the staff would
have responded: Well, we don't know how our Senator will vote, but he
will certainly take your comments into consideration.
Now we know because we have the votes in so that we can say which
ones did vote for it, and anybody who didn't vote for my amendment is
saying they believe the EPA should have that total control that we
refuse to give it through legislation.
Anyway, it is not over yet. In fact, I think that was a major
milestone, a victory. We now know who is for it and who is against it.
I know there will be another 10 Members who will see the light and
realize that we still--it is fine, I am for all of the above, for the
renewables--wind, sun, thermal--as well as the fossil fuels. We need
all of the above to become totally independent and be able to run this
machine called America. That is what is coming up. I am happy we have
taken the next step, and I look forward to making another step after
that.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant editor of the Daily Digest proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, I rise at this late hour in the
afternoon to join many of my colleagues who have come to the floor
today to express growing frustration with the politics as usual in the
Capitol. I say ``politics'' not ``policy'' because I think we should be
focusing on policies that will get our country back on track.
I have to say, people who are watching the debate are witnessing
potentially an impending government shutdown that I think is needlessly
being forced on the American people. That is whom we are, after all,
here to serve. I know the Presiding Officer feels that strongly. I am
not the first person to highlight how disturbing our long-term fiscal
picture has become, but what is equally frustrating is the disservice
being done to the American public by this current debate on our
budget--a budget, by the way, for the second half of 2011. It is not a
budget debate we need to have on 2012 or the longer term challenge the
Simpson-Bowles Commission pointed out.
We ought to be focusing on supporting economic development and job
growth. While we are doing that, I believe the Senate and some Members
of the House of Representatives continue to seek sustained
confrontation and seem to me to be interested in shutting down the
government as a misguided statement that they are serious about debt
reduction. It seems they want to pick a fight for a fight's sake while
our people, the U.S. citizens, will be left to pick up the pieces from
a shutdown.
The latest demands have not been about funding the government at all.
I think we have common ground on what the number ought to be. The fight
now seems to be on controversial abortion and climate change issues. I
do not understand it. We have this tentative agreement to cut billions
from current spending levels, but the Speaker of the House seems to
continue to demand we ought to focus on controversial climate change
issues.
These are hot-button issues. Why we would insert them in an unrelated
budget debate when there is so much at stake is beyond me. I understand
we want to show the American people we are serious about deficit
reduction. I am. I know the Presiding Officer is.
In Colorado, people see straight through this latest ploy. What do
abortion and climate change have to do with finding a compromise on
keeping our government running? Nothing. They have nothing to do with
that. It strikes me the debate has become increasingly ideological and
increasingly about sending a partisan political message, one that
leaves the American people paying the price.
We have had 13 straight months of private sector job growth. We have
added 1.8 million jobs in that time. But our economy is still fragile,
and way too many Americans, way too many Minnesotans, way too many
Coloradans are struggling. I have no doubt a government shutdown at
this time would create a counterproductive effect on our economic
recovery.
Do not just take my word for it. I am a Senator from Colorado. Listen
to what top business leaders of all political persuasions are saying.
The Business Roundtable president, John Engler, a former Republican
Governor of Michigan, said businesses would face the dangerous
``unintended consequences,'' where interest rates could

[[Page S2245]]

rise because of a shutdown, and there could be turmoil in our financial
markets. Forecasters at Goldman Sachs have warned that a shutdown could
shave off growth in our GDP every single week. CEOs of all stripes have
warned about a shutdown's impact on confidence in the U.S. economic
recovery. The Presiding Officer and I know and Senators from across the
country know confidence is what we need to build. That is what is
lacking in many respects.
A setback of this nature, a shutdown would actually prevent the
growth we tangibly need to address our long-term growth and fiscal
balance--in other words, get the economy growing again. We will have
more tax revenues and we will see the gap between what we are spending
and bringing in narrow.
I cannot help but think, in the context of this debate, about my
Uncle Stewart Udall, the father of Senator Udall from New Mexico. He
wrote a book called ``The Forgotten Founders'' that focused on the
settling of the West. I should add he focused on the people who were
there at the time the Europeans arrived.
The theme of the book was on how the West was settled, how it was
built. It made the strong case that people coming out to the West--I
think the Presiding Officer's home State, which is in the near West,
might fit this characterization--people coming to the West were not
looking to get into gunfights or range wars. They were looking to start
their lives over to pursue the American dream.
Stewart pointed out that in reality, particularly when we watch those
Hollywood movies, people standing on the board sidewalks watching the
gunfights were the people who built the West, and they built the West
working together, solving problems, looking out for one another. It did
not matter what your political party was. It seems to me the American
people are standing on one of those board sidewalks watching the same
senseless gunfights and range wars right here in Washington, DC.
I know I was sent to Washington to work together and solve shared
problems. I suggest this spirit I described is in stark contrast to
this new kind of divisive politics that is brewing away in America. It
is the kind of politics that furthers disagreement. It draws
ideological lines in the sand, and it sows disrespect at the expense of
shared interest and collective prosperity. The American people are
seeing a disappointing example of that this week.
While a vocal minority seems to favor acrimony and combativeness
which, in the end, will further slow our economy, many of us are doing
what we can to do the people's business and try in good faith to
prevent a government shutdown.
As the American people look on in amazement at this spectacle, I
stand with them wondering if Members of Congress will finally settle
down, act like adults, and work collaboratively toward a real budget
solution.
Yes, we have to reduce our government deficit and debt. One would be
hard-pressed to find a Senator more committed to that cause than I am.
Let's reach that goal. Let's reach it in a way that protects our senior
citizens, our students, our veterans, our border security--I could go
on with a long list. Let's do it in a way that slashes spending but
does not harm our fragile economic recovery or divert our attention on
divisive social issues.
We cannot afford a government shutdown. I will be disappointed, to
say the least, if the bipartisan deal that is before us is undercut by
contentious, unrelated issues such as abortion and climate change.
I wrote a letter 2 days ago to the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner,
whom I know well, in which a large number of my fellow Senators joined
me to suggest to him and urge him to work with us to avoid a Federal
Government shutdown. I will stay here all day, all night, whatever it
takes. I am here to urge my colleagues in both Chambers--I served in
the House and I now have the great privilege of serving in the Senate--
let's sit down together, let's reason together, let's be commonsensical
together. Let's find a compromise. That is the American way. I know
that is what propelled me to the Senate, my willingness to work across
party lines. I think the Senate of the United States could set an
example. There are colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have
worked together, and we know the stakes are high.
That is the reason I came to the floor, to urge Senators of both
parties to work together to find a commonsense compromise to keep this
government moving forward and make sure our economy is focused upon and
we produce as many jobs as possible. That is job one.
Mr. President, I thank you for your attention and for your interest.
I yield the floor, and 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. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time because we are now only
literally hours away from a potential shutdown of government. I must
tell you that my constituents are angry about this, and I join them in
saying this should never happen. There is no reason why we should have
a government shutdown.
We know the financial issues, and there have been good-faith
negotiations. It is my understanding we have pretty much resolved the
financial issues. And, remember, we are dealing with 12 percent of the
Federal budget. We need to get to the 2012 budget and get a credible
plan to deal with the deficit. We all understand that. We are talking
about the 2011 budget--the budget that started on October 1 of last
year and will end on September 30 of this year. We are over halfway
through that budget year.
There are differences between where the Democrats were and where the
Republicans were. Everyone understood it couldn't be what the
Republicans wanted or the Democrats wanted; that we needed to have
good-faith negotiations. Those negotiations have taken place, and it is
my understanding we have pretty much agreed on the dollar amounts and
we are prepared to move forward.
But let me talk a little about what will happen at midnight tomorrow
night. I have the honor of representing the people of the State of
Maryland. There are almost 150,000 active civilian--civilian--Federal
employees who live in the State of Maryland. I happened to bump into
one of those Federal employees today who asked me a question. She asked
me: What am I supposed to do if we have a government shutdown and I
don't get a paycheck? I don't have any savings. How am I going to pay
for my mortgage?
We already have too many people whose mortgages are in jeopardy
because of the weakness of our economy, and now 150,000 Marylanders are
in jeopardy of losing their paycheck as a result of the inability to
resolve this year's budget.
I also happened to talk to people who run our Metro system here, and
they told me if we have a government shutdown it will mean $1 million
less in the fare box, possibly every day, because of the number of
people who won't be taking the Metro because they are not going to be
going to work. A lot of Federal workers are not going to be going to
work.
Guess what. They are not going to stop at the coffee shop to buy
coffee or buy that lunch. They won't be patronizing the shops. It is
going to hurt the small business owners who depend upon that business;
depend upon the people who use their paychecks to do their cleaning or
go to the different shops. It is going to hurt our economy. It is going
to hurt innocent small business owners, just at a time that our economy
is starting to recover.

I will give another example. A person contacted me today, one of my
constituents in Maryland who happens to have an issue concerning the
need for a passport to be issued. It needs to be issued rather quickly.
We are going to try to accommodate that person to get it done by
tomorrow. But suppose that call would have come in next week after
there is a government shutdown and that person has travel plans that
now may be disrupted because we cannot issue that passport. The list
goes on and on of people who are going to be

[[Page S2246]]

hurt as a result of a government shutdown.
We know a government shutdown will actually cost the taxpayers more
money. A shutdown costs taxpayers money, More money than the
differences in our negotiations in the last couple of days will be
lost. So don't tell the taxpayers of this country that we are having a
government shutdown to save money. It will not save taxpayer money, it
will cost them additional moneys. It will jeopardize our recovery, and
individual people will get hurt as a result of the government shutdown.
What is the issue? We have already said the money issues--this is a
budget debate--have been pretty well resolved. It is not the dollars.
It is not the differences you heard--and the differences, frankly, were
quite small compared to the size of our budget deficit and the gap
between spending and revenues. The issue that is now being raised by
the Republicans has nothing to do with dollars. It has to do with their
social policies. It has to do with family planning. It has to do with
the Environmental Protection Agency being able to enforce our
environmental laws, the Clean Air Act. Does that sound familiar? It
should because we debated those issues on the floor of the Senate
yesterday, and we took votes on these environmental issues yesterday on
the floor of the Senate, as we should do, debating these issues on
their own individual merits.
It should not be included in the budget resolution for the remainder
of this year. That is not the appropriate place for it. We are not here
to debate the social agenda. Those issues should be done on the bills,
the substantive bills that come forward.
You sort of get a little suspicious as these issues are being raised
as to whether, in fact, those who are negotiating on the Republican
side are sincere in trying to reach an agreement to prevent a
government shutdown or whether they continuously move the goalposts and
change the rules in order to bring about a government shutdown.
I must tell you, I was disappointed, as I heard Republican after
Republican in the last couple of weeks talk about a shutdown might be
good for the country; if we have a shutdown, so be it. Let's do it.
Even some Republicans calling for a shutdown.
I understand there is a problem the Speaker of the House has in
dealing with the members of the Republican caucus who belong to the tea
party, and they are insisting he not compromise; they don't want to see
any compromise. I understand that, but those Members do not control the
process. We have a majority of the Members of the House and a majority
of the Members of the Senate who are prepared to move forward with this
compromise that will not only keep government functioning but will
allow us to get on to the real issues of dealing with the deficit of
this country by looking at the 2012 budget. There we will be
considering more than just the discretionary domestic spending cuts, we
also can take a look at the other programs, including military and
mandatory spending and revenues, and get a credible plan to deal with
the deficit.
We have enough votes among the Democrats and Republicans to pass this
compromise. We do not have to yield to the extremists on the Republican
side in the House who do not want to see any compromise whatsoever, but
what worries me is that perhaps the design is to close the government;
that is what the Republicans want. I know Speaker Boehner got a
standing ovation when he informed his caucus to begin preparing for a
possible shutdown.
These are serious issues--like that Marylander I talked to today who
may, in fact, lose her home if there is a government shutdown or that
constituent who had planned a trip and found out that because their
passport will expire shortly, they need to get it renewed before they
are permitted to enter a foreign country and will need to get that
passport tended to or lose the opportunity to travel, perhaps, for a
family event or perhaps for business or the taxpayers of this country
who are scratching their heads saying: What are you doing adding to the
cost of government when I thought this was a debate about reducing the
cost of government.
It is not about the dollars. If we have a shutdown of government--and
I really hope we do not have a shutdown of government, but if we have a
shutdown of government, it is not the dollar difference, it is the
social agenda that the Republicans are trying to push through this
document, that should not even be on this document, that they are now
using as a reason to deny a compromise. It is the extreme elements
within the Republican caucus who are saying let's have this government
shutdown who will be getting their way.
There is still time remaining. I hope common sense will prevail. I
hope people understand how serious a government shutdown is to our
country, to our image internationally, to our ability to conduct
business internationally, as well as our ability to provide the
services to the people of this Nation who expect those services. We
still have time. This is a democracy. Let the majority rule. I think we
have the majority of Democrats and Republicans alike who want to bring
this issue to conclusion, who know that we have a good compromise done
right now that compromises the differences between what the Democrats
would want and what the Republicans would want. That is how the process
should work.
Yes, I am here--representing the people of Maryland, including a
large number who work for the Federal Government and a large number who
depend upon those who work for the Federal Government and a large
number who depend upon the services of the Federal Government--to say
let's get this done, not yield to the few on the Republican side in the
House. Let's get this job done for the people of Maryland and for the
people of this Nation.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, tomorrow night at midnight, unless steps
are taken, we will be facing a government shutdown. When I say steps
are taken, steps are taken to avoid that. That can happen one of two
ways: That could be an agreement that funds the government through the
end of the fiscal year, which would be September 30 of this year, and
there are negotiations that continue on dealing with that issue, or
there could be a short-term continuing resolution that would take us
through the next week that would enable those who are negotiating a
longer term agreement to continue their discussions and hopefully to
conclude a successful outcome to those discussions.
I want to remind my colleagues--and I believe I have been on the
Senate floor a number of times speaking to this issue, but I think it
bears repeating--why we are here, why we are in the middle of the sixth
continuing resolution. This is the sixth short-term continuing funding
resolution that we have had to live with since the end of the fiscal
year, which was September 30 of last year.
The reason we are here is because last year the Democratic majority
in Congress failed to pass a budget and failed to pass a single
appropriations bill. They didn't fulfill the most fundamental
responsibility that we have to the American taxpayers; that is, put
together a budget that funds their government. So we have funded the
government through these successive continuing resolutions. As I said
before, we are now in the middle of the sixth short-term funding
resolution which expires tomorrow night at midnight.
My colleagues on the other side have been coming to the floor and
attacking the Republicans for wanting to shut down the government. I
would say to my colleagues that nothing could be further from the
truth. I think everybody here recognizes that no one benefits from a
government shutdown. Frankly, the effort has been made in the House of
Representatives to pass a long-term funding resolution that would take
us through the end of the fiscal year, through September 30 of this
year, but that failed in the Senate. We had a vote on that. It failed
and there has not been, since that time, any meaningful effort made on
the part

