[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 129 (Thursday, September 26, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6907-S6932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         MAKING CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of H. J. Res. 59, which the clerk will 
report by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H. J. Res 59) making continuing 
     appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Reid amendment No. 1974, to perfect the joint resolution.
       Reid amendment No. 1975 (to amendment No. 1974), to change 
     the enactment date.
       Reid motion to commit the joint resolution to the Committee 
     on Appropriations with instructions, Reid amendment No. 1976, 
     to change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 1977 (to (the instructions) amendment 
     No. 1976), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 1978 (to amendment No. 1977), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
will be controlled in hour increments, with the majority controlling 
the first hour and alternating thereafter.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the families that I talk to in my home

[[Page S6908]]

State of Washington are not interested in partisan back and forth that 
we see so much of here in Washington, DC. They are thinking about how 
they are going to get their bills paid. They are wondering when and if 
they will be able to save enough to retire. They are hoping that they 
are going to be able to give their children a better future.
  They, rightfully, expect us to focus on strengthening the economy and 
creating jobs which will make it easier for them to reach those 
important goals. We have had an opportunity, many opportunities over 
the last few months, to move forward on legislation like the Senate 
budget and the appropriations bills that were approved in Senator 
Mikulski's committee, which could remove some of the uncertainty that 
is putting a drag on our economic recovery.
  But instead we are here on the floor of the Senate, to debate a 
temporary--a temporary stopgap measure to fund the government just days 
away from a possible shutdown. I think all but a few of my colleagues 
would agree with me that these circumstances are far from ideal. So as 
we work to pass this bill, this temporary stopgap bill, and continue 
negotiations on the longer term budget deal, I think it is really 
important to consider exactly how we got to this point, what this 
continuing resolution means in the context of ongoing discussions and 
what needs to happen for us to reach a more comprehensive agreement 
that works for our families and for our economy.
  As we all remember, if Democrats and many Republicans as well had 
their way, we could have begun a bipartisan budget conference between 
the House and Senate months ago and prevented this chaos. When the 
Senate passed a budget, I was very hopeful that both sides would come 
together and work out an agreement that would end this cycle of 
governing by crisis and allow us to focus on creating jobs and economic 
growth.
  Democrats have came to the floor 18 times now--18 times--to try to 
begin a bipartisan conference with the House on our budget resolution. 
Many Republicans thought this made sense. They agreed. We should at 
least sit down and try to get a deal. But as we all know now, an 
extreme minority of Republicans saw things differently, and they 
believed they would have more leverage if they created a crisis--like 
the one we are approaching now--than a few months when there was not a 
looming deadline.
  Those Tea Party Republicans, backed by the Republican leadership, 
stood and said no to the bipartisan budget negotiations 18 times, 
against the wishes of Members on both sides of the aisle.
  So, today, when we could have been focusing on the real challenges 
Americans are facing, we are instead focused on preventing the Tea 
Party from shutting down the government, all because Tea Party 
Republicans want another shot at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, 
which, by the way, was passed by a super majority, upheld by the 
Supreme Court, and was a major issue the American people weighed in on 
in the 2012 election.
  In the House continuing resolution, tea party Republicans are 
fighting to take away health care coverage for millions of Americans 
and get rid of crucial services such as prevention and wellness visits 
for Medicare patients, prescription drug savings for our seniors for 
which we fought so hard, and coverage for over 92,000 Americans who 
have preexisting conditions.
  This is absurd. It is a nonstarter.
  There is no way Democrats are going to give in to these demands that 
are so clearly harmful to the American people. The same is true of the 
fight the tea party Republicans are trying to pick over the debt limit.
  Some Republicans claim it is typical to threaten a catastrophic and 
unprecedented default in order to extract political concessions, but 
the fact is the opposite is true. The vast majority of debt limit 
increases in the last three decades occurred independent of efforts to 
reduce the deficit or put in place budget reforms.
  While Democrats are more than happy to negotiate on the budget--and 
we have been trying to do that for the last 6 months--we do stand 
firmly behind President Obama and are not going to negotiate about 
whether the United States of America pays its bills. We believe 
families and businesses should not have to deal with any more of that 
uncertainty.
  Honestly, I do think a lot of Republicans agree. More than a dozen 
Republicans have spoken to discourage the tea party from starting a 
pointless debate over defunding the Affordable Care Act in the bill to 
prevent a government shutdown. I do know quite a few Republicans agree. 
Brinksmanship over the debt ceiling is the height of irresponsibility.
  Given all the infighting we have seen recently, governing by crisis 
clearly isn't working for Republicans. It is certainly not helping 
Democrats make the investments we feel very strongly our country needs 
to succeed in the 21st century, and it has put a completely unnecessary 
burden on our families and our economy. It seems the only ones 
benefiting from this perpetual crisis mode are tea party Republicans, 
and I see no reason to keep doing them any favors.
  I call on the House Republicans to cut the tea party loose, give up 
these partisan games, and pass the Senate's bill to prevent the 
government shutdown. This bill is, by no means, a permanent fix. It is 
temporary. It continues the cuts from sequestration that are already in 
place and locked into law until we get a bipartisan deal.
  It will keep our government operating while those negotiations 
continue. This is critical, because even though some might not be able 
to see it in Washington, DC, a government shutdown will have serious 
consequences for families across this country.
  My home State of Washington is home to more than 100,000 uniformed 
civilian and defense employees at places such as Joint Base Lewis-
McChord and Fairchild Air Force Base. If this government shuts down, 
these men and women will still have to go to work the next day, but 
they will not get paid for it.
  Thousands of civilian defense employees in places such as Tacoma, 
Whidbey Island, and Spokane would be forced to do the same and 
thousands more could face furloughs. These hard-working Americans and 
families across my State and the country are already dealing with the 
consequences of gridlock in Washington, DC. They are dealing with the 
across-the-board cuts from sequestration, which continue to pile up.
  Hundreds of thousands of our defense employees, who now have to 
wonder about the effects of a shutdown, have been furloughed already 
and have taken pay cuts. Crucial supports and opportunities for 
vulnerable families and communities, from Head Start to Meals On 
Wheels, have been slashed. Sequestration is crippling our ability to 
plan for the future and make the kinds of investments in research, 
education, and infrastructure that will help our workers succeed. I 
hear about the impact of these arbitrary cuts whenever I am home in 
Washington State. I know every single one of my colleagues has heard 
similar stories. The cuts are only going to get worse with time and 
they simply have to go.
  When we send this legislation back to the House, Republicans have to 
put an end to the tea party temper tantrums and pass our bill without 
any gimmicks and games. After we do that, I hope we can leave the tea 
party brinksmanship behind so those of us on both sides of the aisle 
who believe in commonsense bipartisanship can move forward with 
negotiations on a desperately needed longer term deal.
  In those negotiations, I am going to continue fighting for an 
agreement that ends this governing by crisis and supports our families 
and economies by replacing sequestration with smarter deficit 
reduction, evenly divided between spending cuts and new revenue from 
the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. I am fully aware the 
Republicans have their priorities as well. I have never said reaching 
an agreement would be easy, but I know many Democrats and Republicans 
are sick of brinksmanship and crisis. I know they understand, as do we, 
that compromise is part of our job description. I truly believe if 
those Republicans work with Democrats, we can reach that critically 
needed bipartisan agreement we have been working toward.
  I have heard some of the tea party Republicans here in Washington, 
DC,

[[Page S6909]]

dismiss the damaging and costly disruptions a shutdown could cause. 
Some even seem to think that a default wouldn't be that bad, despite 
warnings from countless economists that default would, in fact, be 
catastrophic.
  Americans across the country who are still fighting to get back on 
their feet don't have the luxury of dismissing these risks because they 
are the ones who are going to be affected. They are rightfully 
expecting us to work together and reach a fair budget agreement that 
offers hard-working families more opportunity and more security. I 
believe putting the gimmicks and games aside and keeping the government 
open is a necessary step toward that goal.
  I am going to vote for this temporary continuing resolution and 
against the tea party's dysfunction and brinkmanship. I urge my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same.
  Part of the reason I am confident we can reach an agreement is 
because I know what we can do when we do work together. During this 
past summer, I worked with Senator Collins to write the transportation 
and housing appropriations bill for the coming fiscal year. It included 
priorities of Members on both side of the aisle, and it was approved in 
our committee with the support of six Republicans. That bill received 
strong bipartisan support because it helps families, helps communities, 
and it gets workers back on the job. It was fiscally responsible, and 
it laid down a strong foundation for long-term and broad-based economic 
growth.

  Our bill stands in stark contrast to the across-the-board 
sequestration cuts we have been operating under for the last 6 months. 
Rather than slashing crucial investments in our infrastructure, our 
bill supports critical transportation projects across the country. It 
fully funds the highway and transit grant programs that allow our 
States and local agencies to keep our transportation system working.
  Rather than leaving our cities and towns that have been hard hit by 
the recession to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, our bill 
strongly supports community development grants which offer the tools to 
strengthen small businesses and local economies.
  Instead of asking the most vulnerable to bear the burden of spending 
cuts, our bill funds a critical piece of the safety net, housing 
assistance and homeless shelters, for millions of struggling families 
and seniors who are just one step away from the street.
  As any business owner will tell you, it makes no sense to slash the 
investments that allow one to compete and prosper in the long term only 
to make the numbers work in the short term. The investments that are 
laid out in our bill are great examples. They make our country stronger 
by supporting job creation, economic growth, and by keeping our 
commitment to help those most in need get back on their feet.
  The need for these investments far exceeds the resources of the bill. 
The bill Senator Collins and I have written keeps our commitment to our 
States, communities, and makes sure the agencies in the bill can meet 
their statutory responsibilities. That will not be the case as 
sequestration continues for yet another year, which would make these 
commitments impossible to keep.
  It is important to note that the housing and transportation bill 
addresses challenges our country faces today. A full-year bill enables 
Congress to adjust funding levels to meet current needs and to 
implement new policies that address the problems that have come to 
light in recent years. This is something that does not happen when we 
opt for long-term continuing resolutions.
  A great example is we know that one of every four of our bridges is 
considered deficient by the Federal Highway Administration. Our bill 
includes funding to repair or replace deficient bridges across the 
country in order to protect the safety and reliability of our 
transportation system.
  If we simply extend the funding levels we debated 2 years ago, then 
those investments and many others that create jobs, protect public 
safety, and support the most vulnerable will be lost. We will also lose 
the improvements our bill makes to programs, including reforms that 
address concerns Members have raised the last time the transportation 
and housing bill came to the Senate floor.
  Our bill includes important section 8 reforms that will reduce costs 
and create efficiencies. It contains reforms to improve oversight of 
public housing agencies and boards, ensures accountability for property 
owners who don't maintain the quality of their HUD-assisted housing, 
and it increases accountability in the CDBG Program.
  It is very important that we enact those reforms and do the important 
oversight of Federal programs and agencies that the public expects us 
to do. For all these reasons, we need to pass this continuing 
resolution to keep the government running. Then we have to move forward 
on a longer term budget agreement that replaces sequestration with more 
responsible deficit reduction, a bill that puts our families and 
economies first, and allows us to enact real, thoughtful solutions to 
our country's challenges, instead of these stopgap measures that do not 
move us forward.
  Investing in our families, communities, and our long-term economic 
growth shouldn't be partisan. The bipartisan work that went into the 
housing and transportation bill and the strong support it received in 
committee proves they don't have to be.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Democratic 
amendment to the House continuing resolution. We have offered this 
amendment because its content offers a clear path forward to do three 
things:
  No. 1, avoid a government shutdown; No. 2, lay the groundwork for 
ending sequester for hopefully the next 2 years, which means finding a 
way to reduce our public debt in each of those years by $100 million; 
and, No. 3, get rid of the theatrical veto-bait-provocative amendments 
that are in the House bill calling for the defunding of the President's 
Affordable Care Act and also for the way they structure public debt.
  We offered this amendment because we think it is the best way 
forward. The American people expect us to do our job. It is Thursday 
morning, 10:45, and we are only now getting on the amendment. Why? 
Because for the last several days we had to put up with theatrical 
politics, rather than get the job done and begin deliberation. We have 
gone from being the greatest deliberative body in the world to the 
greatest delay body in the world. The American people are fed up, and 
so are many of us in the Senate. When all is said and done, more gets 
said than gets done. This is the time to act.
  We have an amendment on the floor that is open for full debate. I am 
absolutely for this, but we need to do the business of government to be 
able to do our job. We must replace the sequester and allow a 2014 
Omnibus appropriations to move forward before the end of the year. That 
sentence alone shows what is wrong in communicating with the American 
people. Factually, it is accurate. It is absolutely truthful. But 
nobody understands sequester. Nobody understands the word omnibus and 
nobody understands what we are doing or, most of all, what we are not 
doing.