[[Page S2247]]

of the Democrats in the Senate to put forward a proposal that might, in
fact, be able to pass the Senate and ultimately pass in the House of
Representatives.
So we triggered these discussions between the White House and the
leadership in the House of Representatives and the leader of the
Democrats in the Senate. My understanding is those discussions
continue. I hope they will reach a conclusion, a successful conclusion,
but until that time happens we need to do something to make sure the
government stays open beyond tomorrow night at midnight. So we will
receive from the House of Representatives a piece of legislation that
they passed earlier today, a continuing resolution that actually
reduces government spending by about $13 billion, discretionary
spending, all cuts that have been agreed to by both parties, and also
extends funding for the military through the end of the fiscal year.
There has been a lot of discussion about we need to provide some
certainty for our military so they can plan. I agree with that
absolutely. I met with members of our military, with our military
leadership. It is important that we take care of the funding needs that
they have through the end of this fiscal year.
So what did the House of Representatives do? They took a series of
spending reductions which had been agreed upon, as I said, by both
parties; they funded the military through the end of the fiscal year,
through September 30; and they added a couple of provisions to that
legislation that had been widely supported by both parties in the
Congress.
There is a ban on abortion funding in the District of Columbia which
has been supported by the Democratic leader, the Democratic whip on
countless occasions. They included a provision that would prevent
funding being used to bring detainees here and try them in the United
States instead of at Guantanamo Bay. That is something widely
supported. In fact the last time it was supported was when the Defense
authorization passed late last year in December, and it passed by
unanimous consent. So many of my Democratic colleagues are on record
supporting all the elements that are in this continuing resolution that
will be coming over to us from the House of Representatives.
The question then becomes, Who is it that is trying to trigger a
government shutdown?
I am not here this evening to play the blame game. I do not think
that serves anybody's interest, nor do I believe a government shutdown
serves anybody's interests very well. I think the American people
expect us to find solutions. They expect us to work out our differences
but eventually to agree. I think that has certainly happened in the
form of this continuing resolution that is coming over from the House
of Representatives.
In fact, it passed the House today with 247 votes, including a number
of Democrats. There were a number of Democrats who voted with the
majority of Republicans in the House to pass a continuing resolution
that takes on the issue of out-of-control Washington spending, which
has been very clearly documented. We need to get spending under
control.
We are adding to the Federal debt at a rate of $4 billion every
single day, which means by tomorrow night at 6:30--it is 6:30 tonight--
tomorrow night 6:30 on Friday, we will have added another $4 billion to
the debt. That is the debt meter we are running. Every single day we
add $4 billion to the Federal debt that we pass on to future
generations.
We are borrowing over 40 cents out of every single dollar the Federal
Government spends. We cannot continue to do that. We will take in $2.2
trillion this year, spend $3.7 trillion. That is $1.5 trillion in
deficits in a single year. Add that up year after year after year and
we end up with a $14 trillion debt, which is where we are today. It is
growing at $1.5 trillion every single year.
So we have to get spending under control. I understand there is not a
lot of appetite on the other side of the aisle for taking on Federal
spending. In fact, many of my colleagues on the other side thought it
was an ambitious proposal when they put forward an alternative to the
Republican-passed bill that cut discretionary spending by $61 billion.
They put forward an alternative that cut $4.7 billion.
That is the equivalent of the Federal debt we will add in the next 24
hours. That was their, I guess, idea about a serious effort to
meaningfully address deficit spending and debts. The fact is, we have
to deal with the issue of out-of-control spending.
Clearly, the continuing resolution, the short-term continuing
resolution that passed the House, is coming to the Senate, takes on
that issue, but does it in a way that cuts spending--spending cuts
that, as I said, both sides have agreed to. It is a mystery to me as to
why our colleagues on the other side would reject a proposal that
includes spending cuts that have been agreed upon by both sides.
Frankly, if, in fact, it is true, in the reports I have read, that
Democrats would accept somewhere on the order of $43 billion in cuts
for the balance of the fiscal year, this represents about $12 or $13
billion. So we are still considerably under what they have agreed to in
terms of a total number, but with regard to the actual cuts that are
suggested by the House-passed legislation, they are, by and large, cuts
the Democrats have agreed with.
So we have agreement on these reductions in spending, we have a
general agreement that we ought to fund the troops through the end of
the year, and we have an agreement on the so-called riders--at least
there has been agreement in the past, broad bipartisan support. I would
argue that the two particular provisions on this bill are provisions
that are supported by probably 70 percent of people across this
country.
So we have a piece of legislation that has broad bipartisan support,
that has come over to us from the House of Representatives, and that
would prevent a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow night. It is a
great mystery as to why our Democratic colleagues would not accept that
and do what I think is in the best interests of the American people;
that is, at least get us into next week, where a final negotiation on
the longer term continuing resolution can be concluded.
We have a problem in this country. We have a government that is
spending way beyond its means. We have to start living within our
means. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have. The efforts
that are being made to reduce spending are long overdue. I hope they
can conclude a successful agreement on a longer term resolution that
would get us through the end of this fiscal year.
But I think it is important to point out, right here right now, that
we have an opportunity to prevent a government shutdown, to fund our
troops through the end of the fiscal year, and to reduce, in a
meaningful way, spending, with spending cuts that have been agreed to
by both sides in the form of this continuing resolution that was passed
in the House this afternoon, with a large number, not a large number
but a significant number of Democrats supporting it.
I would suggest to my colleagues on the other side, and I hope they
will work with us to make sure we avoid a government shutdown, that we
fund our troops and that we make a meaningful dent in out-of-control
Washington spending. I would, again, as we approach that time tomorrow
night at midnight, hope the leadership on the other side will take up
that legislation that was passed by the House of Representatives, give
us an opportunity to vote on it. I will submit there will be a large
bipartisan vote in the Senate. If we do not have a large bipartisan
vote, it will suggest that there are a lot of people who have changed
their positions on the issues that are included in this piece of
legislation because they are all things that many of us on both sides
have supported and I suspect continue to support.
That will avoid that witching hour tomorrow night at midnight, where
the government shuts down. They have given us an opportunity to vote on
legislation that would do that. I hope we will take them up on that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri
Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I think there are times around here
that we lose sight about what real people are doing in our home States.
I think we lose sight of the struggles, their

[[Page S2248]]

daily struggles, how they live their lives with integrity and honor
every day and go to work.
Yesterday, we got a call in my office from a young lady. She was on
her cell phone. She is a nurse, a nurse's aide at the VA hospital in
St. Louis. She was on her break, and she was on her cell phone.
She talked to the young lady who answers our phone and said: I want
you to tell the Senator that I have got kids, and I bring home the
paycheck. The way I feed my kids is with my paycheck I get working here
at the VA hospital, and I am scared. I am scared about what is going to
happen if all of a sudden I quit getting my paycheck. I have no place
to turn. I am a single mom, and I am very worried.
Then, she said: Would you hold on a minute? Then she handed her cell
phone to someone else in the break room at John Cochran VA Hospital,
and then that woman handed the cell phone to another woman. By the time
this conversation was over, the young lady who answers the phone in my
office had talked to half a dozen women who do not make a lot of money,
who go to work every day caring for our veterans in a veterans
hospital.
You know what they all said? Why is this happening? Why is this
happening? If Latonya and her friends were here right now, I would say:
You know what, that is a darn good question, why this is happening.
This is not a game. This is not a game of ping-pong, where we are
hitting the ball up and down this hall from the House to the Senate,
fighting over divisive social issues that, frankly, our country has
struggled with for decades and will continue to struggle with.
This is about running our government and about the money it takes to
run our government. That is all it should be about. It should not be a
time for us to argue about Gitmo. It should not be a time for us to
argue about women's reproductive health. It should be about funding our
government. We have many other occasions we can debate those issues and
disagree. And reasonable people do disagree.
But now is not the time to debate those issues at the 11th hour, when
Latonya is not going to get a paycheck to feed her kids. I am for cuts.
I have been the odd man out many times in caucus fighting for cuts. I
worked on spending cuts last year with Senator Sessions from Alabama. I
continue to work with Senator Corker about cuts.
I am somebody who said the original proposals that my caucus made
were way too little. But you know what I am beginning to feel like? I
am beginning to feel like I have been duped, because I thought that was
what this was about. I thought it was about cuts.
Let's review the facts. The chairman of the House Republican Budget
Committee and the Speaker of the Republican House said we need to cut
$32 billion out of the remaining budget this year. I have to tell you
the truth. I did not think that was unreasonable. I will admit, I am to
the right of much of my caucus on some of this cutting stuff. But I did
not think that was unreasonable. So I was glad when we went to the
Republicans and said: You know what, we will cut. We will cut what you
wanted to cut. In fact, we will cut more than what the House Speaker
and the chairman of the House Budget Committee wanted to cut. That is
where we are today. We have put more cuts on the table than they
initially recommended.

I am beginning to realize this is not about cuts. This is about a
much more extreme agenda that has to do with social policy, not about
money. They keep moving the goalpost. What is the number? They keep
moving the goalpost. We have gone more than halfway. In my neck of the
woods, that is called a compromise.
We have the Republicans controlling the House, the Democrats control
the Senate. That is why compromise is so important. What is wrong with
a compromise? Let's do the compromise, fund the government, and get on
with it, so Latonya can get her paycheck and the other women who work
with her at the VA hospital can get their paycheck.
They will not take yes for an answer on cuts at this point. They want
to make it about something else. Was the CR today just about military
pay? No. No, it was not. I did notice one thing they did not put in the
CR today. Why will the House Republicans not pass the bill we had asked
them to pass to cut our pay if the government shuts down?
I will certainly not take a paycheck, and no one should take a
paycheck. Why is that not being passed by the Republican House of
Representatives? Why was that not put on the CR today? They want to,
once again, pass something about moving people out of Gitmo, which has
nothing to do with the budget for the rest of the year. When they were
doing the Gitmo thing, why did they not put the pay for Members in
there? Why did that not occur? I know the talking point is that--this
is one of the talking points we are hearing from the other side: Well,
you should have gotten this done last year. We can get it done today--
we can get it done today.
We have gone more than halfway on a compromise. This is no longer
about the cuts. This is not about the money; this is about an extreme
agenda.
Latonya's paycheck and the paychecks of her friends in the break room
at the VA hospital hang in the balance. Let's review what happened last
year on the budget. The Republican Party participated in every
Appropriations Committee in the Senate, and every Appropriations
Committee passed a bill.
At the end of the year, that bill was brought to the floor because
the appropriators believed the Republican appropriators were supporting
the bills they helped write. In fact, those Republican appropriators
stuffed that bill full of earmarks for Republicans. Hundreds of
earmarks for Republicans were stuffed in that bill.
It was brought to the floor. I remember the night it was brought to
the floor. It was in the lameduck. Then the Republicans decided they
did not want to support it anymore. By the way, it was not as if
passing anything around here was easy last year. If anybody was paying
attention, it was about: Let's drag this out. Let's be stubborn. Let's
make sure they have to get 60 on everything.
Is there blame to go around that the budget did not get done last
year? Sure. There is blame that can go on both sides of this aisle. I
am not here to say it was the Republicans' fault or the Democrats'
fault. But certainly it takes a lot of nerve to say the only reason we
do not have a budget is because the Democrats were not willing to pass
a budget last year.
It was a little more complicated than that, if people will remember
the facts as they occurred at the time. So it appears to me now that
there are certainly a lot of people down the hall who want the
shutdown. I was interested when I saw in the paper that when Speaker
Boehner announced to his caucus they were preparing for a shutdown, he
got a standing ovation.
Well, I can assure you, there are no standing ovations in our caucus.
There are no standing ovations. I will tell you what, when I go to
sleep tonight, I am going to be thinking about Latonya. I am going to
be thinking about her kids and what she is telling them tonight and
what not getting one paycheck means to that family. Just one paycheck
can make the difference, can send a family down the path of getting
behind on the mortgage, behind on the bills, and then not having a way
to catch up. That is what we should be thinking about right now, not
about those social issues that we disagree on and that we can debate
and disagree on for many years, as we have for the last 40. But really,
can we get a number? Can we make the goalpost quit moving? Can we agree
on the cuts and then get on to the hard work? How embarrassing is it
that we are fighting over literally a few billion dollars in
difference.

If this is so much about cutting the debt--for another day, I want to
talk about this, but, really, the Republican budget was released this
week. Guess what it adds to the deficit over the next decade. The Ryan
roadmap adds $8.2 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. That is
how serious they are getting about the deficit. It cuts taxes for a lot
of wealthy people. It doesn't do much on the deficit.
I am all for cuts. I have stood for cuts. I will continue to stand
for cuts. This government has to shrink. But what is going on right now
is a political game. It is shameful. It should

[[Page S2249]]

stop. We should make an agreement on the numbers, move on, and make
sure Latonya gets paid.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I rise as someone who lives in a State
where we balance our budget every year, where the citizens of Wyoming
and families all across the State live within their means, balance
their budgets. They know what it means to have to live within a budget.
That is why our State is one that currently today does not have a
deficit, does not have a debt, a State where every year, by
constitutional mandate, we balance our budget. It is time for
Washington to take a lesson from Wyoming and balance its budget. This
irresponsible spending must stop.
Here we are, a day from when it looks as if we may be dealing with a
government shutdown, and I am ready to vote. I am ready to vote for a
bill that already passed the House of Representatives early today. I am
ready to vote to keep the government open and functioning, to make sure
services are there. The bill passed the House. People who have studied
civics in school realize that is how we make a law in this country. It
passes the House, the Senate, goes to the President, who signs it into
law. The bill has already passed the House. It is coming to the Senate.
I don't know where other Senators are, but I am ready to vote.
I heard my colleague talk about a shutdown and who was rooting for a
shutdown. It is no surprise to people who may be watching at home that
it is former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean who is
rooting for a shutdown. The former chairman of the Democratic National
Committee says:

I think it would be the best thing in the world to have a
shutdown. He is the spokesman for the party of the other side
of the aisle. That may be what he wants. I don't want to do
that. I want to vote for the bill that passed the House. It
is the only proposal that is out there. I haven't seen the
Democrats offer anything. Even the New York Times said of the
President that he was ``silent for too long.''

We have heard our previous speaker talk about the social issues.
Let's remember that it is convenient amnesia for Democrats to talk
about that specific issue because the President voted for and signed
into law spending bills that included similar--actually the identical
social issue in the past, the one he is opposing today. So did 49
current Senate Democrats. They also voted for a spending bill that
dealt with that social issue. Why all of a sudden today it is
different? I believe it has to do with what the former chairman of the
Democratic National Committee said:

I think it would be the best thing in the world to have a
shutdown.

Republicans are proposing solutions. What do we see from the other
side of the aisle? We see the senior Senator from New York saying, ``I
always use the word `extreme.' '' It doesn't matter what is proposed.
He says, ``I always use the word `extreme.' '' There are tape
recordings of him saying this. He then said, ``That is what the caucus
instructed me to use this week.'' Regardless of how reasonable a
proposal may be, regardless of the solutions that may be proposed, ``I
always use the word `extreme.' That is what the caucus instructed me to
use this week.''
I travel back and forth to Wyoming every weekend, visit with people
and sit around at different locations, sometimes a morning breakfast
group, sometimes it is people at lunch, dinners, community meetings.
I ask them: How many of you believe you have a life that is better
than your parents had?
Every hand goes up.
Then I ask: How many of you believe your children will have a better
life than you have right now?
Very few hands go up. That is the problem.
I ask them: What is the concern? Why do you believe you have a better
life than your parents did but your children will not have as good a
life as you?
The answer they give is the debt, the reckless spending in
Washington--reckless, irresponsible, unsustainable. Yet, when we want
to go ahead today, do cuts in spending, keep the military going, deal
with the issue at hand, keep the government functioning so we can come
back and continue to work on the debt and the spending, this body is
not ready to vote.
I am ready to vote. I am ready to vote for the only proposal on the
table--the one the Republicans in the House of Representatives passed
today. That is real leadership. It is a plan. It will work. It is what
the American people are asking for.
I have people from Wyoming coming to Washington all the time. They
say: We realize things are tough this year. They come and explain a
program that is good for people in the community, good for children,
good for seniors--I met with six or seven groups like that today--good
for students in school. They say: We know that all of us are going to
have to deal with the realities of the facts, that we can't continue
with this unsustainable spending where 40 cents out of every dollar we
spend is borrowed, significant amounts from overseas. Our No. 1 lender
is folks in China. I say: Is that your concern? That is absolutely the
concern I hear around the State of Wyoming.
They see that the President of China comes over and tells America a
few weeks ago that he wants the Chinese currency to be the currency of
the future and the dollar to be the currency of the past. That is
because he knows we have an addiction to spending, and it must stop.
That is what I hear from people from Wyoming who come here as well.
They say: We need to make sure we get the spending under control.
It seems reasonable to get back to the level of 2008 spending. That
is the level many American families are living under. They balance
their budgets. It is time for Washington to do the same.
I know the people in Wyoming. I have visited with a number through
the week and in many communities last weekend--in Worland, Caspar,
Laramie. What they are saying is, get the spending under control, and
do it in a reasonable manner. But for someone to come from the other
side of the aisle and say he thinks the best thing in the world to do
is to have a shutdown and for another person to say he always uses the
word ``extreme'' because that is what his caucus instructed him to use
this week--that doesn't solve the problem. That doesn't let us find a
solution. There is a solution on the table right now. It is a solution
that has been proposed. This Senate ought to be voting on it tonight.
For the President to say he is going to veto it shows that the
President is truly not engaged in this process. He has been silent too
long, according to the New York Times. His budget that he has proposed,
the Economist, a world-renowned, respected publication, called
``dishonest.'' That is not the kind of leadership we need. We need
someone in the White House fully engaged, taking an active role, and
making sure we get back on a course that is responsible, that allows us
to live within our means, as families know, because we have to stop
spending money we do not have. Stop spending money we do not have. That
is the way for Washington to behave in a responsible way, to make the
difficult decisions necessary for the future of the country, to focus
on the issues that affect families and their needs. Families who are
trying to deal with kids and bills and a mortgage know what it means to
have to live within their means.

When we see policies coming out of this administration that are ones
making the pain at the pump even worse, as families are noticing they
are paying $700 on average more for gasoline this year than last year,
that is money that is not available for other bills or for a mortgage
or to help with their kids. Those are the issues they are facing,
people trying to pay for their own health insurance, realizing the
increased cost of the insurance because of the Obama health care law
that passed way over the objections of the American people, crammed
down the throats of the American people by the other side of the aisle.
The American people are saying: This is absolutely wrong. That is why
I think we saw last November the election results we did across the
country. That is why we see people continuing to stand up and speak out
across the country. That is why people continue to go to townhall
meetings and share their views about the problems happening in this
country.

[[Page S2250]]

It is interesting. When I think of the great Presidents through the
history of our country--we all have our favorites--I think of Ronald
Reagan. He said that you can't be for big government and big spending
and big taxes and still be for the little guy. We have on the other
side of the aisle people who are for big government, big spending, and
big taxes. They are not for the little guy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have been listening to the remarks
of my friend from Wyoming. I noticed that he repeatedly indicated that
what we needed to do in this building was to keep the military funded,
to deal with the deficit, and to cut spending. It is my firm belief
that if we were sent a bill that kept the military funded, that dealt
with the deficit, and that cut spending, it would pass in the Senate
very readily. Indeed, we have already agreed to $73 billion in spending
cuts. As Senator McCaskill said earlier, the problem is that the
Republicans won't take yes for an answer.
The issue dividing us at this point is not the need to keep the
military funded. We completely agree on that. It is not the need to
deal with the deficit. We agree on that. Indeed, the last time we
successfully dealt with the deficit, it was under the Democrats.
Clearly, we have gone way more than halfway by agreeing to cut $73
billion in spending. So as to those three points, the answers are yes,
yes, and yes. So what is the problem?
The problem is two riders that are being insisted on in the
negotiations, one of which would eliminate funding for Planned
Parenthood and the second of which would gut the Clean Air Act--Planned
Parenthood and the Clean Air Act. I thought this was about the deficit.
I thought this was about solving our fiscal situation. The facts are a
little different.
Here we are, mere hours away from the first government shutdown since
Newt Gingrich forced one during President Clinton's first term. We are
facing some 800,000 Federal workers being furloughed; millions more,
including men and women in uniform, who will begin working without pay.
Projects will grind to a halt. People working under government
contracts will stop. There will be a real danger to our fragile
economic recovery that is just starting to gain steam. Why take that
risk?
In front of cameras all week, Republicans have been saying that
despite these dangers, they will threaten a government shutdown because
we need to tackle the deficit. The story behind the scenes is quite
different. Even though the tea party has focused 100 percent of its
cost-cutting fury on only 12 percent of Federal spending--only the
nonsecurity, so-called discretionary spending--we agreed to the level
of cuts Republicans wanted. Nothing on the revenue side, everything on
the spending side, and only from 12 percent of the budget, and yet we
were still able to come far more than halfway to where the Republicans
are, virtually within single-digit billions of dollars of agreement.
Yet we still find ourselves without funding for the government beyond
tomorrow night.

We have heard today that it has to do with the fact that we did not
pass a budget last year. Well, we did not pass a budget last year, but
we tried. As Senator McCaskill pointed out, she and I were on the floor
when the omnibus spending bill came to the floor. It had been
negotiated in a bipartisan fashion. It had come through all the
different appropriating committees. It would have funded the government
through September 30. We thought we had an agreement, and at the last
minute all of the Republicans who had agreed to it changed their minds,
literally while we were on the floor. The bill went down. One
Republican Senator even took to the floor to gloat about the end of
that bill.
So it is a little bit of crocodile tears to blame the Democrats for
not having an appropriations and budget bill at this point from the
side of the Chamber that took that bill down, that pulled their
individuals who had participated in that bipartisan bill out of the
deal, that filibustered it, and that shut it down. That is why we are
here today. The minority party used its filibuster power, walked away
from a deal it had already signed off on, and took down the spending
bill. So here we are. It is important to stay somewhat close to the
facts.
So now the Republicans are using the deficit concerns, which I think
Senator Barrasso said very clearly: Keep the military funded, deal with
the deficit, and cut spending. That is what we are prepared to agree to
do. But the bill we are being asked to agree to now is a Trojan horse.
It is a Trojan horse that looks like a deficit bill, but inside it is
filled with tea party ideology. It is filled with an extremist
rightwing political agenda to do things like eliminate Planned
Parenthood and give America's polluters free reign in violation of the
Clean Air Act as it has been determined by the U.S. Supreme Court to
apply. This is no longer about the deficit; this is about trying to
force a very radical agenda down America's throats in a Trojan horse
that looks like it is about the deficit.
What is it really about? Well, you do not have to go very far from
this building. Just a few days ago, outside, you had the tea party
ralliers, and what were they chanting outside of the Capitol? They were
chanting, ``Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.'' That is what
the tea party wants. That is why we are here. And, sure enough, when
the Speaker went to his caucus on the Republican side and announced to
them--to the people who are actually here making decisions in this
Congress--that he was notifying the administrative staff on the House
side to prepare for a shutdown, what was the reaction? It was a
standing ovation supporting the Speaker in that.
So on the outside of the building, you have the tea partiers
chanting, ``Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.'' You have the
extreme Members of the House Republican caucus out there with the tea
partiers, egging them on, ``Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.''
They come back into the building. The Speaker says: We have to get
ready to shut it down. They give him a standing ovation. They could not
be happier about this. They load the bill up with things that have
nothing to do with funding the military, nothing to do with cutting the
deficit, nothing to do with bringing down spending, but instead
accomplish ideological missions that the Republican Party has been on
for years.
Mr. SCHUMER. Will my colleague yield for a question?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Absolutely. I yield for a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. First, I thank him for his outstanding remarks. My
question is this: Isn't it true we have had many, many Republicans in
the House, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, some Presidential candidates,
erstwhile potential Presidential candidates, as well as even some of
our colleagues here, Republicans, saying they want to shut down the
government?
My question to the Senator is, I cannot recall a single Democratic
elected official saying they want to shut the government down. My
second question is, Doesn't that show something about who is itching
for a shutdown or at least thinks they can use the shutdown to
accomplish an agenda?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I agree with the Senator from New York. I cannot
recall a single Senator expressing any desire for a shutdown. I have
been present in our caucus meetings. Not one person has once said there
is anything good about a shutdown.
We are all gravely concerned about what a shutdown would do to our
fragile economic recovery. This is still about jobs, ultimately. We
still have to grow an economy in this country. And when we shut down
every government contract and put those people out of work, when we
shut down every government project and put those people out of work,
when we take paychecks away from government workers and when we
furlough government workers, what does that do to the economy? Any
economist will tell you it strikes a terrible blow. We recognize that,
and that is why no elected Democratic official has said one good word
about a shutdown.
That is very different from what we are seeing from the other side,
where standing ovations, where chanting mobs, egged on by sitting
Members of Congress, where public statements by candidates for
President and by Members of Congress have all said that the shutdown--
--