  Sequester was an invention by the Congress, working with the 
President, to say that we will reduce public debt over a 10-year period 
by $110 billion a year, do it in a balanced way--strategic cuts, a 
review of mandatory spending and additional revenue--and if we fail to 
do that, sequester triggers, which means across-the-board cuts--50 
percent in Defense, 50 percent in domestic.
  The problem with across-the-board cuts is that it cuts good programs 
as well as programs that are dated, duplicative, or dysfunctional. I 
oppose that. I would rather make strategic cuts arrived at by the 
committee I chair--the Appropriations Committee.
  For the last year, our committee has done its due diligence. Our job 
is to review programs and to put them in the Federal checkbook and 
bring them to the floor for debate, for amendment, and then for passage 
and sending them to the President. What we want to do in our amendment 
is to change the date of December 15 in the House bill to November 15. 
That will keep the pressure on to get the deal needed so Congress can 
get to work and enact 12 fiscally responsible appropriations bills, lay 
the groundwork for canceling sequester for 2 years, and invest in the

[[Page S6910]]

needs of America today and the needs of the future.
  This amendment is important for two reasons. It prevents a government 
shutdown. The President has already said he will veto any bill that 
defunds ObamaCare; he will veto any bill that undermines the full faith 
and credit of the United States. So you can huff and puff for 21 hours, 
but you can't blow ObamaCare away. I repeat: You can huff and puff for 
21 hours, but you can't be the magic dragon that blows the Affordable 
Care Act away. So if we pass the House continuing resolution, the 
President will veto it, which means more wasted time in getting the job 
done, and our agencies, instead of doing their job and fulfilling their 
missions--making wise use of taxpayer money and being responsive to the 
American people--will be spending their energy in planning for a 
shutdown, which amounts to a slamdown.
  The President can sign the continuing resolution and keep the 
government open if we pass the Senate amendment, which will keep the 
government open until November 15 and gives us 1 month to arrive at 
pragmatic solutions. It cancels the provocative elements in it--the 
elimination of ObamaCare and the public debt--and also lays the 
groundwork for moving forward.
  There will be a few things that will happen if we can't enact a clean 
continuing resolution, meaning keeping the government open by October 
1. There are consequences here. This isn't just about show business. 
The government has to be open for business. An estimated 800,000 civil 
servants will be sent home or furloughed. What does that mean? If you 
are an FBI agent during this time, you will be on your job, you will be 
at your duty station, but when you are working, you won't get paid. You 
will get an IOU. What does that say to people who put themselves in the 
line of fire?
  Shutting down the government means we will affect crucial research 
and lifesaving discoveries that will be put on hold. The NIH clinical 
center won't be able to admit new patients for new clinical trials. 
Weather forecasters, food safety inspectors, and those involved with 
public safety will be at their duty stations, but they are going to be 
earning IOUs and looking forward to across-the-board cuts, which means 
they could be furloughed when we have already told them there will be 
no cost-of-living increase for 3 years.
  We want to recruit the best and the brightest for the FBI, to oversee 
our drug approval process, or to be border control agents--work that is 
dirty and dangerous out there. What are we doing here?
  We show a contempt for the people who work for the government, and 
that also shows contempt for the people who pay for the government. Our 
government should be working as hard as the people who pay the taxes to 
support the government. The way they work hard is to put the money in 
there for the mission and purpose of these agencies, insist they do 
their jobs, and then we insist we get rid of the dated, the 
duplicative, and the dysfunctional. We have laid the groundwork for 
doing this. In fact, we have been doing it all year long.
  I chair the Appropriations Committee. It is made up of 12 
subcommittees. You will be hearing from my subcommittee chairmen 
throughout the day. I am so proud of them. For the last year they have 
listened. They have taken the President's budget and they have analyzed 
it. They have conducted hearings. They have reviewed it, they have 
scrubbed it--as I said, they have analyzed it and squeezed it. I am 
proud of them. Out of what they have done they are ready to bring to 
the Senate floor legislation that makes wise use of taxpayer dollars. 
They have listened at every single hearing to inspectors general, where 
we learn about the dated, dysfunctional, or duplicative, and they are 
ready to move. But we cannot move if we continue having theatrical 
showdown politics.
  This will have grave impact. When we hear shutdown politics and 
eventually slowdown through sequester, what we are facing here will 
have a negative impact on our economy. It will add to the uncertainty 
for businesses to make wise decisions. It will also slow down, in a 
way, the impact to jobs because we fund infrastructure and other needed 
programs. It will impact public safety and it will impact future 
generations because of the big hit on research and development that 
comes up with the new ideas for the new jobs.
  Later on today I will be talking about the NIH, which is in my State. 
Yes, the NIH. Because of NIH funding, thousands of people work in 
Maryland but thousands of people are working for the United States of 
America. And at the end of the day, they are trying to come up with 
cures--cures that can be opportunities to create--so we are talking 
about saving lives, doing the basic research that then helps us get 
those jobs in biomedical and pharmaceuticals, and also to improve the 
lives of our people, improve our economy, and get the job done.
  I will have more to say, but right now I want to turn to Senator 
Pryor, who is the chair of the agriculture subcommittee. He is a new 
chairman, but he is not new to getting the job done. In fact, we refer 
to him as ``Tightwad'' Pryor. He has looked at the programs, he has 
analyzed how we are truly going to get value for the dollar and at the 
same time feed the hungry here and around the world, and also make sure 
that important, vibrant sector of our economy--the agricultural 
industry--is viable.
  I yield the floor for Senator Pryor.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Agriculture 
appropriations bill, but I have to start by thanking our chairwoman of 
the Appropriations Committee. She has already done so many good things 
for that committee and for the Senate. Obviously, she has been a great 
Senator for the State of Maryland, and we see that greatness as she 
leads the Appropriations Committee. I think all the members of the 
Appropriations Committee, both Democrats and Republicans, would like to 
thank her for her service and her leadership.
  Today I do want to talk about the agriculture appropriations bill and 
the impact a government shutdown would have on the activities it 
supports and the negative ripple effects--and there would be many 
negative ripple effects--that would come to our Nation's economy if 
that in fact does happen.
  When people hear the phrase Agriculture appropriations, they 
naturally think about farmers, and that is certainly a key part of what 
is in our agriculture sector and in this bill, but that is certainly 
not all it does. The bill helps farmers with operating loans and 
conservation projects and marketing--all those are very important--but 
it also funds programs that benefit rural communities to supply clean 
drinking water for people in rural areas, and housing. It supports 
nutrition programs. It helps kids all across the country. It also not 
only involves food but the international food programs--programs such 
as Food for Peace, et cetera. It also has the Food and Drug 
Administration in it, and that is critically important. We need a 
strong, robust FDA.
  This bill has been very bipartisan. This bill is about investing in 
our future. What we do here in this bill is actually try to save money. 
We understand there are budget constraints. We get that. We want to 
lead the way by responsible governing, making sure we do things in the 
right way by making smart, targeted investments and saving taxpayer 
dollars by eliminating redundancy and streamlining loan programs and 
doing things to make the USDA and the FDA spend their money wisely.
  At the same time we are trying very hard not to reduce any services 
to hard-working Americans, and we are also certainly trying not to hurt 
any industries in this country.
  Sequestration is already taking a toll on many of these programs. If 
we look at the cuts these agencies have had to undergo in the last 2 or 
3 years, we already see a strain on their budgets and the difficulties 
there. A government shutdown would wreak havoc on our economy.
  I think I speak for most Americans, certainly most Arkansans, when I 
say I am currently undergoing shutdown fatigue. We are tired of this. 
We are tired of the drama. We are tired of, honestly, the other Chamber 
embarrassing the Congress and engaging in these dramatics. People are 
just tired of it. When I am home in Arkansas, whether I am filling up 
at the gas station or I am at the grocery or at the ball game or 
wherever I happen to be, people

[[Page S6911]]

come up to me and say: What is wrong with Congress?
  In fact, I was at a major fundraising event for cancer research in 
Little Rock on Friday evening. I bet I had a dozen people come up to me 
and say: What is going on with the House of Representatives? Why do 
they continue to do this? And I agree. It is hard to watch. It is not 
good for the Congress. As I say, I have shutdown fatigue. We don't need 
any more drama. We need to get back to the business of governing. 
Governing isn't always easy. We have to make hard decisions. That is 
why we run for these jobs. We run for these jobs to work to get things 
done and to try and make good and wise decisions for our people and for 
our Nation. That is the way it is supposed to work.
  I think my colleagues will agree with me when I say that 
strengthening our economy and creating jobs is our No. 1 priority right 
now. We look at the recession we have been through and we see the 
hardships folks have gone through. Strengthening our economy and 
creating jobs is our No. 1 priority, and this bill will help us do it. 
Again, it is hard to get to that No. 1 priority when we have some of 
the shenanigans going on here in the U.S. House with some of these 
manufactured crises they have created.
  What I want to say about agriculture is it is one of the core 
strengths in the U.S. economy.
  We do a lot of things well. Our economy does a lot of things well. 
But no one does agriculture better than America. It is something we 
should be proud of. We do it so well, we probably take it for granted 
sometimes, but it is a core strength in the U.S. economy.
  If we want one little bit of evidence for that, look at our trade 
deficit. Everyone in this Chamber knows our trade deficit is not good. 
We know it is bad. We know it is ugly. We want to change that. We want 
to make it better. But our trade deficit would be horrendous if it were 
not for agriculture. That is our No. 1 export. This is something we 
need to be mindful of: Agriculture is very good for the U.S. economy.
  Take something as simple as raising chickens. That is not very 
exciting and a lot of people don't understand the first thing about it, 
but think about what impact it has on the States and the counties and 
the communities where this happens.
  First, someone has to build the chicken house, someone delivers the 
chicks, someone delivers the feed. Someone has to maintain the trucks 
that deliver the chicks and the feed. Someone has to generate the 
electricity, someone has to supply the water. Someone is paying taxes 
on all this, and it is helping local schools and local police and fire 
departments, et cetera. Someone at some point picks up the chickens and 
delivers them to the processing plant, and it all starts over. Someone 
has to build the plant. This has a huge ripple effect on the U.S. 
economy and on everything about agriculture. It is not just the 
farmers, it is a ripple effect and a positive effect on the economy.
  Take the example of Arkansas, and I am sure this is true in many 
other States. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet this is true 
in 35 or 40 other States, and it is our largest industry. We love 
having our Fortune 500 companies there and we have several that are 
based in Arkansas. We have more that have some sort of facility or 
plant or site of some sort. We love that and we are proud of that. But 
agriculture is our No. 1 industry. One in six jobs in Arkansas is tied 
to agriculture. It has a $17 billion net effect on the economy and it 
is 25 percent of our State's economy.
  I was speaking with Debbie Stabenow not too long ago. She said, We 
are all known for manufacturing and heavy manufacturing in Michigan. 
And they are. But, she said, our second largest industry is 
agriculture. She is chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and she 
fought very hard to get the farm bill back on track, and much to her 
credit she has moved that ball farther down the field than I think 
anyone else could.
  Another reason I want the House to stop with this manufactured crisis 
and follow the Senate's lead to pass a commonsense, comprehensive farm 
bill--and I don't say that lightly. I have a lot of respect for the 
House. Certainly they are a separate institution within this branch of 
government. I certainly have a lot of respect for that and their 
position, and their role is critical. But they need to follow the 
Senate's lead. They need to follow the Senate and do what the Senate 
has done. We are trying to be responsible. We are trying to show 
leadership. We are trying to get things back on track.
  But when I mentioned Arkansas a moment ago, we are not alone. There 
are over 3 million farmers in the United States, and as a nation 
agriculture employs about 22 million people. The Agriculture 
appropriations bill would allow us to build on this economic powerhouse 
that we have in this country. This bill helps farmers get started. It 
helps farmers increase their yield and it helps them become better 
stewards of the land. Funding these programs creates jobs in rural 
America. If you haven't been there recently, rural America needs jobs.
  Take a program such as the USDA Rural Development Program. They 
create construction jobs. They rebuild hometowns and schools and other 
facilities, and they keep our rural communities strong. We don't want 
the Tale of Two Nations here where you have urban and suburban America, 
and rural America is left behind. We want rural America to be strong as 
well.
  Almost every Member of this body has sizeable rural portions in their 
State. We want those areas to grow and be prosperous. So in this bill 
we provide guaranteed loans for rural businesses to let them grow and 
to get small and emerging businesses where they need to be. We also 
provide money for creation and expansion of businesses in rural 
settings. A government shutdown would stop these programs. It would 
bring these programs to a dead halt in rural America. Why break the 
momentum? Our economy is just turning the corner. We do not need to do 
this. We can't forget the role that Agriculture appropriations bill 
plays in keeping our families and communities safe.
  One thing I have to say is the Food and Drug Administration does a 
great job. Again, a lot of people may take them for granted because 
they do such a good job, but we have the safest food supply in the 
world and we have the safest drug supply in the world. Do we want to 
jeopardize that? No. Please, let's not jeopardize that. Why are we 
playing games with people's food and medicine? It makes no sense at 
all. It is an unbelievable statistic, but in Arkansas alone the FDA 
oversees 1,300 facilities, just in my small State. They also have 
presence there with the National Center for Toxicological Research in 
Jefferson County that employs about 500 people. They do great things 
there, and it is a very important, vital part of what FDA does. We are 
certainly proud to have them.
  Arkansas has 85 poultry and 50 meat processing plants. These are 
inspected by the Food Safety Inspection Service, FSIS. Last year my 
good friend, Senator Blunt from Missouri, and I worked very hard with 
the chairwoman of the committee and others in this Chamber to make sure 
those meat inspectors stayed on the job; because the day that they 
miss, that jeopardizes thousands of private sector jobs and 
productivity and disruption to a very efficient market. So we were able 
to do that. Here again, all that is in jeopardy because of the games 
they are playing in the House on this issue.
  The progress we made when it comes to infrastructure would also stop. 
We don't want to see that. We want to lay that foundation for future 
economic growth. We all know infrastructure creates jobs. Clean water, 
waste disposal systems, broadband expansion we have been fighting for, 
not just in rural Arkansas but in every rural State.
  These investments are critical to growing our Nation's businesses and 
they are critical to local communities. This helps all Americans.
  The programs I have talked about today are supported by Members on 
both sides of the aisle. When we moved this through the committee, we 
got a 23-6 vote. Senator Blunt and I worked together, hand in hand, on 
every single provision. We produced a better bill because we did work 
together. It is a good solid case for bipartisanship and how to get 
things done. It is one of the strongest bipartisan votes we have had in 
the committee so far.
  Nonetheless, I urge my colleagues to please follow the example of the 
Appropriations Committee generally, but the

[[Page S6912]]

Agriculture appropriations subcommittee specifically. Let's come 
together and let's do what is best for our economy and for the American 
people.
  Before I yield the floor, I thank Senator Mikulski for her 
leadership. It is not always easy to lead Senators. It is sometimes 
like trying to herd cats, but nonetheless we are responding to her 
leadership. She is doing great things, not just for the State of 
Maryland but for the country and the Senate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I will begin where Senator Pryor left off, 
and that is to commend our chairwoman for her extraordinary 
leadership--not only on behalf of her constituents but for the Nation. 
These are very difficult times, and we all feel much more confident 
because of her leadership, because of her commitment, because of her 
incredible and energetic advocacy for commonsense solutions, in terms 
of not just her work on appropriations but in terms of the way we 
conduct ourselves in the Senate. We are fortunate to have her 
leadership.
  Along with many of my colleagues I am here to address the looming 
fiscal deadlines, and, more importantly, how to keep our economy 
growing and increasing jobs. That is why I believe we were sent here, 
not to engage in some of these procedural arguments, not to challenge 
the basic presumptions and the history of our country--which show that, 
with few exceptions, we have always managed to keep our government 
open, and with virtually no exceptions we have paid our bills. Yet 
today we are consumed by these debates when most every American in 
every corner of this country is asking us: What about our jobs? What 
about growth? What about the future for our children? So we have to 
refocus on growing our economy and investing in our country. A big part 
of that is to fund our government and to pay our debts.
  Let me start by pointing out that denying health insurance to 30 
million Americans doesn't help the economy and it doesn't create jobs. 
It will do quite the opposite--it will set us back. We had substantial 
debate and we passed legislation; the Supreme Court of the United 
States declared the legislation constitutional, and we are going 
forward now, as most Americans want us to do, to deploy it, to fix it 
where it needs to be fixed, but not to use it as a political wedge for 
purely political means. We are for the first time about to achieve the 
dream of many people in many decades--that every American will have 
affordable access to health care; and, by the way, to do what other 
nations have been able to do and reduce the cost of health care so it's 
affordable, not just today but in the generations ahead. I think the 
idea that you would threaten a government shutdown to try to defeat 
this objective is unfortunate and inappropriate.
  We are facing two fiscal deadlines, and they can be reduced to very 
simple questions: Do we fund the government? Do we pay the Nation's 
bills? My answer, and the answer of the vast majority of constituents, 
is: Yes, we do. We have to.
  We understand we have to have an economy that works and a government 
that helps that economy work. We have to be efficient and effective. 
But we simply can't leave to the mercies of the market and fate what 
happens in our economy. We have to take purposeful action. That means 
we have to have a government that is prepared and able and has the 
resources to act.
  If Republicans force a shutdown of the government, it will have 
extraordinarily adverse consequences to thousands of Rhode Island 
workers, my constituents, and people all across this country. It would 
hurt our economic growth. Rather than doing this, we should be working 
to expand our growth. We should be doing more to get people back to 
work.
  But, instead, we have heard Republicans from both Chambers talking 
about another round of brinkmanship. We saw this in August 2011, and 
the results there were palpable. It set back our economy. It suppressed 
job creation. It took what looked like growing economic momentum and it 
deflated that momentum. Our credit rating was downgraded for the first 
time in anyone's recollection and perhaps in history. It was a 
shortsighted political game that hurt people all across this country. 
Yet Republicans are here again, apparently prepared to play the 
game. People do not want us to gamble with their futures, their 
children's futures. They want us to be helping them, both sides 
investing in those futures in a positive and collaborative way.

  But we are back arguing over whether to pay existing bills. Will we 
pay our bills by voting to raise the debt ceiling? Will we keep the 
government open and working so we can help people who need help, so we 
continue to research issues, so we continue to innovate, so we continue 
to build, literally, the country? We believe we must do this.
  This March, Senate Democrats passed a budget that set spending 
levels, responsibly replaced the sequester, reduced the deficit, and 
included a $100 billion targeted jobs and infrastructure package that 
would start creating new jobs quickly, begin repairing the worst of our 
crumbling roads and bridges, and help train our workers to fill 21st 
century jobs.
  The Republican-controlled House also passed a budget. It is in stark 
contrast to ours, but they have a budget too. The basic constitutional 
approach, the basic procedural approach is to bring those two budgets 
to conference, to iron out the differences, and to have a plan to go 
forward to fund the government.
  But we cannot do that because repeatedly Republicans here have 
objected to going to conference. This is ironic since the refrain we 
heard several years ago from Republicans was ``the Senate Democrats 
don't have a budget, they don't have a budget, et cetera.'' This of 
course was a political refrain; it ignored the fact that in the Budget 
Control Act of 2011 we actually set budget limits and effectively had a 
budget. But now the Republican refrain is sort of, ``never mind, they 
have a budget,'' and Senate Republicans object to conferencing the 
Senate and House budgets because they do not want the Congress to have 
a budget.
  We need to pass a budget. We need to responsibly deal with 
sequestration. We have to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.
  Last Friday, the House Republicans played their latest card in this 
gambit, which they have extended over several years, to achieve their 
political goals by holding the economy hostage. This time they want to 
defund health care reform as a condition of keeping the government 
open--indeed, a tactic that I believe even some Republicans in this 
body have rejected, and I think sensibly rejected.
  There is no doubt if the House position prevails it will hurt our 
economy, it will reduce revenue, it will waste taxpayers' dollars. 
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the shutdowns of the mid-
1990s reduced GDP by half a percent. Those shutdowns during the Clinton 
administration, again prompted by a Republican political agenda in the 
House, not an economic agenda, cost Americans jobs and growth. It is 
estimated every week the government shuts down it will cost the economy 
about $30 billion. This is a very expensive political gambit--something 
that should be rejected on its face but also rejected because of the 
harm, the demonstrable economic harm, it will do to the country. If you 
do care about jobs and the economy, the last thing you want to do is 
shut down the government.
  First of all, it eliminates directly a lot of people who work for the 
Federal Government--who pay taxes, who provide critical services. The 
secondary effect is they cannot do their job so economic activity 
stalls. Then the tertiary effect is that the local vendors in the 
community who rely on government contracts lose their business. It is a 
downward spiral. Everyone here, particularly my colleagues, the chair 
men and women of the appropriations subcommittees, recognize this.
  Senator Pryor was articulate about some of the effects on the 
agricultural sector. I have the privilege of chairing the Interior 
appropriations subcommittee. A shutdown would be very disruptive. For 
example, lease sales and permits for oil, gas and coal and other 
minerals on Federal lands would be stopped. Processing onshore oil and 
gas drilling applications would be stopped. Processing applications for 
permits to drill offshore will stop. Review and approval of offshore 
exploration and development plans will stop. What will be the effect? 
This will delay

[[Page S6913]]

revenue, obviously, both to the Federal Government and for the private 
sector, as those private entrepreneurs who are out there investing 
their own capital to try to develop natural resources and provide them 
to the marketplace will lose out too.
  Another example, public access to recreation on Federal lands will 
virtually cease. The national parks, national monuments, and national 
wildlife refuges will be closed to visitors. Campgrounds, lodging, 
visitor centers, marinas, food services, and other concessions will be 
closed, with thousands of people without jobs. Businesses that operate 
in the parks or as outdoor outfitters will not be able to access 
permitted areas.
  If you go to any national park there is typically around it a group 
of small businessmen and women who provide backpacking gear, who 
provide rental of rafts and boats and outdoor equipment. What happens 
when the park closes? Their business goes to zero, practically. That is 
a consequence that is predictable, in fact, inevitable in the event of 
a shutdown.
  There is another aspect to this government shutdown too. While many 
Federal employees will be furloughed--again directly losing their pay, 
not contributing their tax dollars to the national economy--there are 
some who will not be. In the Interior Department alone, thousands of 
Federal workers will continue their jobs in order to protect life and 
property, but they will not be paid. This will include the Park Police. 
They were one of the first responders a few days ago to the Navy Yard 
shootings. Typical of their ethic of service and dedication to the 
country, they risked their lives, rushed to that place to try to 
protect fellow Americans. Those men and women of the Park Police will 
still stand guard, but they will not be paid.
  It also includes park rangers who provide valuable safety. It would 
include tribal law enforcement officers for our tribal police 
departments, tribal child protection services, and the oil and gas 
inspectors who have to go out and make sure existing operations are 
being conducted in a technically appropriate way.
  Turning to the EPA, Administrator Gina McCarthy has said, in her 
words: ``EPA effectively shuts down with only a core group of 
individuals who are there in the event of a significant emergency.''
  EPA is planning to furlough approximately 95 percent of its total 
workforce. Staff will not be reviewing air, water, and hazardous waste 
permit applications or writing such permits. This will slow 
construction of new facilities and major improvements to existing ones, 
impacting jobs and impacting industry's overall willingness to plan 
investments.