[[Page S2251]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my colleague.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. My time has expired. I thank the Senator from New
York for his question.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and would share a few
things.
If my Democratic colleagues would prefer not to shut the government
down, then do not do it. The House, the Republican House, has passed a
bill to fund the government, to fund the Defense Department, and the
Senate, the Democratic Senate, has passed nothing. Indeed, the
Democratic leadership proposed a bill that they said was worthwhile
that would have reduced spending by $4.6 billion. Ten Democratic
Senators defected from the leadership position--a pretty gutsy thing to
do on an issue as important as this.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SESSIONS. I will be glad to yield for a question, although my
time is limited.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Senator for his courtesy in yielding for
a question.
Mr. SESSIONS. All right. Go ahead.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If, in fact, this is really about the deficit and if,
in fact, this is really about reducing spending and if, in fact, this
is really about ensuring the military remains funded, why is it
necessary to have it be a nonnegotiable condition of the bill that
Planned Parenthood be zeroed out and that the EPA be prevented from
enforcing the Clean Air Act? I do not see that there is any connection
between those two requirements and the deficit, and I think, if the
party were willing to give up those two demands, we could solve this
very quickly. It is those two demands that are fouling things up and
forcing a shutdown.
Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I appreciate the Senator's comment. I would like
to respond to that. The House has sent over a bill that does not have
those provisions in it--a 1-week extension, and it funds the military.
It is available to be passed, also, and would allow further discussions
and negotiations on how to complete the last of the year without
affecting the military.
I just have to tell you, I have no desire to fund Planned Parenthood,
the largest abortion provider in America. Maybe that is what you think
Federal taxpayers ought to spend their money on, but I do not. But that
is not the critical issue.
The critical issue is how much we spend. I certainly agree with that.
The House has sent over legislation, both for the whole fiscal year and
for a short term, to continue it. If this government is shut down, it
will be because of the Democratic Senate and the threat of President
Obama to veto this legislation if it were passed. Why don't they bring
it up for a vote? Perhaps it is because a number of Democrats who are
uneasy about this reckless spending might feel that voting for this
would be a good way to continue the negotiations and work through it
and it might pass. So the President has now jumped into the middle of
it and proposed to shut the government down.
And I do not appreciate my colleague--who is fine; we serve on the
Judiciary Committee together--talking about that this is all extremist
rightwingers. Give me a break. He said: They really have this secret
agenda. They pretend it is all about the deficits. It is not about the
deficits. It is about some extremist rightwing agenda.
He then launches into a full-fledged attack, as has Senator Schumer,
on the tea party, some of the best people in our country who got
terribly afraid for our Nation and went out and marched all over
America--millions, tens of millions--who had never before done anything
like that. I talk to them all the time. Are these bad people?
And let me tell you, Erskine Bowles, former Chief of Staff to
President Clinton, chosen by President Obama to head his debt
commission, came before the Budget Committee just 2 weeks ago, and he
and Alan Simpson, his cochairman, issued a written statement: We are
facing the most predictable economic crisis in our Nation's history.
``Predictable crisis'' means we could be thrown back into another
recession or a depression. When asked by Chairman Conrad, our
Democratic chairman, when this might happen, what did President Obama's
chairman say? Two years, maybe a little before, maybe a little later.
Alan Simpson piped up: I think 1 year.
Hopefully this is not so. Hopefully, we are not going to have a debt
crisis in a year or 2 years. But these people who took testimony for
weeks and months and provided their opinion on how to fix our debt,
they say we are facing a debt crisis that could put us into a recession
and surge unemployment, even though it is just beginning to come down a
little bit. This is not a Republican-Democratic squabble. These are
Democratic leaders who warned us.
Alice Rivlin headed the other commission with Pete Domenici, our
former chairman of the Budget Committee. Pete Domenici, now retired
from the Senate, said: I have never been more afraid for my country--
one of the most eloquent orators I have ever heard in the Senate--never
been more afraid for my country. When you have deficits--this year, we
take in $2.2 trillion and spend $3.7 trillion--borrowing 40 cents of
every dollar we spend, we are creating a nation at risk. That is what
we are talking about.
So this past election, it was a big issue. All over America,
candidates ran for office, and the ones who were the big spenders, who
were in denial about the danger the Nation faces, got shellacked.
Sixty-four Republicans got elected to the House--the biggest Republican
victory in 80 years--over one issue, really. Spending, that is what it
was.

When we came into the Senate they had only passed, when they had this
supermajority in the House and in the Senate, a 5-month continuing
resolution. The Democrats didn't pass a budget nor did they pass a
single appropriations bill. So everybody knew that after this election,
the funding level was going to be reduced. The American people had
spoken.
He walks in, our majority leader, Harry Reid, and says, We will cut
spending by $4.6 billion out of $3,700 billion we spent. Give me a
break: $4.6 billion out of $3,700 billion that we spent is somehow
significant? The House only recommended $61 billion in the last 7
months, but that makes a difference. When you reduce the baseline, $61
billion--and the interest you save--$61 billion plus interest, it adds
up to $860 billion saved over a 10-year period. That is coming close to
$1 trillion in savings, by that one act. But when you spend on the
upswing, likewise, you end up raising the baseline and surging spending
and debt. That is why we have to get responsible, and when we do, we
can make a bigger impact than a lot of people think.
I remain unhappy and stunned that my Democratic colleagues are in
full-fledged attack on the good and decent people who stood up and
complained about what was happening in Washington and now don't
hesitate to attack the tea party as extremists. I object to that. I
think it is wrong.
We are in a serious problem. I think many of my colleagues--I know
many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have expressed to
me that we need to do better, that we have to change the trajectory we
are on. I think there is a real possibility for bipartisan action, but
it is only a possibility. I actually have been fairly hopeful, but--we
have had a lot of talk on the other side of the aisle, but I haven't
seen anything moving--nothing--except the President's budget.
The Senator from Wyoming said ``The Economist Magazine'' called it
dishonest. It is. What they said about it was it has been found false
by five different fact checks. They say it calls on us to live within
our means. The budget director said it will allow us to pay down our
debt, when the lowest single deficit we are projected to have under the
budget the President submitted to us is $748 billion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Thank you very much, Mr. President. We are on the verge of
a

[[Page S2252]]

possible government shutdown, which is extraordinarily regrettable.
Controlling the deficit and paying down the debt is a critical
priority of this country and must be done. It is a difficult challenge,
but not insurmountable. We have done it before. In the 1990s I was a
Member of the House of Representatives under President Clinton. We were
able to push through an economic program that did not focus exclusively
and entirely, as the Republican proposal does, on domestic
discretionary spending. It looked across the board at not only domestic
spending but defense spending. It looked on the revenue side. It also
looked at some of our entitlement programs. The result from the 1993-
1994 action of the Democratic Congress was that by 2000, when President
Bush was sworn in with a Republican Congress, there was a projected
multitrillion-dollar surplus. We were looking at robust employment.
I think it is sometimes difficult to listen to some of my colleagues
talk about the deficit and President Obama when recognizing, under
their leadership, President Bush and a Republican Congress, a surplus
was turned into a huge deficit. In fact, President Bush doubled the
national debt in 8 years. It had taken almost more than 200 years to
accumulate a debt he doubled.
So we are here and prepared to make those reasonable and responsible
decisions that will lead us forward to a balanced budget and,
hopefully, to what we accomplished under Democratic leadership and
President Clinton in the 1990s--hopefully--even some surpluses going
forward. But it can't be done in 2 weeks. We can't undo what has taken
place since 2000 in 2 weeks or 2 months. It is going to take a
concerted, collaborative effort.
One of the problems we have had, frankly, is that the goalpost has
been continuously shifting in terms of Republican proposals. My
recollection is that last year the Republicans on the Senate
Appropriations Committee insisted on a cut of roughly $20 billion from
the President's budget request for fiscal year 2011. Then, this year,
the House Appropriations Committee, under Republican leadership,
proposed initial cuts of $33 billion from the fiscal year 2010 level.
Days later, the Republican leadership decided that was not enough, so
then it became more than $60 billion, with cuts in everything from EPA
water and sewer grants to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
to Head Start--programs that are critical to working families and
communities. Also, these investments are critical at a time when our
economy is just beginning to regain some of the economic traction it
had before. We are seeing some encouraging employment numbers. We are
seeing some increase in consumer demand. This Draconian approach to
cuts could very seriously undermine the emerging--not yet complete--but
emerging recovery.
In addition to the numbers that keep moving around, the proposal of
the Republican House is studded with special interest riders--social
policies, not fiscal policy. In fact, there is the impression sometimes
that the deficit reduction claims are an excuse to try to advance not
through the legislative process but through the appropriations
process--through the threat of a shutdown--very conservative social
policies. These policies should be debated. They should be voted upon.
But to try to present them as nonnegotiable demands with the penalty
for failure to heed to their demands the shutdown of the entire U.S.
Government is, I think, inappropriate.
The President and Leader Reid have been meeting with House Republican
leadership continuously. There was a sense that a proposal of about $33
billion in cuts from the appropriate baseline could be accomplished,
but then that seems to keep moving again. This is unlike 1995 when we
saw the last shutdown of this government by a Republican Congress.
Again, this is becoming almost ritualistic. A Republican House is
elected, and then within months there is a shutdown of the government.
The 1995 shutdown lasted about 26 days. It cost about $1.4 billion in
essentially dead weight lost to the economy and to the government. We
are on the verge of repeating that mistake.
Back in 1995, we weren't engaged in two conflicts with American
service men and women engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were not
participating in a very volatile NATO operation involving Libya. We had
yet to see the threat of international terrorism unleashed so
dramatically on our shores as it was on 9/11. Again, if this government
is shut down, there are thousands of civilians and civilian contractors
who are part of our intelligence services that are at least in limbo as
to whether they can continue to provide us the information and the
insights we need to protect ourselves against a still existing and now
clearly obvious threat. These are much more challenging times.
Indeed, for months now, in terms of a response to why the economy
isn't growing, many of my colleagues have said, Well, it is the
uncertainty of the Obama policies. That was the argument last year for
the extension of the income tax cuts not only to middle-income
Americans but to the wealthiest Americans. That uncertainty would breed
a lack of investment, a lack of focus on job recovery. What could be
more uncertain than shutting down the Government of the United States
without any plan to bring it back and, indeed, without any clue as to
what is the critical issue that must be addressed? At one point it is
deficit; at another point it is social policy. That uncertainty I think
could lead--I hope it does not--to a lack of confidence in our capacity
to govern which will ripple through economic markets worldwide, and
which also I think could challenge perception of the United States as a
coherent world leader.
There are some things that would unfortunately result from such a
shutdown. We know military Federal pay will be delayed. In fact,
uniformed military will be required to come to work, as they do, so
dedicated to the service of this Nation, but their pay will cease the
moment we shut this government down. Literally, there will be soldiers
on the ground--sailors, marines, airmen in Iraq and Afghanistan--
fighting and they will not be paid and their families at home will not
receive those benefits. The Federal Housing Administration will not be
able to endorse any single-family mortgage loan. So if you are ready to
close on your loan next week, you have the downpayment and you are
ready to go, because the FHA will be out of business. SBA-guaranteed
loans for business working capital, real estate investment or job
creation--for those things that are trying to move the economy--
stopped, dead in their tracks. So if you are a small business man or
woman, you are ready to expand your company and hire more people,
sorry, the SBA is closed until further notice. The IRS cannot process
tax refunds for those who are filing paper returns and are depending
upon their tax refunds, as so many working families do, to get through
the next several months.