  This could shrink construction in the United States, it could halt 
major construction projects, because you can't just take out the 
permitting process, or nullify it; these projects cannot go forward 
legally without permits, permits from EPA, permits from local 
regulators. We could have a huge construction contraction. We will have 
projects that have been planned, that are going forward, that will be 
put on hold, and it will ripple through the economy.
  EPA, for example, also will stop certifying that manufacturers are 
complying with all vehicle emission standards and without EPA 
certification, automakers will have a difficult time selling products 
in the United States.
  One of the great examples of what the President's leadership has 
done, the revitalization of the American automobile industry, could be 
jeopardized simply because they cannot have their vehicles certified by 
the EPA, which has basically closed.
  A shutdown compounds the hidden costs of the sequester. Sequestration 
is an inefficient and blunt instrument. It forces the Agency to make 
drastic decisions that frustrate that mission, that do not allow them 
to prioritize their work, and it frustrates our work here and 
throughout the United States. It will complicate and compound our life 
going forward.
  We are already feeling--put aside for the moment a potential 
government shutdown--the effects of the pending sequestration. We are 
seeing forced furloughs up in Rhode Island at the Newport Navy Base and 
other facilities and we are seeing the ripple effect of that. The local 
businesses are seeing demand go down, revenues go down. Their financial 
stability is being threatened. Rhode Islanders who have been laid off 
in private enterprises, through no fault of their own, are seeing their 
unemployment insurance cut by the sequester already. The average weekly 
benefit of $377 is being cut by $46. The Rhode Island Department of 
Labor and Training estimates 6,000 to 7000 Rhode Islanders are being 
affected, taking $1.4 million per month directly out of our economy. 
Our economy is at 9.1 percent unemployment. This is something that is 
causing pain and hardship to families throughout my State. The 
sequester is cutting back on the very modest benefits that they might 
be receiving after losing employment.
  Head Start is an extraordinarily valuable program that serves more 
than 2,400 children in my State. For fiscal year 2013, the 
sequestration has reduced funding by $1.3 million, which is a big 
number when it comes to the smallest state in the Union. To manage 
these sequestration cuts, staff have been laid off, transportation has 
been reduced, as have other support services. Even with those savings, 
370 slots--children, don't call them slots--children will not gain 
access to Head Start. That means in many cases their parents cannot 
continue to work because they cannot leave their child alone, and the 
problem becomes more and more complicated. These problems have profound 
implications and they reach very far across the spectrum.
  Then there is one other point I wish to make. Some people are saying 
sequestration is bad, but we just have to deal with the defense aspects 
of it because that is the most important thing--that these other 
programs, they can go away. Norm Augustine is one of the premier 
leaders in the defense industry. He is former chairman of Lockheed 
Martin, former Secretary of the Army. He served on so many different 
boards as one of the great public servants as well as one of the great 
industrial leaders--National Academy of Engineering, Defense Science 
Board, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In his 
speech recently, Mr. Augustine said that much of the nondefense 
spending people are dismissing as unimportant is more critical to our 
national security or as critical as some of the defense programs. He 
talked about how today's youngest generation will be the first in 
history to be less well educated than their parents, if trends 
continue. They are likely to be less healthy, particularly if we do not 
continue to support the health care improvements of the Affordable Care 
Act. One of the startling discoveries is that the military, according 
to Mr. Augustine, is claiming that 70 percent of today's young people 
are ineligible for military service because of mental, physical, and 
moral shortcomings.
  The mental and physical shortcomings are a function of two things--
education and health care. Republicans are proposing to say: Let's cut 
them. Let's defund the Affordable Care Act. Who will be the 
beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act and better Head Start and 
better education? Probably those 70 percent of the young people who 
cannot qualify to be recruits in the Army. So if you think we have a 
problem of national defense, we do have a problem of defense, but it is 
not simply solved by buying more platforms, more ships, more planes; it 
is by having a generation of Americans who can stand and serve.
  I could go on, but I simply want to say we are in a situation where 
we have to basically do what we have always done, stood and said: We 
are going to keep the government moving. We are going to make choices 
about priorities, but we are going to keep our government open. We will 
debate those choices and we will debate those priorities and we will 
come to a conclusion and we will move forward and we are going to pay 
the debts we already accumulated.
  The American people should understand this is not like an initial 
offer of a debt security.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time of the Senator has 
expired.
  Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REED. We are not going out there and saying: Listen, let us 
borrow

[[Page S6914]]

some more money so we can spend this new money. We are just trying to 
pay for programs and appropriations that have been approved by 
Congress, both Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the 
Senate. These are accumulated debt. Many of the debts were accumulated 
in the previous administration while we were fighting two wars.
  We are not--and we shouldn't--turn our back virtually for the first 
time in our history on what we have voted previously to spend. Indeed, 
if we do that, it will create chaos in the economic markets. It will 
create chaos like we have never seen before. The international markets 
are so fragile that we dare not risk this.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.


                        Tribute to Arnold Garcia

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, before I begin my other remarks today, I 
would like to say a few words about my friend, Arnold Garcia, who 
recently announced his retirement as editor of the Austin American-
Statesman editorial page. During a time of political polarization in 
Washington, Austin, and other cities across the country, Arnold enjoys 
the respect and admiration of Republicans and Democrats alike.
  He is a veteran of the United States Army and the Texas National 
Guard, and he spent 40 years at the Austin American-Statesman serving 
as head of the editorial page for more than 2 decades.
  One of the most prominent and influential journalists in Texas, 
Arnold has a great love and respect for our state, his country, and the 
men and women who defend us. He is, by all accounts, a fair-minded 
reporter--which is saying something if you are in our business, because 
we know that there is a natural adversarial relationship between the 
press and elected officials. Everyone in Texas who knows Arnold agrees 
that he is a fair-minded reporter who has always made time to talk to 
almost anyone and has always had an open door for those who wanted to 
have a discussion on virtually any topic.
  I wanted to say a few words today about Arnold Garcia.
  Arnold, I salute your pioneering accomplishments. I thank you for all 
of these years of your friendship, and I wish you and your family 
nothing but the best in this next chapter of your life.
  Mr. President, turning to the topic du jour, along with many of my 
Republican colleagues, I spent the past several days discussing all of 
the negative consequences of ObamaCare. I think it is important to 
remember that these are human consequences, not just about numbers.
  When taxes and premiums rise, when doctors are forced to drop their 
patients, when people lose their preexisting insurance coverage, when 
full-time jobs become part-time jobs, and when our health care safety 
net is stretched to the breaking point, each has a profound impact on 
the lives of real people. That's especially true for the neediest and 
most vulnerable among us who rely on the safety-net programs that the 
President's health care law is further weakening.
  To better appreciate the consequences of ObamaCare, we should 
consider the following questions:
  Question No. 1: What does ObamaCare mean to a 28-year-old college 
graduate who can only find part-time work and living with his parents?
  It means he will either pay higher insurance premiums or pay higher 
taxes, and it also means he will have a harder time finding full-time 
employment and starting a career.
  Question No. 2: What does ObamaCare mean for a single mom who is 
insured with Medicaid--that safety-net program I was talking about?
  It means that her family's primary insurance program, a program that 
is already broken--for example, in my State only one doctor out of 
every three will see a new Medicaid patient because it reimburses at 
such a low rate. So Medicaid is already failing to reliably deliver 
access to health care. With ObamaCare, and the dumping of millions of 
additional people into this broken program, it means this program will 
be flooded with millions of new beneficiaries, and it means Medicaid 
will soon be even less effective at delivering access to quality health 
care to the most vulnerable people in our society, the very people it 
was designed to protect.
  Question number 3: What does ObamaCare mean to a 70-year-old retiree 
who is enrolled in Medicare?
  It means that fewer and fewer doctors will accept him or her as a 
patient, because Medicare pays doctors at a fraction of what private 
health insurance pays in terms of reimbursements for their services. 
ObamaCare also means that unelected bureaucrats will soon be making 
decisions about whether they will get the care their doctor believes 
they need.
  Question No. 4: What does ObamaCare mean for a working family that 
has been receiving employer-provided health insurance from their small 
business?
  It means they very easily could lose their existing coverage and get 
dumped into an ObamaCare exchange. It also means they could very easily 
find themselves paying higher premiums for lower-quality insurance.
  The final question I would ask is: What does ObamaCare mean for a 
small business owner with 49 employees?
  It means they have a powerful incentive to stay below that 50-
employee cap which would then kick them over into the employer sanction 
if they don't provide government-approved health care for all of their 
employees. So their incentive is to keep employment low and not hire 
anymore workers because of ObamaCare's extensive regulations and 
financial penalties.
  As we think about each of these questions, we should also think about 
what business owners across America are telling us--I daresay all of 
them--about ObamaCare. For example, a small business owner named Linda 
Peters who runs a radio communications company in Anchorage, AK, 
recently said ObamaCare's health insurance tax ``hurts our future and 
threatens the stability of the small-business sector.''
  In Arkansas, the owner of Little Rock Tours and Travel, a woman named 
Gina Martin has said, ``None of us really understand how we are going 
to continue to stay in business.''
  In Louisiana, the owner of Dots Diner restaurant group, a gentleman 
by the name of Larry Katz recently told a Senate committee that he was 
being ``forced to put 16 people out of work just to save himself from 
the negative effects of [ObamaCare].''
  In North Carolina, a franchise holder of the popular Five Guys burger 
chain, a man named Mike Ruffed, has estimated that ObamaCare will cost 
him roughly an additional $60,000 a year.
  Each of the business owners I mentioned lives in a State with at 
least one Democratic Senator who voted for ObamaCare back in 2009. I 
want to emphasize once again that ObamaCare is not inevitable. Any law 
that Congress passes it can repeal, it can amend, and it can change.
  The Members of this Chamber now have an opportunity to correct the 
mistake that the Senate Democrats made in 2009 when ObamaCare passed on 
a party-line vote. All the Democrats voted for it, and all the 
Republicans voted against it--including me. We now have an opportunity 
to stop this law before it does any more damage to people like those I 
mentioned and millions more across America.
  To add insult to injury, yesterday we learned that the IRS has 
somehow misplaced $67 million that was allocated to the ObamaCare slush 
fund. I daresay, given all of the money being pushed into the 
implementation of ObamaCare, we can expect more stories like that in 
the weeks and months ahead, unless Congress acts.
  As I said, I am proud to say I voted against ObamaCare 4 years ago 
because I simply did not see how it could possibly work. I was 
concerned about the higher taxes on hard-working American families such 
as my constituents in Texas. I was concerned about the command and 
control of Washington, DC, on all the health care decisions that should 
have been left to doctors, patients, and families trying to work 
together to determine what is in the best interests of those 
individuals and those families.
  And, yes, I was concerned that the government would continue to cut 
reimbursements to providers which would make it more and more likely 
that fewer and fewer doctors and hospitals could actually see Medicare 
or Medicaid patients. I was concerned

[[Page S6915]]

that ObamaCare represented a statement and an attitude that Washington 
knows best and that nothing anybody has done at innovative medical 
facilities around the country and in different States matters because 
Washington really knows best.
  Many people had the audacity to say that even though ObamaCare was 
unpopular when it was passed, people would learn to love it--sort of 
like when Social Security and Medicare were originally passed.
  Many of our Democratic colleagues who were responsible for giving us 
ObamaCare have what we don't have often in life, and that is a second 
chance. These Senate Democrats who voted for ObamaCare--having seen and 
heard the stories I just described--have a second chance to help save 
the American people from a looming disaster. When we have people like 
Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, on which 
I serve, telling Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human 
Services, that the implementation of ObamaCare is like a train wreck, 
we ought to listen.
  When some of the biggest cheerleaders for ObamaCare, such as 
organized labor, are now traveling to the White House and saying: 
Please, Mr. President, won't you give us a waiver or exemption because 
this is turning out different than you told us it would, we ought to 
listen.
  Full-time work--the 40-hour workweek--is in jeopardy because in order 
to protect themselves from employer sanctions, employers are moving 
people from full-time work to part-time work--if they can hire people 
at all--which may be one reason why the labor participation rate, which 
is a percentage of Americans who are actually in the workforce looking 
for work, is the lowest it has been in the last 30 years.
  As I said earlier, each of these stories is a human tragedy, and the 
stories behind the numbers tell a very sobering tale. But we are now 
powerless to deal with this looming disaster and impending train wreck, 
as Senator Baucus said.
  I hope Senate Democrats will vote with Senate Republicans and take a 
stand, as we will have a chance to do, when we get a chance to vote to 
defund ObamaCare on the continuing resolution. If we do, we will be 
protecting the American people from one of the most unpopular, 
unworkable, and unaffordable laws in modern history.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would like to elaborate on the comments 
from my colleague from Texas who I think laid out in very clear terms 
what is at stake and the debate we are having and really what the vote 
that we are going to have here in the not-too-distant future means.
  I think it is pretty clear--if we look at any objective measurement 
or metric--ObamaCare is a huge disaster, and obviously we have seen 
tremendous anecdotal evidence of that. Anybody who travels in their 
State or around the country or talks to anybody who is in business, the 
message comes back very clear that ObamaCare is making it more 
difficult and more expensive for them to create jobs.
  It is creating uncertainty; there are mandates and requirements 
associated with the new law because employers are being forced to 
provide a government-approved plan, and so costs go up. As a result, 
that means there are people who are not getting hired who otherwise 
might have gotten hired. Companies are looking at reducing their 
workforce and obviously creating a tremendous amount of disruption in 
our economy. I think it is pretty evident that the middle class in 
particular is being crushed by the President's policies, and ObamaCare 
is certainly no exception.

  Yesterday, in Forbes magazine, Avik Roy reported on a recent study 
done by the Manhattan Institute that ObamaCare will increase insurance 
rates for younger men by an average of 97 to 99 percent and for younger 
women by an average of 55 to 62 percent.
  In my home State of South Dakota, that is more than just a statistic, 
it is a grim reality facing thousands of young men and women. By 
comparing a typical low-cost plan for a healthy 30-year-old in South 
Dakota this year with a bronze plan in South Dakota's health care 
exchange next year, the premium increases are staggering. Younger women 
are going to face a 223-percent premium increase and younger men are 
going to face a 393-percent--393-percent--premium increase when 
comparing new data from the Health and Human Services Department with 
data that came out from the Government Accountability Office about 
premiums in my State just this year--earlier in January.
  For those millennials in South Dakota, that is a $1,500 increase in 
health care premiums each year for women and a more than $2,000 
increase in health care premiums for men. So the money that could be 
used for other things will now be put toward this increase in health 
insurance premiums that people are going to have to pay to get covered. 
They could have used that money to pay off a student loan. They could 
have used it to save for a home or to start a family. So this has a 
tremendous impact on the economy and particularly on those who are 
going to get hit hardest, and in my State of South Dakota, not unlike 
other States around the country, it is young people, younger men and 
younger women.
  Interestingly enough, the President is talking about how the HHS 
study or report confirms what they have been saying, which is that 
somehow premiums are going to go down. The reason they are saying that 
is because they are comparing the exchange premiums--what they think 
people are going to pay--with what the Congressional Budget Office 
predicted they might pay earlier this year. So it is a hypothetical. It 
is a mythical comparison. There is nothing to it. It is fiction, if you 
will.
  What we have to do is make this real for people. When we make it 
real, when we compare it to what they are paying today, young people in 
particular are going to see dramatic increases in their premiums. So 
the report was a complete fraud in terms of informing people with real 
information about what their health insurance premiums are going to be 
under these exchanges. As I just pointed out, when we compare what they 
would be paying in the exchange in my State with what people are paying 
today with similar-type coverage, the increases are staggering--a 223-
percent premium increase for younger women and a 393-percent increase 
for younger men.
  They are saying that some of these individuals are going to be 
eligible for premium tax credits to help cover the increased costs, but 
not everyone is eligible for those premium tax credits. A lot of people 
are not going to be eligible for the credits, and they don't cover all 
the costs. According to a new analysis by Avalere Health, Americans 
could face steep cost-sharing requirements, such as copayments, 
coinsurance, and deductibles, layered on top of the monthly premiums, 
which are going to increase dramatically. It is clear that health care 
costs are going up, particularly for younger Americans.
  President Obama promised that health care premiums would go down by 
an average of $2,500 per family. If we look at what the real situation 
is with regard to families, those premiums have actually jumped by more 
than $2,500 since the President took office and since ObamaCare became 
law. So we have costs that continue to increase despite the President's 
promises to the contrary, and household income has been dropping since 
the time the President has been in office--about $3,700, according to a 
recent study. So when an American family is looking at their economic 
situation, they are saying: Let me get this straight. I have higher 
costs and lower income. How does the President expect that we are going 
to be able to cover these higher costs?
  That is the reality, as I said, that most Americans are dealing with 
and that people in my State of South Dakota are dealing with, 
particularly millennials, who are going to be most adversely and 
harmfully impacted by the new plan.
  With respect to jobs, the other thing I wish to point out--obviously 
the cost of health care is a very important situation and something 
every American has to think about as they think about their own 
personal economic circumstances, but we also have to have jobs, and 
most people get health insurance coverage--a lot of them do--through 
their job. Well, what is the

[[Page S6916]]

ObamaCare legislation doing to our jobs and to our economy? Nearly 
three in four small businesses plan to fire workers or to cut hours as 
a result of ObamaCare. According to Investor's Business Daily, more 
than 250 employers have cut jobs or slashed hours as a direct result of 
ObamaCare's high cost and job-killing regulations.
  Another thing that is important to point out is that 60 percent of 
the jobs created this year are part-time jobs--not full-time jobs, 
part-time jobs. The way the ObamaCare legislation and the law is 
structured, there is a disincentive for companies to grow because if 
they get bigger, if they get more than 50 employees, they will be 
subject to a lot of new regulations and mandates when they provide 
government-approved health care.
  There is also a definition in the law of what a full-time employee 
is. If someone works more than 30 hours, they are a full-time employee. 
So what are companies doing? What are businesses doing? They are hiring 
more and more people to work 29 hours a week. The President is probably 
going to go down in history as the President who created the most part-
time jobs. But Americans want full-time jobs, they want to be able to 
have a job that allows them to make ends meet for their families, to 
plan for their children's education and for their own retirement, and 
having to work more than one job--multiple part-time jobs--just doesn't 
get it done for them. So this trend we are seeing occur of part-time 
jobs being created is largely because of mandates imposed in ObamaCare.
  The middle class is being squeezed from both ends. Americans' 
premiums are going up, while their hours and take-home pay are going 
down.
  The job impacts are as clear across the country as they are in my 
State of South Dakota. I wish to give one example of a South Dakota 
business owner who was recently interviewed. He was asked in that 
interview about the higher costs and mandates of ObamaCare, and this is 
what he said:

       You'll just have to adjust accordingly and you'll have to 
     cut jobs, and you probably won't hire as many people, and I 
     think you'll see a lot of that.

  That is a small business owner in my State of South Dakota responding 
to a question about the impact of ObamaCare on his ability to hire 
people, to create jobs, and to help expand his business and grow the 
economy in my State.
  It is no wonder the President's approval rating is underwater. Nearly 
60 percent of Americans say they oppose ObamaCare, the President's 
signature accomplishment. So while support for the President's 
signature law continues to fade, we are also seeing an impact on the 
President's personal approval rating. For the first time, more 
Americans view the President unfavorably than they do favorably. 
According to yesterday's Gallup poll, the President is struggling with 
his own base. Support among Democrats has dropped 13 points since 
December of 2012.

  I say all that to point out that the effects of these policies--
particularly ObamaCare in the specific--are having an impact on the 
President's standing. I think people are understanding what the impacts 
are, what the effects of this are, what the results of this are, and 
they are starting to react accordingly.
  What is also of great concern to anybody who is thinking about going 
into an exchange or looking to do this next week when the exchanges 
``go live'' or go online is that there are an awful lot of glitches and 
bumps. As I said, premiums are on the rise, workers' jobs, wages, and 
hours are being cut, and now we have glitches and bumps when it comes 
to implementation. The latest example of an ObamaCare glitch comes from 
the District of Columbia exchanges. A report that came out just 
yesterday said the District of Columbia ObamaCare exchange is 
experiencing ``a high error rate'' in calculating the tax credits that 
low- and middle-income people are going to receive. You can't make this 
stuff up. The government-run exchange is experiencing ``a high error 
rate'' in handling health care. Who would have thought that would be 
the case? These exchange shoppers are not going to have access to the 
premium prices now until mid-November. This is according to the recent 
report on the District of Columbia.
  There are similar glitches happening at the Federal level as well and 
in other States. Oregon and Colorado have faced setbacks.
  Reuters reports:

       On Monday, employees running Connect for Health Colorado 
     told board members that the exchange would not be able to 
     calculate federal subsidies either, at least for the first 
     few weeks.