We didn't get here overnight. In 1993, Democrats saw these same
problems: a deficit that was prolonged and gnawing at the economic
fabric of this country. We took deliberate action. It took several
years, but within those several years, by the end of President
Clinton's administration we saw a surplus, a robust employment
situation, and the future looked very good to working families.
In 2001, as I indicated, President Bush came into office with a
surplus, but after tax cuts that were unpaid for, two costly wars that
were unpaid for, and an unpaid-for extension of our entitlement program
in terms of Part D Medicare--the largest, by the way, expansion of
government entitlements in many decades--we are now looking at a huge
deficit.
President Obama came into office at a time when unemployment was, in
my State, reaching beyond 12, almost to 14 percent. He was, I think,
required to take appropriate action. With the Recovery Act, we were
able to begin to restore some of the jobs. We have seen over the last
year growth in civilian jobs, the private sector workforce, that we
didn't see under President Bush. In fact, recent reports suggest over
200,000 jobs. Those are the kinds of numbers that have to be sustained,
not undercut, and you don't sustain them by shutting down the
government and shutting down agencies such as SBA and the Federal
Housing Administration.
We are and have to work diligently. I hear my colleagues talking
about

[[Page S2253]]

reaching out, collaborating, and I hope that is the spirit we embraced
in the last several hours. But we have heard many other statements
coming, particularly from across the Capitol in the other Chamber,
about how we have to shut this government down, how we have to go ahead
and make a point, not make sound policy. That is not going to lead us
to a better future for American families.
I believe we have to be responsible. We have to recognize the
problems before us will take months, if not years, to fully resolve,
because it took years, not days or weeks, to accumulate. We have to
respond to the troops in the field, not only to order them into battle
but to support their families at home.
We have to be responsible to families all across this country and
give them a chance to use their talents to contribute to this country.
I urge responsibility at this moment, not a shutdown of the U.S.
Government.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that of the 10
minutes allotted to this side, I be allowed to have 3 minutes and
Senator Moran 7 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on the question of funding the Defense
Department, it is a very serious matter. We need to handle that
correctly. I will just recall for my colleagues that the House has sent
legislation to us that would fund the government for an additional
week, with a reduction in spending of $12 billion, but that would fund
the Defense Department for the rest of the fiscal year and take that
matter off the table, guaranteeing there would be no disruption of the
Defense Department.
We should do that. We should have already done that. Senator
McConnell, our leader on the Republican side, has said he will not
support any more CRs unless we do fund the Defense Department. I have
to suggest, however, that it appears to me our colleagues are using the
Defense Department as a hostage and as leverage to the threat of
shutting down, or partially shutting down, the Defense Department; the
threat of that is used to sort of say that we are not going to cut
spending anymore. So that is a fight we are in.
We have heard the discussion about riders, but the new CR the House
sent to us today doesn't have those riders on it, and it is not a
problem in that regard. I do think it is irresponsible for the
President of the United States--the Commander in Chief--to threaten to
shut down the government.
The Republican House has sent a bill over that funds the government
and funds the Department. The threat to shut down the government is
coming from the Democratic side. I don't think the people are going to
be fooled. I do believe the American people's voices will be heard. The
amount of reduction in spending makes a difference in how much is saved
over a decade.
Nobel Prize laureate Gary Becker; a superb economist, John Taylor;
and former Secretary of State, George Schultz did a Wall Street Journal
article recently, noting that under our spending--spending now is 24
percent of GDP--if the House bill that cuts spending by $61 billion
were passed, we would be spending 20.0 percent of GDP--a one-tenth of 1
percent reduction in spending from another calculation.
I yield to my colleague from Kansas. I am delighted to have him in
the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
Mr. MORAN. I thank the Senator for yielding.
Mr. President, I come here tonight one more time. I am a very short
term Member of the Senate--only about 3 months. Every time I have
spoken on the Senate floor, I have talked about the importance of
reining in spending. With the crippling nature of our national debt and
the belief that if we don't resolve these issues, the future of our
country is at stake, it is really one of the primary motivations I have
for serving in this Congress: to see that we turn this country around
for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.
I think Kansans would say it is time for all Members of Congress to
come together and fund the government. A shutdown demonstrates once
again how we lack the ability or the desire to just use some common
sense and reach a common goal. A primary function of Congress is to see
that we appropriate the necessary funds to provide for government.
Today, it seems to me we have come to the point at which this issue
needs to be rapidly resolved. We are down to just a few billion
dollars--and certainly a billion dollars is a lot of money to Kansans
and to me, but we need to resolve this issue so we can move on to the
more dramatic and important issue we face as Members of the Senate, as
American citizens--that being next year's budget and the future of
additional spending down the road.
Tonight, in addition to saying let's resolve this issue, let's
continue to fund the government, let's not pursue the strategy of a
shutdown, I am here to express my genuine concern about the tactics
that seem to be ongoing today, in which we, as the Senator from Alabama
suggests, are holding hostage our service men and women and their pay.
We have had a lot of discussion in Washington, DC, about who is an
essential government employee. I will tell you there could be no
questioning the fact that our service men and women are essential
government employees, and they will be working regardless of the
consequences, regardless of the decision made here about the so-called
shutdown.
From my view, it makes absolutely no sense--in fact, it is immoral--
to ask our service men and women to serve in harm's way and have to
worry about the paycheck that feeds their families--and, in fact, most
of them live month to month, live paycheck to paycheck. The idea that
while they are serving and sacrificing away from family, they would
have the additional concern about whether the paycheck is going to
arrive and be deposited in their accounts seems to me to be something
beyond the pale, something we could never expect from a Congress of the
United States of America.
So I am here one more time to say, yes, absolutely; let's get
spending under control. The idea that we cannot go back to 2008
spending levels plus inflation--we can do that. Nobody should believe
that we cannot accomplish that goal, and nobody should be using the
service men and women's paychecks and their service to our country as a
hostage or the idea of whether this government is shut down. Resolve
this issue now and make certain we resolve it in a way that no member
of our Armed Services, or their families, is harmed by the decisions we
make.
This is an important decision. It is about the future of our country.
The immediate concern is whether our service men and women understand
that we value their service and that we will take every step to make
certain they are not harmed by political inaction--the inability of us
in Washington, DC, to resolve the issue of the continuing resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a meeting at the White House. There
will be no more votes tonight. We hope that we are able to have some
good fortune at the White House. We are going through these issues.
As I indicated outside the door, I am not as confident as I was. The
last 24 hours have not been kind to the American people. This is not a
debate between Democrats and Republicans, it is a debate between
Republicans and Republicans. They cannot determine how many social
issues they want. The funding is pretty well taken care of, but that is
not where we are.
We are here trying to fund the government at the end of the fiscal
year based not on money but on social issues, some of which have been
in this country for 40 years. We have not settled the issues in 40
years; we will not do it in a few hours. I am not optimistic. I hope
things are better when I get to the White House and we can work it out.
What is going on is really too bad for the American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to share my deep concern that we
are careening toward a shutdown of the government. Just a little more
than 24

[[Page S2254]]

hours from now--tomorrow night--our government will shut down if this
Chamber and the House Chamber cannot come together and put a simple
continuing resolution on the President's desk.
There is a lot that we should be proud of. One is to be a nation that
has been a light for the world, presenting the ideals of democracy in
action and advocating for and defending human rights. We should be
deeply pleased that we have fought for fair working conditions and
economic opportunity for Americans across this great land. We should be
proud of the tradition of public education that gives children an
opportunity to fulfill their full potential. We should be deeply
pleased of our history, advocating for freedom of speech, freedom of
association, and freedom of liberty. All of these things are part of a
legacy for our Nation, a part of what this Chamber has been about.
But we should not be pleased and we should not expect that this
Chamber is now engaged not in those great and lofty ideals but in a
very small argument over an extension of the budget for 6 months, and
that we are so dysfunctional that we are risking shutting the American
Government down for one of the few times in its history. That is not
the model we wish to show to the world.
I am deeply frustrated by what has transpired since 2000. The first
11 years of this century--indeed, the first 11 years of this
millenium--have not been kind ones for the United States of America. In
2000 we were running huge surpluses. I was back in Oregon as part of
the legislature and very excited by the fact that we were paying down
our national debt.
Economists were starting to debate whether we should pay it down in 3
years or 5 years; do we need to keep a substantial debt for some
strange economic reason or should we pay the whole thing off. I was
thinking, isn't that a great debate to have, because we are going to
hand a debt-free nation to our children.
Mr. President, I think we all share the thought that there will be
discussions tonight and we will not shut the government down. That is
what this debate is about right now.
It goes back to the point that in 2000 we had a new President come in
who decided that paying off the debt wasn't that important. No,
President Bush said we should have bonus breaks, big giveaways to the
wealthiest Americans, and he did so without paying for them in any
other manner. Then we had a war launched in Afghanistan.
Instead of the President coming forward and saying we must sacrifice
and pay for this war, it is important to our national security, he came
forward and said: American citizens, please keep spending a lot of
money in retail stores. That is the way you can participate in this. So
the debt was greatly increased to pay for that war.
Then we had the President launch a war in Iraq--the same President,
President Bush--and he proceeded to give away the Treasury to the
wealthiest Americans. He decided not to pay for the war in Afghanistan.
President Bush decided to launch a war in Iraq, on completely false
premises, and to do so without paying for it.
Then we had Medicare Part D, which happened in that same 8-year
period--a huge expansion of a government program that has and will
indeed help many Americans, but it was not paid for.
Those four decisions doubled the debt from $5 trillion to $10
trillion, but doubling it was not enough. Indeed, the Bush
administration did something else; they created a house of cards out of
the most important financial document for every American family, the
home mortgage. By deregulating retail mortgages, they allowed liar
loans, undocumented loans. They allowed teaser rates, 2-year really low
rates that mortgage agents used to talk people into subprime loans when
they qualified for prime loans--steering loans that were regarded as
such for steering families from prime loans into subprime loans.
Then they took all of those faulty subprime mortgages and packaged
them into securities and allowed a new, unregulated form of insurance
to back up those securities. Those were called swaps or derivatives. A
$50 trillion unregulated industry came upon the American scene, and
those securities ended up in every financial institution around this
Nation. This great house of cards, which corrupted the fundamental
value of primary wealth for most Americans, and the humble fully
amortizing prime mortgage--subprime mortgage--was turned into an
instrument of mass financial destruction.

That financial destruction that was brought down on our house in 2008
and 2009 added another $4 trillion to the debt. We went from $5
trillion to $14 trillion. That process continued this last December
with a compromise that added another $500 billion to the debt, a
compromise I could not support because it added $500 billion additional
to the debt.
I had a lot of hope in January, 3 months ago, that we had a new group
come in and we had a new Congress, the 112th Congress, and we were
going to proceed to create jobs and do so by ending some of those
frivolous giveaways, those massive oil and gas giveaways that line the
bottom line of some of the deepest pockets in our Nation, those rules
that prevent us from negotiating drug prices which results in our
seniors on Medicare paying higher prices for drugs than seniors
anywhere in the world, even though those drugs were invented right
here, a potential savings of $6 billion per year; those bonus breaks
for billionaires, on top of $100,000 per taxpayer, up to a million more
for many taxpayers. Taking those bonus breaks away is a savings of $50
billion a year; ending duplicative Pentagon programs identified by the
Secretary of Defense, a savings of $75 billion--all of these
opportunities, and so many more, to bring our financial house into
order.
But those hopes were soon dashed because the new team in the other
House of the Congress did not decide to fight for jobs, did not decide
to fight to get rid of frivolous programs. Instead they decided to lay
out a plan that attacks the very communities that have been most hurt
by the previous disasters because that meltdown, that mortgage meltdown
that haunted us in 2008 and 2009, destroyed the wealth of basic
Americans of their homes, homes lost enormous value, it proceeded to
destroy jobs that those families counted on, huge job losses, it
proceeded to wipe out their retirement savings. No wonder so many
families today do not have confidence that their lives, the lives of
their children will be better than their lives. For so many families--
in fact, their current life is not better than their parents' life was
because of these kinds of devastating decisions.
The new arrivals said: No, we are going to increase the harm. We are
going to attack the community development grants that build community
organizations. We are going to attack the heating programs that keep
people from freezing. We are going to diminish the food programs that
keep people from starving. We are going to attack women's health
programs, programs that have nothing to do, by the way, with abortion,
but preventive programs, screenings, Pap screenings, breast exams. We
are going to wipe those out because of misguided ideological opinions.
And now we find a bill that says we are going to dismantle Medicare. We
find an attack on housing for veterans. These are not the things that
will bring jobs to America. These are not the things that will rebuild
America.
On top of all of these attacks on specific programs, my colleagues in
the House decided to create a whole long list of ideological riders to
add to the budget debate. I have a copy, 4 pages, of policy riders to
H.R. 1. It goes on and on, everything one can imagine, from Job Corps
centers to training for our unemployed Americans. It is a huge list. It
defunds the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that will guard
against the corruption of mortgages I was discussing earlier. It
attacks the EPA's ability to enforce the Clean Air Act. And so on. It
is an unbelievable list all Americans should see to see what the true
agenda is on the other side of Capitol Hill.
Now is the time to set aside these games, these ideological riders.
Now is the time to set aside these attacks on the core programs that
strengthen our communities. We are past the time to have the ability to
do a simple 6-month extension of our programs in the United States of
America so we can go

[[Page S2255]]

on to debate fiscal year 2012. But not everybody is ready for that
serious debate.
We have been hearing a lot of chanting at rallies that they do want
to shut down the government over these ideological riders. Indeed, on
April 5, the Washington Post reported Republicans gave the Speaker--
that is on the House side--an ovation when he informed them to begin
preparations for a possible shutdown. They want the shutdown because
they want this ideological fight.
After proceeding through devastating mistake after devastating
mistake that increased our debt $5 trillion in 2000--remember, it was
heading down toward zero--to nearly $15 trillion, we still cannot have
a serious discussion. We have folks who want to shut down this
government over these ideological riders.
We must return to understanding our role in the Senate and in the
House in terms of the broad and challenging and important issues facing
America--the issue of providing fundamental services, the issue of
creating jobs, and the lofty goals of advancing democracy and human
rights and civil rights around this planet.
Now is the time to set aside those shallow ideological games, focus
on rebuilding our economy, and putting America back on track.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise first to salute my colleague from
Oregon for his eloquent words and his passion. I know he has dedicated
his life to making the lives of people better. That is why he feels
strongly about how badly a government shutdown would affect average
folks.
I agree with him. Simply put, there is no reason for a government
shutdown--absolutely no reason at all. A genuine bipartisan compromise
with significant and responsible cuts in government spending is in
hand, but it is being vetoed by an extreme minority of the Republican
Party. The tail is wagging the dog. The most extreme, the people least
likely to compromise, the people, in general, with less experience in
government and at least from their statements little respect for views
not their own are dominating the House of Representatives.
Speaker Boehner is somebody for whom we all have a great deal of
affection and sympathy. But the hour is nigh and leadership is called
for. To allow this small group--relatively small group when we look at
the expanse of our government--to dominate everything that is happening
and hurt millions of innocent people is not leadership.
When the Speaker says there is no agreement on the numbers or the
cuts, he means he is not ready to say so publicly. It is true I have
not been inside the negotiating room, but I have heard all the details
from my friend and colleague Harry Reid. I have heard the details from
those who have been negotiating.
The bottom line is, the number and what composes that number of cuts
is virtually agreed to. The only reason there is not a handshake is
Speaker Boehner and his representatives do not want it to appear the
numbers are signed off on, for two reasons, in my opinion. One, they
are afraid what these hard-right colleagues would say, and two, then it
would focus everything on their true casus belli, which is the riders.
This is no longer about spending. The hard right in the House of
Representatives wants to make this about ideology, injecting last
minute ideological add-ons, such as limiting preventive health for
women. We have a fiscal crisis in this country, not a social crisis.
Let's not gloss over what is going on. Republicans do not care about
reducing the deficit; otherwise, they would not have paraded out a
budget this week that ends Medicare for our seniors but protects
trillions in tax breaks for corporations and millionaires. Care about
deficit reduction, yes, you would want to cut Medicare, but you would
also want to make millionaires pay their fair share of taxes because
every dollar from the millionaire goes just as much to reducing the
deficit as a dollar from Medicare cuts. When you do one and not the
other, you do not care about deficit reduction. You may care about
shrinking the government. You may wish there is no government at all.
That is a perspective of some. But you do not care about deficit
reduction.
One of the things that has not been made apparent is cutting
government programs to many on the other side of the aisle is not in
sync with reducing the deficit, and those two are too often confused.
Why are we here? Why are we on the eve of a shutdown of government
which will hurt millions? It is because this hard right in the House of
Representatives--some of them members of the tea party, others allies
of the tea party--want to satisfy the agenda of the extreme rightwing.
And if they do not get everything they want, they have made their
desire clear. We do not have to make this up.
Here is Mike Pence, one of the leading Republicans in the House of
Representatives, one of the leaders of the tea party caucus. What does
he say? ``Shut it down.'' That is what he wants. Either he thinks he is
going to get his way by shutting it down--I grew up on the streets in
Brooklyn and there were people who thought that just by bullying they
could get their way. Shut it down if you do not do it all my way.
Bullying does not work, and we will not be bullied. We will not hurt
millions of people. We will not abandon our principles because the
other side believes we will do whatever they want--falsely believes we
will do whatever they want--because otherwise they will shut the
government down.
We do not want to shut the government down. I have not heard a single
Democrat say what Mike Pence has said. But I have heard lots of
Republicans--I heard Sarah Palin talk about the shutdown being a good
thing. I heard Newt Gingrich talk about a shutdown being a good thing.
I heard some of Mr. Pence's colleagues, probably a dozen or so in the
House of Representatives, saying ``shut it down'' is a good thing.
Have you heard a single Democratic elected official say it? No. That
alone should tell you who wants to shut the government down or who is
willing to shut the government down and who is fighting strongly
against it.
They want to shut the government down if they do not get their way.
As I said, I have seen people do things like that growing up on the
streets of Brooklyn. You know what you learn? If you keep giving in and
giving in, they ask for more and more. The way to deal with someone who
is attempting to bully you is to stand up to them. We have gone so far
in their direction. President Obama said to Speaker Boehner, it is
reported: You have gotten three-quarters of what you want. Why don't
you declare victory and go home?
We know why Speaker Boehner cannot do that. It is very simple.
Because then there would be a rebellion among a key part of his
constituency--the hard right, many of them, but not all of them
freshmen in the House of Representatives. Most of them have very little
experience in government. I daresay most of them do not know the
consequences of a government shutdown or the kinds of cuts they are
suggesting. But they come in with an ideological narrowness.
When either party lets the extremes dominate, they lose. When
Republicans let the hard right dominate, they lose. Frankly, we learned
our lesson as Democrats. When we let the hard left dominate, we will
lose too because most Americans are somewhere in the middle.
This idea of shutting the government down or of applauding, a
standing ovation when the Speaker informs them to begin preparing to
shut the government down, I guarantee you it will backfire on the
perpetrators, just as it did on Newt Gingrich in 1995. But that is
political consolation, small consolation for the damage that will be
done to individual people who will lose jobs, to the economy. Just one
fact: FHA will not be able to issue any guarantees on new mortgages.
FHA issues 80 percent--guarantees 80 percent--of our mortgages,
including mortgages for the middle class, the bulk of mortgages.
Middle-class people will not be able to take out mortgages. What does
that do to our economy and the housing sector?

The Internal Revenue Service will not be able to mail out a good
percentage of refunds. What does that do to the economy, when the money
is stuck in Washington instead of going back to people who rightfully
own it and who

[[Page S2256]]

will spend it in the stores and shops and on vacation?
There are other irresponsibilities. We have American troops fighting
abroad. We want to make sure they are fully funded. A government
shutdown will not do that. Colleagues on the other side are coming up
with an unbalanced, short-term extension that funds the troops. Well, I
say to my colleagues, if you want to fund the troops--not for 1 week--
don't shut the government down. That is the best way to support our
troops.
It is time for Republicans to be responsible. It is time for the
majority of Republicans--whom I don't agree with on so many issues, but
whom I know are mainstream and don't like this government shutdown--to
stand up to those on the hard right, to accept the compromise we are so
close to working out and drop the ideological riders so we can move
forward.
We are at a crucial time in this country. We have had a rough few
years. We are beginning slowly to climb our way out of it. This is
risky. A government shutdown is risky. The shame of it all is that it
is so easily avoided. All we need, again, is a little bit of strength
and courage from the Speaker to tell the hard right in his party, yes,
he will try to accommodate some of their needs, but he will not shut
the government down; tell them, yes, we do have to cut government
spending. And we Democrats--the vast majority of us--agree with that.
We don't believe in cutting things such as cancer research or loans
that go to students who are going to college, but there is a lot of
waste in the government, there is a lot of excess, and we can wring
that out without hurting people and reduce our deficit. We agree.
The proposals we have made, including $73 billion below the
President's proposal for this year, show we have put our money where
our mouth is. But every time we come close to an agreement, Speaker
Boehner--not on his own, in my judgment, but pulled by the tea party--
pulls the goalposts back. He pulls them back on the numbers. Although
we have gone so far, it is hard for him to do that any longer. But he
also does it with these ideological riders.
We are at a sad moment. We are at a time when the continuation of
this government--with the hard-working people who compose it--is right
on the edge of closing, with untold damage to innocent people. I would
ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and in the other
body--I would plead with them--let's stop the political games, let's
stop the ideological posturing, let's stop thinking it has to be only
my way and no one else's. Let's come meet in the middle with a
reasonable agreement, keep the government going and move forward to do
the things the American people have asked us to do.
I yield the floor, and 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. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I came to the floor the other night to
talk about what I had learned in 2 years of townhall meetings in
Colorado regarding our deficit and regarding our debt. What I said the
other night was that people in our State, whether in red parts of the
State or blue parts of the State, have a commonsense way of approaching
this, and they have a three-part test they want to apply.
The first test is they want to make sure we actually come up with
something that materially addresses the problem we face. They are tired
of gimmicks. They are tired of tricks. They want us to sort this out.
They know it will not be fixed overnight, but they want us to get
started on it.
The second test is that we are all in it together. They are tired of
the us-against-them conversation that happens in Washington. They are
tired of hearing that one person's ox is going to be gored or one group
of people's ox is going to be gored and everyone else will be left
alone. Everybody wants to contribute to solving this problem.
The third test is they want it to be bipartisan. Because, frankly,
they do not have confidence in either party on this issue and they want
to see us working together.
That is it. We should be working toward that as a Senate and as a
House. We should be having a serious conversation about how not to
leave our children stuck with a bill of $15 trillion in debt and a $1.5
trillion deficit. I feel that keenly, as the father of three little
girls myself.
But I think it is very important for the American people to
understand the debate we are having right now. The threat that we are
going to shut the government down has nothing to do with the broader
conversation about our deficit and our debt. In fact, shutting the
government down is going to make matters worse.
I said the other night that there is not a superintendent of
schools--I used to be one in Colorado--there is not a city council or a
mayor in Colorado, from the largest city to the smallest town, who
would dream--who would dream--of saying to their constituents: We can't
work this out, so we are going to close the government next week. We
can't work this out, so we are not going to plow your snow next week or
pick up your trash next week or educate your kids next week, not one
local official in our State. The Presiding Officer knows this. He was a
mayor. He would never have gone to his constituents and said: Oh, by
the way, we are closing next week because we have a disagreement.
It makes no sense. Nowhere on the planet would that make any sense.
To say nothing of the fact we find ourselves at a moment in the
country's history when we are engaged in wars all across the globe,
when we are now involved in a multilateral effort in Libya, when we
have thousands of people--government employees--trying to help the
Japanese weather this unbelievable tragedy they are facing, when we
have economic competitors all over the globe trying to seek an economic
advantage against the United States in the 21st century. Yet we are
saying: Well, we are going to take a time out because we can't agree.
We are going to pause, take a rest, close the government. The American
people must think, well, you guys must be very far apart. That is why I
brought this chart. I don't know the exact details here. Nobody does.
The reports on the news tonight were that several billion dollars
separated the negotiators. I have heard it ranges from $5 billion to
$10 billion, or somewhere in there, so I picked the number $7 billion,
which is more than several. But that appears to be what divides the
parties--$7 billion. Seven billion dollars.
That is a lot of money. It is a lot of money. But look at it in the
context of our deficit and our operating budget. Here is this line. You
can't even see it. This line is the $7 billion, right here. This is our
deficit, and this is our operating budget--$1.5 trillion, $3.6
trillion.
I apologize, Mr. President, but I couldn't fit it on one chart so I
had to have two made in order to show what the order of magnitude of
difference is between what we are squabbling over here in Washington,
and what our deficit looks like and what our operating budget looks
like. That is it. That is it. That is it.
Do you know, this difference, if this were the city of Alamosa--and
the former mayor is the Presiding Officer--and my State--which has
roughly a $14 million operating budget in the San Luis Valley--if they
were saying we were going to shut down our government based on this
difference, that would be like Alamosa saying, we can't figure it out
because $27,000 is what we are apart.
Mr. President, if you and I went to Applebee's tonight and we had
their $20 dinner for two, and then we had a fight over the bill, we
would be fighting over 4 cents. That is what would separate us--roughly
.19 percent of our operating budget.
I could even understand if the parties were saying we disagree, we
disagree, let's keep negotiating. But I can't for the life of me
understand how on those terms anyone could threaten a government
shutdown, especially when we confront the dangers we confront today.
And so the answer is, it is not about our budget. The time we have
consumed here is taking time away from the conversations that the
Presiding Officer and I have been part of, that

[[Page S2257]]

people on the other side of the aisle have been part of, that the gang
of six, a bipartisan group of Senators--three Democrats and three
Republicans led by Mark Warner and Saxby Chambliss--have been working
on. That is what we should be doing. We shouldn't be threatening to
close the government. I don't think we should be threatening to close
the government under any circumstances, but certainly not when the
economics are as thin as that.
I know there are people--and it is not all Republicans--there are
some people in the House who feel the social issues they have attached
to this piece of budget legislation are somehow more important than
keeping government open or that litigating those issues in the context
of trying to keep the government open is the right thing to do. I
disagree. I think they should have a hearing. I think we ought to have
a floor discussion about what we want to do with women's reproductive
health or the other issues that are there. I am glad to have that
debate. But don't threaten to shut the government down based on that.
So I will say again, as I said the other night, I encourage the
leaders of both parties in both Chambers, and our President, to find a
way to settle this, to find a way to work it out, to find a way to keep
this government open at this moment when we have troops deployed all
over the globe, and to live up to the standard of every single local
elected official in my State, whether they are Democrats or whether
they are Republicans, who are making tough choices in this budget
situation but managing to respond to their constituents' priorities.
This week, in Colorado, they reached a budget agreement. The Governor
is a Democrat, the Senate is a majority Democratic, the House is
Republican. The Speaker of the House, who is a Republican, said this is
the first budget I have been able to vote for in years because of the
leadership of John Hickenlooper, our Governor, and the leadership of
the Democratic and Republican Party there. That breeds confidence in
people's work. I think if we can find a way to work together across the
party lines in a bipartisan way and demonstrate that we can keep the
government open, and much more important even than that, that we can
create a path toward fiscal sanity in this country, I think the
American people would cheer. Right now we have not given them very much
to cheer about.