  Inaccuracies, glitches, and malfunctions mean this law is not ready 
for prime time.
  Meanwhile, we have top Democrats here in the Congress who I think are 
in complete denial. The President said earlier this summer, ``I think 
it's important for us to recognize and acknowledge this is working the 
way it is supposed to.'' Representative Pelosi on the House side said, 
``The implementation of this is fabulous.'' Senator Reid said on ``Meet 
the Press'' not too long ago, ``ObamaCare has been wonderful for 
America.'' Well, that message is being lost on Americans.
  We have an opportunity to correct that. We get a chance at a do-over. 
We can fix this. We can correct this wrong. We can do this in a much 
better way. It doesn't take a 2,700-page bill and 20,000 pages of 
regulations to fix the problems we have in our health care system 
today. What we have now is a government takeover of one-sixth of our 
economy, and we are seeing what that means for many Americans: higher 
premiums, higher costs, fewer jobs, lower take-home pay, and glitches 
and bumps when it comes to implementation.
  At a minimum--at a minimum--we ought to delay the implementation of 
this not just for a favored few, not just for those select constituents 
the President wants to grant waivers and exceptions for, but we should 
allow a delay of ObamaCare for all Americans because it is not ready 
for prime time.
  I think ultimately what maybe drives or motivates people to stay with 
this in spite of all this--every day, news stories, news organizations 
talking about the flaws, the errors in implementation; the, I guess, 
overpromises made by the administration when it comes to what costs 
were going to be for people and whether they would be able to keep 
their old insurance--but when we look at all that, the cumulative 
effect of all of that, the wise thing for us to do is to recognize that 
this was a mistake and, at a minimum, delay its implementation. At 
best, my favorite scenario would be to repeal it and start over.
  I think we have a lot of people here, as was mentioned by Senator 
Reid not too long ago, whose goal really is to get to a single-payer 
system. If that is the goal, then people want this thing to muddle 
along and get so bad that the only thing people are left with is a 
single-payer system--in other words, socialized medicine. I don't think 
that is consistent with what the American people want. It is certainly 
not consistent with our history and heritage of freedom and competition 
and giving people in this country more choices. That might explain why 
many of the things we have proposed, alternatives we have proposed on 
this side of the aisle, consistently get voted down.
  Why don't we allow people to buy insurance across State lines and 
create interstate competition that drives prices down? Why don't we 
allow pooling for small businesses so they can get the benefit of group 
purchasing power? Why don't we reduce the cost of defensive medicine by 
ending junk lawsuits in this country? Why don't we allow people to have 
their own refundable tax credit so they can buy their own health 
insurance? We want to come up with a system that is portable, that 
creates competition, that allows people to have more choices, and that 
is based upon market impulses and market principle. When we have a free 
market and it is working, we get much lower costs because competition 
brings that about.
  I hope we can get to the point where we acknowledge that this was the 
wrong direction. We are going to have a chance to vote on that later 
today. The vote that is going to be before us--and I am not aware of 
any Republican in this Chamber who is not going to vote to defund 
ObamaCare--will present us with an opportunity, as Republicans and 
Democrats, to acknowledge what the American people have already 
recognized, which is that this is not working. It is not working as it 
was intended, it is not working as planned, and the best thing we can 
do is acknowledge that and give the

[[Page S6917]]

American people a break and give the American economy a break by 
delaying its implementation or, more importantly, just repealing it and 
starting over and doing this the right way by building upon the 
strengths we have in our health care delivery system today, 
acknowledging the challenges and weaknesses but things that can be 
fixed without passing a 2,700-page bill and 20,000 pages of 
regulations.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the Senator from South 
Dakota and his words but also his leadership, not only in this area but 
in so many areas of such importance facing our Nation. Again, we 
appreciate him very much.
  With the exchanges set to open in a matter of days, we are getting an 
up-close and personal look at how bad this law is for Arkansans.
  On Monday, the ObamaCare premiums were released for the Arkansas 
exchanges. The exchanges were supposed to provide choices. The 
President said it would be like booking travel on Expedia.
  Do you know how many insurance companies you can pick from in el 
Dorado and Magnolia? Two. In Pine Bluff, Helena, and Lake Village? Two. 
In Jonesboro and Hot Springs? Three.
  There are not a lot of options, and none of them are affordable. 
Sticker shock, I think, is the best way to describe the response I have 
heard from Arkansans.
  Yesterday, a caller to my Fort Smith office said he could barely 
afford his diabetic medicine. With the new premiums, he simply cannot 
afford it. That is one example of many similar calls i have received 
and am receiving.
  With a pricetag of nearly $3 trillion, the law creates more problems 
than it solves. It drives up health care costs, busts our budget, 
bankrupts Medicare, and deflates our economy. On top of that, it does 
not create economic stability for Arkansans. It raises their taxes.
  On some level, even President Obama acknowledges this will not work. 
He has delayed, without legal recourse, the employer health care 
mandate. More relief for other allies will certainly come. It is clear 
the White House is picking and choosing who has to comply with the law, 
which leaves the rest of America asking: Where is my exemption? Why 
can't everyone get a special deal? They rightfully want to know why 
they have to follow a law the President's allies are not following.
  Every Republican in this Chamber wrote the President shortly after he 
made this decision to delay the employer mandate. We demanded that he 
extend relief to the public. In fact, we asked him to permanently delay 
implementation for everyone.
  Senator Coats and I, along with several other of our colleagues, have 
introduced a bill that would accomplish just that because this law is 
not just bad for U.S. businesses, it is bad for workers, it is bad for 
American families.
  The President says he is working for a ``better bargain for the 
middle class.'' This law crushes the middle class. It is going to make 
coverage unaffordable for everyone, including the very people the 
President seeks to provide coverage to--low-income workers.
  Because this law is poorly written, a worker making $21,000 a year 
may be offered plans with premiums that are near $2,000. How is this 
affordable? For a basic plan they could also face an annual deductible 
upwards of $3,000 before coverage kicks in. That is almost a quarter of 
the annual salary of a worker making $21,000. And this is supposed to 
be affordable?
  One of my constituents hit the nail on the head during a telephone 
townhall I had on Monday night when he said this law is actually making 
health insurance more expensive for the average person.
  Nowhere in the 20,000 pages of regulations can you find one that 
drives down the cost of health care. That is the core of the problem.
  This law has to be replaced with reforms that drive down the cost of 
health care and make insurance truly affordable for every American.
  Instead of allowing the government to dictate our health care needs, 
we should strive to reward quality health care, encourage healthy 
living, and minimize waste through patient choice and health care 
ownership.
  We should pass laws that expand health savings accounts. We should 
allow small businesses, people such as my barber, to pool together with 
other barbers and purchase group insurance to cover their employees at 
a low rate. We need to allow Americans to purchase insurance across 
State lines, as we do for car insurance.
  There are other reform avenues we can explore, some I think that we 
can even get the majority and the President to support.
  Every Republican in this Chamber wants to do away with this law. We 
may disagree on strategy, but we all seek the same goal.
  For me and many of my colleagues, it is hard to find the logic in 
opposing a bill that defunds ObamaCare. Again, this bill the House has 
sent us is exactly what we were trying to accomplish. It defunds 
ObamaCare and keeps the government open. We must also ensure it keeps 
us on a path to fiscal responsibility.
  If the majority leader attempts to restore funding for ObamaCare, you 
can be assured that I will vote against it.
  My vocal opposition to the law, my record of voting against the 
original bill, and my support of efforts to repeal it are evidence that 
I want to replace this law with real reform that will drive down the 
cost of care and increase coverage for all.
  However, at the end of the day, it is not wise to force a shutdown by 
holding up a bill to continue the funding of government. Our troops in 
harm's way deserve to be paid. Seniors in Arkansas need their Social 
Security checks in a timely manner just to get by. And Arkansans who 
have jobs that require government action--regardless of the situation--
will have their livelihoods at stake as a result of a shutdown.
  Perhaps most concerning is what a shutdown could do to the markets in 
this very fragile economy. Our economy is in a far more precarious 
position than it was during the last shutdown. The retirement and 
savings of millions of Arkansans could take a dramatic hit.
  We face a serious crisis. Health care costs are crippling this 
country and many Americans lack access to quality affordable care. It 
is stifling our Nation's overall economic development. These are real 
difficulties patients, physicians, and hospitals face.
  I understand this problem firsthand. For 24 years, I practiced 
optometry with my brother and my partners in Arkansas. My experience as 
both a health care practitioner and a clinic owner led me to understand 
there is a right way and a wrong way to address this crisis. The 
President's health care law is the wrong way. Let's move forward by 
supporting the House-passed continuing resolution that defunds 
ObamaCare. Let's work together for affordable and effective health care 
reforms through free market principles.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I rise to discuss the current dilemma 
before the Senate with regard to whether to vote on the motion to close 
debate and go to the debate and final vote, if you will, on the House-
passed version of the CR which put in the language that defunds 
ObamaCare.
  I will vote yes for cloture so we can go to the vote I have promised 
my constituents in my State 57 different times in other votes I have 
cast in the Senate in favor of defunding the ObamaCare legislation 
because I believe there is a better way to do it.
  We only have two options before us. One is to end debate and go to a 
vote on legislation passed out of the House that will continue the 
government and defund ObamaCare, understanding the leadership will have 
an amendment to strip out the defunding. I will vote against that 
amendment because I want to be consistent with the other 57 votes I 
have taken.
  But the other alternative is an alternative not to shut off debate, 
to continue the debate, which means we come up to Monday night, 
midnight, when the fiscal year ends and the government shuts down. 
Government shutdowns are a bad idea. They are bad for the people who 
send us here to this body to represent them. They are bad for seniors 
on Social Security. They are bad for those whose husbands and wives and 
sons and daughters are fighting in harm's way in Afghanistan and

[[Page S6918]]

other parts of the world. It hurts our military. It hurts our health 
care system. And it does not do anything to stop ObamaCare.
  What a lot of people do not realize is, if you shut the government 
down, you are not shutting down ObamaCare. A great percentage of that 
is mandatory funding. If you shut the government down, you are actually 
encouraging ObamaCare and discouraging our government to function as it 
should.
  I will not vote to shut the government down. I will vote to end the 
debate. And I will vote in the way that I have promised every citizen 
of my State since the ObamaCare legislation came before us.
  Look, I am on the HELP Committee. We did the markup on the Affordable 
Care Act in 2009. Like almost every other Member of the Senate, I was 
here on Christmas Eve 2009 and voted against the ObamaCare legislation 
on the final vote. Since that period of time we have had a plethora of 
votes and challenges and opportunities, and I have remained consistent. 
I am not going to all of a sudden, in a debate, change my consistency 
and vote to shut down the government and continue ObamaCare. I want to 
be consistent with the way I voted. I want the Senate to take up its 
responsibility. I want us to be sure we do not shut down the government 
for our people. I want to be sure everybody in the Senate has the 
opportunity to cast their vote, both on the continuing resolution and 
on whether ObamaCare stays or is defunded. That is the question before 
us--not whether we shut the government down.
  So while I respect and appreciate everybody's position, I think it is 
irresponsible for us as a Senate to knowingly and voluntarily shut down 
our government and extend ObamaCare when we have the opportunity to 
have the debate, have the vote, strip out the funding for ObamaCare, 
and move forward as some of us have tried.
  I do not know how it will end up. I think I know. But I know one 
thing: Inaction and not voting is wrong. The people of Georgia sent me 
here to take action, not to avoid action. They sent me here to run the 
government, not to shut down the government. In fact, I got to the 
Senate and the House because of a government shutdown, and I want to 
tell that story.
  In the 1990s, when President Clinton was President and Newt Gingrich 
was Speaker, many issues came about on fiscal spending, and the Speaker 
and the President and the majority leader of the Senate, Bob Dole, got 
in a conflict over whether to extend the budget. The Republicans took 
the position: We will shut the government down rather than yield to 
what President Clinton wants to do. So the government shut down. About 
3 weeks later, the government was brought back. The Speaker, Mr. 
Gingrich, came back and capitulated. We reopened the government, but he 
lost a lot of ground. Two years later he was reelected by a narrow 
margin but was not reelected Speaker and resigned. I replaced him. Be 
careful if you shut down the government. You might get another me.
  So that is what happens when government happens. The voters speak 
out. The voters make sure we are accountable and responsible. It cost 
us a Speakership. It cost us leadership in the House, and politically 
that is unsustainable and something we should not do.
  I want to be a part of doing my responsible action, voting like I 
have told my voters I am going to vote; instead of shutting down the 
government, having the vote we need to have to see which way we are 
going to move forward as a country.
  I yield the remainder of my time 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. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam 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 New Mexico. For this hour of majority time, I ask 
unanimous consent that the following Senators have 15 minutes each: 
Senator Udall of New Mexico, Senator Merkley, Senator Baldwin, and 
Senator Whitehouse.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Five years ago, our economy went off a 
cliff. We all remember how bad it was. Wall Street crashed, great 
industries faced ruin, trillions of dollars in savings of American 
families gone, wiped out. That was the reality. It was a nightmare for 
millions of Americans. They lost their jobs, they lost their homes. So 
many saw a lifetime's work disappear through no fault of their own.
  Five years later we are slowly making our way back. We have seen 42 
months of private sector job growth. That is 7.5 million jobs. That is 
a new start for millions of Americans, but as families in New Mexico 
know, having a job in this economy does not mean the struggles are 
over. We are moving forward, but not fast enough. Too many folks in my 
State are still looking for jobs, or they are working and still 
struggling to pay for rent, food, and gas. They still have not caught 
up to where they were before, even though they are working harder than 
ever.
  New Mexico's unemployment remains too high. It is at 6.9 percent, and 
it has been stuck at around 7 percent for far too long. We still have a 
way to go, so we can't afford any more self-inflicted wounds--no more 
manufactured crises and no more manufactured government dysfunction.
  Unfortunately, we are seeing this again and again. A minority of 
radical obstructionists in the House and in the Senate is threatening a 
government shutdown unless they get their way. They wish to repeal the 
law of the land even though they lack the votes to do so. They are 
driving us toward another cliff.
  They are willing to endanger the full faith and credit of the United 
States, all for their narrow ideological agenda. The American people 
will be the ones who feel the consequences.
  There is no reason for this drama that threatens our struggling 
economy. The American people don't want this. From Wall Street to Main 
Street, most Americans are watching this spectacle with disbelief. They 
are looking for progress, for recovery, and they are getting gridlock 
over and over, with no budget, no long-term plan. If this continues, we 
have a government in paralysis--all this to drive a tank through health 
care reform.
  The American people don't want to shut down the government to prevent 
people from getting their health insurance. They want jobs and they 
want economic recovery.
  It is clear to folks on all sides of this desperate stunt that this 
is dangerous. Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a leftist 
group, has said, ``Stop.'' Last week they told the Representatives:

       It is not in the best interest of the U.S. business 
     community or the American people to risk even a brief 
     government shutdown. . . . Likewise, the U.S. Chamber 
     respectfully urges the House of Representatives to raise the 
     debt ceiling in a timely manner and thus eliminate any 
     question of threat to the full faith and credit of the United 
     States Government.

  We need to move past these partisan games and get back to working on 
our economy. We need to provide stability so our Nation's families and 
businesses can grow and prosper. We need to pass a bill that prevents a 
government shutdown and funds the programs critical to our economic 
health.
  I wish to talk about the effect on my home State of New Mexico. New 
Mexico's economy can't afford these partisan games. We are already 
struggling with sequestration.
  In New Mexico, sequestration is a painful reality, having a chilling 
effect on our economy. Folks are worried about their jobs. The most 
vulnerable groups--the poor, families with children, seniors, and 
Native Americans--face serious cuts in education and social services.
  Our State has two great national laboratories, Sandia and Los Alamos. 
Their work is essential to the security and safety of all Americans, 
keeping our Nation's nuclear stockpile safe and secure.
  We are host to three Air Force bases, as well as White Sands Missile 
Range. This budget impasse is damaging to these installations and it 
threatens economic chaos in the nearby communities.
  Businesses that rely on Federal contracts wonder if they can keep 
their doors open. Sequestration is already

[[Page S6919]]

damaging small businesses that survived the recession, businesses such 
as Queston Construction, a general contractor. Queston's president, 
Tina Cordova, has seen the number of employees shrink from near 40 to 
only 18 today.
  Then there are the businesses such as PSC, a 100-percent Native-
American, woman-owned security personnel business that had to let go 
employees last year. Threatening shutdowns only makes this worse.
  These partisan games are also hurting businesses that depend on 
tourism. According to the National Park Service, New Mexico's national 
parks and monuments had 1.5 million visitors last year. We can't afford 
to close down sites such as Bandelier National Monument, Carlsbad 
Canyons, Chaco Canyon, Tent Rocks National Monument, Bosque del Apache 
Wildlife Refuge, and a host of other unique and special places. 
Customers who visit these sites stay in our hotels and eat in our 
restaurants. Tourism means big dollars for New Mexico and our small 
businesses, about $5.9 billion in direct spending.
  However, here we are with a House resolution that is playing politics 
with our economy. This is a dead end. We are on the wrong train, the 
wrong track, and going nowhere. Americans understand this, and I think 
that is why they are so disappointed in us.
  Our economy can't afford even the threat of government shutdown. Too 
many businesses and families are still barely making ends meet 5 years 
after Wall Street crashed.
  Today's vote is some good news. We are facing obstruction, but we are 
moving forward. In a bipartisan way, I believe the Senate can do its 
job. It can pass a bill to fund the government without partisan poison 
pill amendments. Then it will go back to the House. With little time to 
spare, we can only hope the House leaders will come to their senses and 
allow a bipartisan bill, not a partisan bill, to move forward.
  When that happens, if it happens, we have more challenges ahead. The 
House has drastically underfunded programs that American people depend 
on.
  I spoke about the impact on New Mexico. Now I wish to speak for a 
minute as chairman of an appropriations subcommittee.
  We see the needs out there. We see the need for investments. We can't 
keep kicking the can down the road hoping that somehow a miracle will 
happen and our roads and bridges will fix themselves, that our veterans 
will get the resources they need without funding, and that our national 
labs will be able to take on additional responsibilities without 
additional resources.
  In the case of my subcommittee, Financial Services and General 
Government, we are making sure our financial systems are sound so 
Americans won't have to worry about a collapse, about losing their 
retirement, their homes, or their life savings. We are making sure we 
do not need a government bailout again and we are protecting consumers 
against fraud.
  The House bill would put all of those important functions at risk. We 
can't afford that, the American people can't afford that, and we will 
continue fighting for a commonsense path forward.
  One of the areas in my subcommittee is small business and funding the 
Small Business Administration. If we go into a government shutdown, the 
Small Business Administration closes down. All those small businesses 
across America that rely on loans, rely on advice, and rely on small 
business development centers aren't going to be able to do that, take 
an idea from the beginning of a business through a business plan. It is 
going to thwart entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. We can't afford 
that.
  I plead with my friends in the House, when you get our bill this week 
or near the end of the week, please think long and hard. Let's pass it 
and move this forward.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise today to address some of the 
challenges we face here on September 26. The significance of that date 
is it is only 4 days before September 30, the close of the financial 
year, and October 1, the following day, starts a new financial year. So 
it has been our responsibility as a Congress to prepare for October 1 
by passing a budget, reconciling that budget with the House of 
Representatives, then using that budget to produce 12 appropriations 
bills, reconciling those 12 appropriations bills, and have a spending 
plan completely in place so that we smoothly begin the start of a new 
financial year. No crisis, just adults working out a spending plan for 
the next 12 months on time.
  I would like to say that is where we are today. But instead, as I 
stand here on the floor of the Senate, we are only 5 days away from a 
shutdown of the U.S. Government, a shutdown because that spending plan 
has not been put together. For the many Americans who have been 
following the challenges of the last couple of years, this will sound a 
little like deja vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra, because we 
have been here before. We have been through this crisis before.
  Indeed, it was April 2011 when we had a near government shutdown, and 
that had a huge impact on job creation, and it had a big impact on the 
stock market. In other words, it wounded our economy at a time when 
Americans wanted us to build a strong foundation for a better economy, 
to create jobs for the middle class, to put people back to work, and to 
get momentum built up to put American families in a better place. 
Instead, we had this manufactured crisis in April 2011, courtesy of my 
colleagues, who felt more about exercising partisan warfare than caring 
about the success of our middle-class families. Quite simply, that is 
just wrong.
  Then it was just months later, in July of 2011, when we had a debt 
ceiling crisis. This is quite interesting, because the debt ceiling is 
simply a term for paying the bills we have already incurred. President 
Reagan had something to say about this. President Reagan said: Don't 
mess with the good faith and credit of the United States of America. We 
pay our bills on time. And we have always paid our bills on time. We 
didn't manufacture crises to do damage to the economy because of 
extremely poisoned partisanship gripping this Chamber and the Chamber 
on the other side of Capitol Hill.
  Not only did that combination of crises do significant damage, but in 
2012 we faced the big fiscal cliff. This is where the tax structure 
developed under the Bush Presidency was set to expire, so a new set of 
policies had to be worked out. We were unable to have that adult, 
responsible conversation due to the extreme partisanship gripping this 
Chamber and gripping the other Chamber. So we had a crisis at the close 
of that year that, quite frankly, did damage as well. Suddenly 
businesses were seeing that not only did we have the great recession of 
2008, as a result of out-of-control failures in regulation that allowed 
predatory mortgages and predatory securities--securities that melted 
down and took a large part of America's financial world with them--but 
we had this follow-on of not being able to have a reasonable, 
thoughtful, commonsense budget plan in place to take us forward.
  So 2012 led to March of 2013--3 months later--and now we had the 
delayed implementation of the sequester. The sequester comes from the 
Budget Control Act--an Act I voted against because Members on both 
sides of the aisle described it as ``dumb and dumber,'' so dumb we will 
not let it happen. I thought it was so dumb it should never be written 
into law, so I voted against it. But I was on the losing side of that 
battle. So this diabolical financial plan exploded onto the American 
scene in March 2013, creating a significant problem for the American 
economy and doing significant damage to the American economy. And here 
we are, 6 months later, unable to complete our budget and our 
appropriations bills for the coming financial year.
  This has become a pattern where we see ourselves lurching from crisis 
to crisis--manufactured crises--due to this poisoning partisanship, 
rather than working together to address the challenges of working 
families and the middle class. The American people are

[[Page S6920]]