I see the Senator from Texas is here, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, we have been talking for a long time
today about this fiscal crisis. I don't think anyone is looking at the
looming deadline tomorrow night as something that we want, to have
government shut down. I hope so much that the President and Speaker
Boehner and the Democratic leader of the Senate, Mr. Reid, can come to
terms because we are so close to having an agreement on a continuing
resolution until the end of this fiscal year--which is what we need. If
anyone would run a business the way this government is being run, in 2-
week continuing resolutions and 1-week and 3-week--it is not a way to
run anything. It is not organized and you cannot plan. Certainly, we
know taxpayer dollars are not being the most efficiently spent if we
are going in 1- and 2-week increments.
The stakes are very high. I look back at the year 2000, and we had
balanced budgets. We had a balanced budget in the year 2000. We had a
balanced budget up until 9/11. That was only 10 years ago, and we ought
to be able, as the U.S. Congress, working with the President, to say if
we had a balanced budget 10 years ago, we cannot possibly be so far
over the line that we cannot bring it back into balance. But to bring
it back into balance we are going to have to look long term. We cannot
do it on $30 billion of difference from now to the end of the fiscal
year's spending. The fiscal year ends October 1. We cannot do it. We
have to have a 10-year plan; we have to have clear cuts in spending;
and we have to start working toward a balanced budget in a responsible
way.
I cannot say I agree with everything in it, but the House Budget
Committee chairman, one of the Republicans in the House, has proposed a
budget that would do exactly that. It would get us to nearly a balanced
budget. Now we need to start talking about the plans he has put
forward. The President has not been; Congressman Ryan has. We are going
to change some of it, I hope. We should have the same goal; that is, to
get to a balanced budget over a period of time, 5 to 10 years. But we
certainly are not going to do it in the next 24 hours, talking about
$30 billion or $36 billion going for the next 6 months.
I hope we will settle this issue so we can go to the long-term
issues. The long-term issue is going to come up in about 1\1/2\ months
when we are going to be called on to raise the debt ceiling. The debt
is $14 trillion. We are looking at a deficit this year alone of $1.6
trillion. If we go with the budget the President submitted, $3.7
trillion more, over $14 trillion? No wonder the people of this country
are up in arms. We need to listen to the people of this country who say
stop doing business in Washington the way it has always been done. Stop
it now and start cutting back on the appetite for spending so we will
be able to have the balanced budget that we can see in our future.
What we are looking at now is the potential of a government shutdown.
I hope it does not come to that, but there is one thing we ought to be
able to do in this Congress, and that is at least protect our military
who is serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and their families who are back
home worried enough about them because of where they are and who most
certainly should not have another burden put on them of not knowing if
their paycheck is going to come at the normal time of the month--the
1st and the 15th.
I have introduced S. 724. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator
Sessions as a cosponsor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. I will say that makes our 46th cosponsor of S. 724.
It is a very simple bill. It just says if there is a government
shutdown, the military will be paid. The Secretary of Defense will have
the discretion to also pay the civilians and those who are serving our
military so the food service in Afghanistan and Iraq will not be
stopped because we have a government shutdown and the paychecks are not
going to come.
I want to alleviate any fear on the part of any member of our
military or one whose family is watching the debate on the House and
the Senate floor, watching this play out and thinking: Am I going to be
able to pay the mortgage on time? I want to alleviate that fear right
now.
I hope we will be able to pass this bill that is gaining sponsors
about every 15 minutes, as people start looking at the looming shutdown
of government that will happen a little later than this tomorrow night
if we do not have an agreement. I think all of us should put our
military in the front of the line and say: They are going to show up
for work. Let's assure them their pay will not be delayed. That is not
the message they are getting right now, but I think we can assure they
will get it.
I have a letter we just received from the National Association of
Uniformed Services, which says:

On behalf of the more than 180,000 members and supporters
of the National Association for Uniformed Services, I offer
our full support for your legislation, S. 724, the Ensuring
Pay for Our Military Act of 2011.

I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

National Association for

Uniformed Services,

Springfield, VA, April 7, 2011.
Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Hutchison: On behalf of the more than 180,000
members and supporters of the National Association for
Uniformed Services (NAUS), I would like to offer our full
support for your legislation S. 724, the Ensuring Pay for Our
Military Act of 2011, a bill to assure that, in the event of
a federal government shutdown, our nation's men and women in
uniform would continue to receive their military pay and
allowances.
The Ensuring Pay for Our Military Act would make available
the necessary funds to prevent an interruption in pay for
members of the military if there is a funding gap resulting
from a government shutdown. The bill also includes a
provision to authorize the Secretary of Defense to allow
those who serve as DOD civilians or contractors in support of
our men and women in uniform to continue to be paid as well.

[[Page S2258]]

The National Association for Uniformed Services thanks you
for introducing legislation that demonstrates our nation's
appreciation for those who serve in our Armed Forces. We look
forward to working with you and your staff and deeply
appreciate your continued support of the American soldier and
their families.
Sincerely,
Richard A. Jones,
Legislative Director.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I hope we come to agreement and do not
shut down the government. We are so close to getting this temporary
fiscal year--which we are already halfway through--finished, and let's
take this off the books. What we ought to be doing right now is
focusing on the 2012 budget that starts October 1, where we are having
our hearings, and we are asking our questions, and we are trying to set
our priorities with a lower scale of government. We are going to cut
back way below what we spent last year and the year before, but we are
going to prioritize our spending.
We had FBI Director Mueller testify before our Commerce-Justice
Subcommittee of Appropriations to talk about the law enforcement needs
of our FBI. I want to spend my time talking about the needs of the FBI
and the other necessary functions of government; certainly, our armed
services bill. I do not want to be talking about shutting down
government in the middle of the fiscal year because we are not coming
together on $6 billion or $3 billion--I don't know exactly where they
are now, but it is not very much in the scheme of things. What we need
to do is get this behind us, alleviate the fears of our military
personnel, alleviate the fears of their families that they might have a
hiatus in their paychecks.
We need to start thinking about the big picture, the big picture of
what we must focus on, which is cutting spending so we can go toward a
balanced budget and agree on a 5- to 10-year trajectory that will put
us back in a fiscally responsible position for our country to have the
credibility in the world we should have, for our children to be free of
the debt for what we have used in government in this country. We don't
need to pass that debt to our children if we are responsible stewards
of both their lives and our taxpayer dollars.
We need to be the leaders that people expect us to be. The people
spoke in very loud terms last November, that they do not want more
spending. I hear it everywhere I go. I hear it in the airports, on the
streets, when I am talking to people in informal meetings, the grocery
store--people are scared to death of a $14 trillion debt. It has never
been so high in our country before.
I don't want that to be the legacy of this Congress and our
generation. That is not the legacy we should have as leaders of the
greatest country in the free world.
I implore the leaders of Congress and the President to get the
continuing resolution behind us so we can focus on the big picture;
that is, the $14 trillion debt that we are facing right now and doing
the responsible cutting that will begin to cut back on the deficits,
take down the debt, and address the issues that have not been addressed
for all these years, once and for all.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Texas on her
bill of which I am very proud to be a cosponsor, to make sure our men
and women in harm's way continue to receive their compensation and
support for their families if, in fact, there is a government shutdown.
I am certainly going to continue to do everything I can to keep that
from happening. I am unwilling to give up, and I know others are as
well.
I commend the Senator, but I think this is very important. We need to
send that message. We need to get this done and get the bill done.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. I say to the Senator from Michigan, she was one of
the first to sign on as a cosponsor of this bill. I think that is the
right thing to do. I appreciate her leadership.
I just got a note from my staff, and I also ask unanimous consent to
add Senator Scott Brown and Senator Amy Klobuchar as cosponsors of S.
724.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Michigan. I think we can do
this together if we will come together and focus on those great young
men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq serving right now and do
something that is right for them regardless of whether we have to face
a government shutdown for all the rest of us.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I could not agree more that we need to
do this. I think it is important that the Senate take the lead as we
did on another piece of legislation that our friend from California
brought forward, and which was passed unanimously by the Senate, to set
down a very important principle; that is, if we, those making
decisions, cannot come together, then it should be Members of Congress
not getting a paycheck. Our troops should be getting paid, but Members
of Congress should see their paychecks stopped.
Unfortunately, under law right now Members of Congress would be the
only ones whose paychecks don't stop. That is something we have passed
in the Senate, to change that. Frankly, I found that to be pretty
embarrassing. Then it became outrageous when we found out that the
troops' paychecks might stop.
So it is important we send two messages: people who are responsible
for making this decision take responsibility and their paychecks stop
if it doesn't get done, but also we have to make sure the men and women
in harm's way continue to have our support verbally and that we show it
in our priorities as well.
I hope we are not going to see this happen. There is no reason for
this to happen. We are talking about a shutdown that would not only
affect many people around this country--families, small businesses--it
would affect also the markets, our international standing. This is a
very serious issue. People of good will can solve this.
We all know we have to be smart. We have to change the way Washington
operates and cut the things that are not working and invest in the
things that do. There is no question about that. We have to do that. In
fact, we have agreed to major changes in that direction, but it is a
challenge.
I just wanted to take a second because I think the toughest job in
town today is the Speaker's. It is very clear that he has a very
difficult job when people are giving a standing ovation for him when he
is talking about preparing for a shutdown. We do not need this. That is
not what we need.
What we need is to continue to have people of good will coming
together, as we have just been talking about, in support of our troops
and saying: We can complete this year's budget. We are halfway through
the year. Let's just get it done.
What happens if it does not get done? It is not about us. It is not
about us. We will be all right. It is not about us. It is about the
people who are affected. We know, but let's just go through what
happened back in 1995.
In 1995, there were 400,000 veterans who saw their disability
benefits and pensions claims delayed--our veterans.
Again, we are talking about our troops. But in the last shutdown,
400,000 veterans had delays in their disability benefits and pensions.
That ought to be a motivator for all of us to get this done. It would
be outrageous if that were to happen again. There was approximately $3
billion in U.S. exports that were delayed because they could not get
the export licenses. That is jobs for us.
As we look at a time when we want to export our products, not our
jobs, around the world, delaying that affects our jobs. We know
hundreds of thousands of Medicare and Social Security requests were
delayed the last time this happened.
For the first time in history, six States ran out of Federal
unemployment insurance at the time, and small business loans, we know,
could be stopped or delayed, as well as tax refunds for people who have
been waiting for hard-earned dollars, stretching every penny to make
ends meet.
So it makes no sense. It makes no sense to the economy, it makes no
sense for families, for seniors, for veterans. We need to come together
and get this done. We also need to make sure that whatever is done and
what we have been fighting for, the majority has been fighting for, is
that we not

[[Page S2259]]

one more time ask middle-class families and small businesses to be the
ones who have to sacrifice.
In my State, our families, middle-class families, people trying
desperately to stay in the middle class or to get in the middle class
have been the ones hurt over and over--their jobs, losing their jobs or
losing their incomes, with their houses underwater, trying to make ends
meet, not sure right now if they are going to be able to have the kids
continue to go to college. With gas prices going up like crazy, are
they going to be able to even just get back and forth to work? Those
are not the folks who should be, one more time, sacrificing, carrying
the load. The same with people sending their children, grandchildren to
war. Our middle-class families should not be the ones continuing to be
the only ones sacrificing in order to deal with what is a national debt
and the need to balance the budget and change the way we fund
Washington, reduce spending, change the priorities.
What I am concerned about is that middle-class families and small
businesses not continue to be the ones who get the brunt over and over.
I think about this struggle the last couple of years in Michigan and
what we have had to go through with our automobile industry and how
proud I am of where we are now, but also the sacrifice that it took to
get there.
We are making the best automobiles. We are winning all the awards.
Our people are smart and skilled. We have the best engineers and the
best skilled workforce, but a couple of years ago we had a horrible
crisis. It took sacrifice from everybody to turn that around and some
smart thinking.
Workers had to sacrifice--beginning pay cut in half; retirees, the
company, shareholders, communities--everybody had to sacrifice in order
to turn this around. But we did something else. We then said: While you
are cutting back, we are going to invest in the future. We are going to
invest in innovation. We are going to invest in those things that are
going to allow us to grow and create more jobs and be successful.
After 2 years of a tremendous amount of hard work and everybody
sacrificing, with some smart decisions and investments, we are turning
it around, making a profit for the first time--each of our companies--
since 1999. We are turning things around because people were willing to
be in it together. That is what I am fighting for, because we know we
have to change the way we do business and we have to cut the things
that do not work and invest in the things that do. But everybody has to
be in on this--everybody--not just some people who are being asked to
give over and over, not just small businesses that did not cause what
happened on Wall Street but cannot get the loans because of what
happened with the crisis, holding on, trying to make it, trying to get
the capital they need to keep the doors open or to expand. They did not
cause this, and yet we seem to find the same people over and over
having to make the sacrifices. That does not make sense. I do not think
it is American.
So what we are seeing now as we close in on the final decisions,
people coming together, is a question of whether we are going to have
everybody be a part of the solution or one more time asking the middle
class and small businesses. We can come together and get this done if
people want to do that. There is no question about it, that people of
good will can get it done. I think that it is in everybody's best
interests to do that on every single level.
But there is no question as well that we have very different
priorities that are being debated today in our country. We saw that
this last week in very stark terms, which goes to the whole question
of, again, how do we solve our problems and is everybody in? Is every
American going to be part of turning the ship around? That goes to the
budget proposal this week that has added, in my opinion, insult to
injury, which relates to the proposal coming from the House Budget
chair to change Medicare as we know it; to change Medicare from an
insurance plan for our retirees and people with disabilities to
something that would be a voucher for insurance companies.
It is stunning to me, actually, in looking at this proposal, and
extremely concerning to me, the ramifications of what is being
proposed. Then what adds insult to injury is that the proposal is being
made to unravel Medicare, do away with Medicare as we know it, raise
the costs, the premiums, and the medical costs for almost every senior
in the country--according to the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time this same budget document would give over $1.8
trillion in new tax cuts for special interests and the millionaires of
the country--not the folks who have been working hard to try to make
it, who have not gotten the big breaks, but one more round of big
breaks for the people who have not felt this recession, the people who
have gotten the special breaks, who somehow have not had to go through
their house underwater, their income go down, worry about the kids,
worry about the car, worry about the gas. The folks who earn over $1
million got the special tax breaks--those interests that are doing
extremely well in this country.
That is not how I view shared sacrifice in order to be able to solve
the country's problems and get us out of debt and grow the economy,
cutting Medicare for seniors, dismantling it, at the same time giving
one more round of tax breaks for millionaires and the major special
interests of the country.
That is wrong in my judgment. It is the wrong set of priorities, and
it is worth debating, and we will debate that. It is interesting; I
remember when we were passing health care reform, and we were focused
on the fact that we had to make sure Medicare was healthy for the
future and make some tough decisions so that it would be strong and
there for seniors.
We took a look at overpayments for for-profit insurance companies.
There are major overpayments, and we decided to cut those back. It was
actually causing the majority of beneficiaries, the majority of
seniors, to see their premiums go up because of some overpayments to a
few. We decided that we would cut back on those insurance company
overpayments, and we would instead focus on quality in Medicare, making
sure seniors could go to the doctor and get their cancer screenings,
their wellness visits without out-of-pocket costs and bring down the
cost of medicine; that we would focus on ways to streamline, focus on
quality and streamlining the way that we cut costs.
According to the budget gurus, we were able to save, I believe, over
10 years, $500 billion. It did not cut any benefits for seniors, but
the other side of the aisle said this was terrible. It was terrible
because we were focused on cutting overpayments to insurance companies.
Now we see this proposal that would dismantle Medicare, and it would
cut what is the average amount a senior spends on medical care in a
year, which is about $15,000 a year. It would, instead, cut that amount
down to $6,000 a year and give it in a voucher to an insurance company.
That is OK. That is a different set of priorities than I have and I
know that you have, Mr. President.
So these are debates we are going to have, and they are important
debates for our country. How do we go forward? How do we solve the
budget deficit? How do we grow the economy? How do we create jobs? How
do we make sure what we are doing is fair for everybody and keeps what
works while cutting what does not?
Medicare is a great American success story. Do we need to make sure
it is there for the next generation? Absolutely. Do we need to look at
ways to streamline and cut costs? We have done that, and we need to
continue to do that. Absolutely. We need to do that. But it is a great
American success story. It has allowed a whole generation of older
Americans to live healthy lives, play with their grandkids.
Now that I have two beautiful grandchildren who, by the way, are the
most beautiful grandchildren in the world, just for the record--but now
as I have my 3-year-old and 1-year-old and I look at the fact that I
want to be healthy for a long time so I can be there for them, and what
a wonderful gift as Americans we have given to seniors, that gift of
Medicaid and Social Security so that they can be healthy and live in
dignified ways in their own homes and be able to live long lives for
their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, that is something we
should be proud of.

[[Page S2260]]

So as we go through this time, we have two kinds of debates. We have
to deal with what is happening immediately, complete this 6-month--not
6-year, 6-month CR; I am talking about a 6-month budget--in a
commonsense way, make sure that troops get paid, make sure we do not
have any veterans losing their opportunity for disability benefits or
pension benefits, and small businesses are not being delayed from
getting their loans. In my judgment, we need to put down a marker
saying if we cannot come together, that we are the ones who do not get
paid, not the troops. Then the next step is to debate the vision of
this country and where we go, what is important and what is not.
Should some Americans be asked to sacrifice in order to solve our
problems and be stronger and compete in a global economy or should
everybody be asked to do their part? People want to do their part, and
they are willing to do their part. But we need to make that clear, that
we expect everybody to be a part of the solution.
What I find most concerning today is that when we are in a global
economy and we ought to be talking about the United States competing
against China, the United States competing with Germany or India or
Korea, we are not doing that. We are standing here on the Senate floor
on a Thursday night talking about whether people will come together to
complete a 6-month budget and make sure our troops can get paid. That
is not the debate we should be having. We have precious time available
to us. The debate we should be having is about how as Americans we will
compete in a global economy and win. That is what we need to be doing.
That is the debate I am anxious to have.
I hope we are not going to give up. I will not give up on what we
need to do right now, to come together, get this done, avoid a
government shutdown, and get on to the real business of creating jobs
and competing in a global economy.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I rise to talk about the disastrous
consequences if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue
to prioritize politics and posturing over what is best for Americans
and our fragile economic recovery. We have 27 hours to convince them
that shutting down the government should not be treated as a gimmick,
that shutting down the government is a serious matter with serious
consequences for almost every American. But before I go into the
consequences and their impact on my constituents, I want to take a
moment to reflect on how we got here, how we are now in a position
where a government shutdown is 27 hours away.
One thing is certain: There is a lot of misinformation and confusion
out there. A number of my friends on the other side of the aisle have
been saying that the Democrats and the President refused or failed to
pass appropriations for fiscal year 2011. This is revisionist and
confused history.
One of my colleagues, a new Member, said today:

Why was it that a few months ago, after the election but
before the new Congress took over, when the President had
both houses of Congress under control of his party, why did
he opt not to pass a full budget for fiscal year 2011?

The Presiding Officer knows this is just not true. This isn't true. I
have been hearing a lot of this.
We had appropriations legislation for the entire Federal Government
ready to go. Democrats were in support of it. We were prepared to fund
the government for the rest of the fiscal year. But, remember, it takes
60 votes to pass something like that in the Senate. There were 58
Democrats in the Senate last December, and there were 42 Republicans.
So we needed some Republicans to pass a full budget for 2011--not many,
but we needed two. We didn't get any. Not a single Republican agreed to
support the bill. That is what happened.
For a while, we were told that a number of Republicans were going to
support it. The bill had been negotiated on a bipartisan basis. But
then, by all accounts, arms were twisted, and they were turned against
the bill.
The minority leader said:

I am actively working to defeat it.

And he did. He killed it. That is the truth. And my friends on the
other side of the aisle celebrated.
After they made clear that there would not be enough votes to pass
the omnibus bill, my friend from Illinois engaged in a colloquy with
Senator McCain, asking:

For those who don't understand what just happened, did we
just win?

Senator McCain responded:

I think there is very little doubt.

Senator Kirk concluded the colloquy by saying:

I congratulate the Senator.

We really do owe it in these serious times to engage in debate where
we are being honest with the American people. There is little doubt
about who opted not to pass a full budget for 2011. It was not the
President or the Democrats in the majority; it was my friends on the
other side.
My friends on the other side protest that they do not want to shut
down the government, and then they point the finger at us.
Yesterday, there was a rally for the tea party on Capitol Hill. Part
of my delegation, Michelle Bachmann, whom I like very much, said:

Democrats are trying to make it look like we want to shut
the government down. We don't. They are trying to do that.

Silence.
That same day at the same rally, Mike Pence said to them:

It looks like we're going to have to shut down the
government.

And what did the tea party crowd do? They started chanting: ``Shut it
down. Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.''
According to his own account, when Speaker Boehner told Republican
colleagues in his caucus that he had taken steps to prepare for a
shutdown, ``I got a standing ovation.''
There have been no standing ovations on our side about a prospective
shutdown. Come on. We are trying to keep the government working. We
desperately want to keep the government working.
Republicans are busy fighting ideological battles. For them, this is
not about the deficit. It is not about the budget. It is certainly not
about jobs. This is about ideology.
I was presiding today, and I had the opportunity to hear some of my
colleagues talking about the bill the House passed today to fund the
troops. We want to fund the troops if there is a shutdown. We do. There
was all this sanctimonious talk about how Republicans want the troops
to be funded, and the House had passed a bill to fund it. Do you know
what was left out? That Steny Hoyer, the minority whip in the House,
the Democratic minority whip, had offered a bill to pay the troops if
there was a shutdown, a clean bill, nothing attached to it other than
that. It was voted down by Republicans in the House. What passed? A
bill with a rider on it about abortion. I didn't hear that in all the
sanctimonious talk.
Let's at least have an honest debate. Really, adding abortion? Look,
I know there are people who have very strong, heartfelt feelings,
obviously, on abortion on both sides. This is something we have been
talking about for decades. Why put it a rider about abortion on
legislation to pay for the troops and then go in front of this body and
say: Democrats don't want to pay the troops.
This can't be about holding a gun to our heads and saying: You have
to come down on this side of this issue that people feel so strongly
about and have been debating for 40 years.
The Republicans in the House talk about the Constitution. They
started this session by reading the Constitution. They left out some of
the embarrassing parts, that a slave was three-fifths of a person. They
left that out. But there are two Houses, and there is a President. But
they don't want to compromise. They just want to put a gun to our
heads. And it is in the form of abortion and in the form of global
warming. Look, 99.6 percent of climate scientists in the world believe
there is global warming and it is caused by human beings. The other .4
percent work for coal companies or oil companies or the Heritage
Foundation. Then there might be another guy somewhere.

Why put a rider on this that is about ideology? This should not be an
ideological debate. This is about getting

[[Page S2261]]

the deficit down and about our economy. We had 216,000 new jobs last
month. It is fragile, but we are beginning to come out of this. This is
not the time to shut the government down.
What it is going to do to people in my State, to seniors--every week,
there are hundreds of seniors--how many a day--170 a day applying for
Social Security. They are not going to be able to do that, people who
just turned 65. There are people who are going to try to get FHA loans
and won't be able to. There are farmers who want to put seed in the
ground who will not have the Farm Service open. This is not the time to
do this. This is going to mean 800,000 Federal employees laid off. What
is that going to do to the economy?
Look, there are things in this that I don't like, but I am willing to
swallow and do it.
They want to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in hunger programs,
$700-plus million to cut food for women, infants, and children. It has
been analyzed, and because of that, the neediest kids will not get
their allotted amount of fruits and vegetables that is recommended. And
that is not just during the closing; that is what they want to do for
the rest of the year and presumably beyond that.
At the same time, we were here last December, and they wanted to
extend the Bush tax cuts. They insisted on it, not just to your first
million dollars or your second million dollars, to your tenth million
dollars, to your 13th million dollars, or to your 300th million
dollars. The top 400 income earners in this country average over $330
million a year in income. They would rather those women, infants, and
children not get food, the food they need to be healthy. I don't like
that. Boy, do I not like that. Boy, do I not like that. But I was
willing to swallow that for whatever is in the compromise to keep the
government going so we could go through the year, so we could keep the
economy going, so we continue the job growth we have had.
They know how to keep the government going. Take the ideological
stuff off. Let's not resolve abortion in 27 hours. We have had more
than 27 years--37 years--since Roe v. Wade. Let's not put a gun to
everyone's head and say we have to resolve Roe v. Wade in 27 hours.
That is just plain inappropriate.

I think you know how I feel. I think we know which side gives
standing ovations when it is announced the government may very well be
shut down. I think we know which side's crowd cheers and chants when
they hear there may be a shutdown. I wish it were not that way. I wish
we were working together. I hope we are working together. I hope we are
working together on Monday.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________