quite tired of it. That is why they rate the quality of work we are 
doing so low. That is why they rate Congress so low.
  There was a time not so long ago when it was a very different story. 
When I was growing up, the story about Congress was that we had had 
this Great Depression but we came together as a Nation and recognized 
many of the problems that contributed to that. Those problems included 
allowing banks to stop doing loans and start gambling on risky 
ventures, and we stopped that when we put in Glass-Steagall. It 
included having mortgages that were balloon mortgages, and those could 
be called in at any time, which meant an individual had to return to 
the mortgage market to get a replacement loan. That created a crisis 
for a family if the loan was called and they couldn't actually get 
another loan. So we fixed that by creating full amortizing long-term 
mortgages with no balloon payments, and we got rid of that callable 
feature.
  We also created the Securities and Exchange Commission to take on the 
predatory scams and practices of Wall Street so people would have faith 
in investing. Faith in investing meant you had the capital to fuel a 
strong comeback.
  We created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation so people could 
trust putting their money in banks, knowing the bank wouldn't collapse 
and take their money with them.
  We did all these things as a Congress, coming together to respond to 
great national problems. Sure, there was some partisanship, some 
disagreement between the parties, but there was a deeper understanding 
that we as Americans must work together as Americans, including on the 
floor of the House and the Senate, for the greater benefit of our 
American families.
  Unfortunately, that has apparently been lost. It has been lost not 
just in these last few days but in these last few years.
  When World War II was thrust upon us, in a short period of time, with 
congressional help, we transformed our economy into a war economy and 
played a big role in basically resolving a terrible worldwide crisis. 
After World War II we rebuilt, through our loan programs and our trade 
relationships, much of the world economy as well as our own economy, 
creating the largest middle class the world has ever known.
  All of this is what we did in this Chamber and in the Chamber on the 
other side of Capitol Hill--decisions that were made together to put 
America back on track. But today we don't have legislators thinking 
about the health of America. They are thinking about the next election. 
They are thinking only about their own election. They are thinking 
about how to undermine our President. Yet he is our President. He is 
America's President. He is not the Democrats' President or the 
Republicans' President. He is our President, and he only gets to sign 
or veto bills that we send to him.
  It is our responsibility in this Chamber to work together in a 
respectful, responsible fashion to do the basic work that is at the 
foundation of our ongoing expenditures--to get the budget in place and 
to get the spending bills in place.
  The story of this year is really one that belongs in a fiction novel, 
because here we go: The U.S. Senate passed a budget, the U.S. House 
passed a budget. Immediately, the next day, the conference committee 
should begin. But, no, it didn't happen because Senators in this 
Chamber decided to filibuster that conference committee and stop any 
conversation from occurring between the House and Senate about getting 
a common budget.
  This is really akin to burning down the house--blocking the House and 
the Senate. And by ``the house'' I mean a house that encompasses this 
whole legislative process. It is like lighting a bomb and letting it 
blow up. Don't let the budget process proceed; don't let there be a 
conference committee. ``Completely irresponsible'' should be the sign 
worn on every legislator who has blocked there being a conference 
committee on the budget. Without a budget we can't get common 
appropriations bills because they are based on different numbers.
  Let us look at this appropriations process. There are essentially 
twelve spending bills, called appropriations bills. If we look at the 
period from 1988 through 2001--that 13-year period--we passed the vast 
bulk of appropriations bills every year through this Chamber before the 
next fiscal year started--the vast bulk of them. Some years we got 
every one done and some years most of them done, but the process 
worked.
  Now let's come to the modern era: 2008, zero appropriations bills 
passed through here; 2009, we actually got half of them done, six; 
2010, zero; 2011, one; 2012, zero; this year, 2013, zero. Any 
schoolchild in America grading the Senate on their success in getting 
the spending bills in place would give us an ``F'' for ``failure'' 
because we can't come together as responsible parties and have a debate 
on this floor, adopt amendments, and have an up-or-down vote.
  This does enormous damage in multiple ways. The first source of 
damage is that we end up with late-night emergency continuing 
resolutions. And when you have a continuing resolution, it means you 
keep doing what you did before whether they made sense or not. So for 
every person who believes we should spend a dollar wisely--and I 
certainly do--we should take advantage of a year's worth of 
conversations and testimony about what is not working and we should end 
those programs, not keep continuing them. And when those hearings show 
that more money is needed in certain areas to make America work better, 
then we need to spend more in those areas, not continue spending less.
  So this effort to blockade the budget process is a determination to 
continue government waste and inefficiency. I propose that Senators who 
are blocking the Budget Committee from even getting the numbers and 
blocking the spending bills should come to this floor and say: Yes, I 
am for government waste. Because that is what they are doing. They are 
wasting the taxpayers' dollars. They are investing in inefficiency.
  Meanwhile, businesses across America are looking at these sets of 
crises--April 2011, July 2011, December 2012, March 2013, September 
2013--and saying: We are not reinvesting in America until this Chamber 
and the other Chamber on Capitol Hill get their act together--so that 
we are not legislating from crisis to crisis, doing great damage to the 
economy. They know they can't sell their wares unless there is a middle 
class ready to buy them, and there can't be a middle class unless there 
are jobs, and there can't be jobs lurching from crisis to crisis.
  The end is not in sight. We have colleagues in this Chamber right now 
planning to have another crisis over the next debt ceiling, the 
responsibility to pay the bills we have already incurred. We have 
Members who are not remembering that President Reagan said: Do not mess 
with the good faith and credit of the United States of America. They 
want to mess with the good faith and credit of the United States of 
America, which increases interest rates, which puts an essential tax on 
all Americans. So the fact that we don't have momentum of the amount we 
want in the economy is the result of this deliberative determination to 
force us to lurch from crisis to crisis.
  Our middle-class families are worried about a lot. They are deeply 
concerned about the cost of college. They are deeply concerned about 
living-wage jobs. They are deeply concerned about funding for K-12. 
They are concerned about things that affect the real quality of life 
and the success of our families in every way. And they wonder why it is 
that we are lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis 
rather than getting a spending plan in place and doing more of the 
things that make sense.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for an 
additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I will wrap up. Anywhere you look in America, you see 
problems for public safety, for public education, for college 
education, for living-wage jobs. These are the pillars of success of 
the middle class. Let's focus on those problems and do right by the 
American people and quit the irresponsibility and self-manufactured 
damage that is happening here on Capitol Hill.

[[Page S6921]]

  Mr. President, I look forward to the remarks of my colleague, Senator 
Baldwin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to speak 
about the divisive and irresponsible path down which some Members of 
Congress wish to take our country.
  Last week my former Republican colleagues in the House of 
Representatives continued to put their own personal partisan politics 
ahead of progress for the American people. Some of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle here in the Senate have voiced support for a 
responsible approach and rejected this path. For that, I applaud their 
independence. But some here in the Senate are committed to playing the 
same political games offered by the House, and here are the rules of 
the games they are playing: crisis-to-crisis governing; uncertainty for 
our economy; and for families and businesses, economic insecurity.
  Instead of working together across the party aisle to create jobs and 
move our economy forward, a minority of extremists are intent on 
threatening our economic recovery with brinkmanship meant to appeal to 
a narrow political interests--namely, their own. Instead of working 
together to pass a responsible budget that invests in the middle class, 
this political game calls for locking in the sequester cuts and putting 
up a roadblock to economic growth. Instead of working together to do 
what is best for middle-class families, moving health care reform 
forward, this political game of drama and division insists on shutting 
down the government unless health care is repealed for millions of 
Americans. And instead of working together to do what is best for 
businesses and the economy, they are creating yet another manufactured 
crisis that threatens the full faith and credit of America with a 
government default, knowing full well that would hurt economic growth 
and the families and businesses who are working so hard to move our 
recovery forward. Let's be clear about how they would like to see their 
game end.
  According to independent economists, the damaging cuts from the 
sequester are slowing down the economy and killing jobs. Locking in 
these devastating sequester cuts would gut investments in economic 
development, innovation, and education.
  The House Republican budget would cut the National Institutes of 
Health by $8 billion compared to the Senate budget, so it would cost 
25,000 jobs, compromising the next generation of research in our 
country and holding back the development of treatments for cancer, 
diabetes, Alzheimer's, and other chronic diseases.
  Repealing the Affordable Care Act would mean children with 
preexisting conditions can be denied health care by insurance 
companies. Repealing America's new health law would mean many young 
people would not have health insurance coverage because they could no 
longer stay on their parents' health insurance until they are 26 years 
old. Repealing ObamaCare would mean women will no longer have free 
preventive health care and we will go back to the day when women could 
be charged more than men for their health coverage.
  They will shut down the government unless we agree to increase the 
out-of-pocket costs for seniors on their prescription drugs and deny 
them wellness programs.
  They are threatening a government default which would weaken our 
economy when we should be doing everything we can to strengthen it. 
They don't seem to care that even the hint of defaulting on our 
obligations by a minority of Republicans in Congress had severe 
consequences for our economy when it last happened in the summer of 
2011. The stock market plummeted, and the U.S. credit rating was 
downgraded for the first time in our Nation's history. Businesses froze 
hiring in August of 2011, and that was one of the lowest months of job 
growth over the last 2 years. Consumer confidence dropped, and 
widespread uncertainty was created for middle-class families.
  What we don't need right now is more political games. The last thing 
we need right now is to create another self-inflicted economic wound in 
Washington that will hurt middle-class families, small businesses, and 
those who are working so hard to get ahead. We need to create jobs. We 
need to invest in the middle class and build an economy that produces 
shared prosperity.
  Instead of protecting tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and tax 
loopholes for big corporations, it is time for Republicans to join our 
efforts and ask those at the top to pay their fair share. It is time 
for Republicans to join our efforts to continue making smart spending 
cuts that reduce the deficit without shortchanging our future. It is 
time for Republicans to join with us in passing a responsible budget 
that strengthens the middle class while also giving American businesses 
the certainty they need to grow our economy. It is time to break this 
destructive pattern of bringing the country to the brink and instead 
return to making Washington work for the American people.
  Chairwoman Mikulski has called for a return to regular order so that 
Congress can pass individual appropriations bills every year, and she 
is 100 percent correct. I support her efforts because regular order 
allows us to prioritize key investments that support the middle class 
and avoid these annual shutdown showdowns.
  As I have traveled the State, Wisconsinites have told me that the 
powerful and well-connected seem to get to write their own rules in 
Washington while the concerns and struggles of middle-class families go 
unnoticed here. They feel that our economic system is tilted toward 
those at the very top, that our political system exists to protect 
those unfair advantages instead of to make sure everybody gets a fair 
shot.
  Last week an economic report was released showing that income 
equality has been worsening and expanding, with almost all--in fact, 95 
percent--of the income gains since our economic collapse 5 years ago 
going to the top 1 percent of income earners. The American people would 
be right to expect that both parties work together to offer solutions 
that address the challenge of closing this gap, but it has been ignored 
by those playing the game of threats and ``divided we stand'' politics. 
They are wrong to ignore the gap between the economic security 
Americans work so hard to achieve and the economic uncertainty they are 
asked to settle for. They are wrong because if we can't close that gap, 
we might someday talk about the middle class as something we used to 
have as opposed to something to which every generation can aspire.
  Unfortunately, the ``divided we stand'' crowd in Congress refuses to 
be governing partners committed to meeting this challenge and advancing 
our common good. Worse yet, the threats of a government shutdown and a 
government default are immensely disrespectful to the hard work of 
people who get up every day and through their sheer grit and 
determination have helped to move our country forward.
  The American people deserve better. They deserve to have their hard 
work respected. Our economy demands better. It demands that hard work 
is rewarded.
  Senate Democrats have a plan to keep the government running while 
ensuring that millions of Americans do not lose access to affordable 
health care. Republicans should join us so that we end this shutdown 
crisis and the irresponsible political game of division.
  It is my hope that those who choose divisive politics over progress 
for America's economy reconsider and begin to join us on this bill and 
work with us to once and for all end the drift from one crisis to the 
next. This is not a political game, and those who continue to play 
these games need to stop and get to work, get to work with us to move 
our economy forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as the Senator from Wisconsin has so 
eloquently said, we are indeed nearing the brink of the self-imposed 
catastrophes of government shutdown or government default or both. 
Unless Speaker Boehner can find a way to restrain his rightwing tea 
party extremists, find a way to work sensibly with Democrats and steer 
us back from the brink, then an unnecessary and self-imposed calamity 
awaits. I should probably be

[[Page S6922]]

more specific. It is not just self-imposed, it is tea party imposed.
  While we try to find our way around this unnecessary tea-party-
imposed disaster, a real disaster is looming. It is a real disaster, it 
is really looming, and we could address it. Instead, we are having to 
fend off totally unnecessary disasters cooked up by rightwing tea party 
extremists. It is infuriating. When the real disaster has fully hit us, 
folks will look back at this era and they will wonder: What was wrong 
with them? Who were those people? The warnings were everywhere and they 
did nothing? Instead, they wasted time threatening each other with 
cooked-up calamities, rather than deal with the real disasters? That is 
disgraceful.
  They will be right. Of course the real and looming disaster is what 
unprecedented levels of carbon pollution and unprecedented levels of 
atmospheric carbon are doing to our weather and our oceans. That is for 
real. That is Mother Nature. That is not just political gamesmanship 
and hostage taking. That is what brings me here now for the 44th time 
to say it is time for us to wake up to the threat of climate change.
  While Congress keeps sleepwalking on this issue, I am proud to say 
President Obama has awoken. Last week his administration announced 
important new carbon pollution standards for future powerplants. These 
standards will reduce the carbon pollution that has been wreaking havoc 
on our oceans, our atmosphere, and our health.
  Those of us who believe in science and who are awake to the changes 
already happening all around us should rally behind the President and 
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to support these proposed standards. 
Just look at the evidence of what carbon pollution is doing to our 
planet.
  According to news articles, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, or IPCC, will soon announce it is now more certain than ever 
that human activity is the main cause of the recent climate changes we 
have seen. This may surprise some of my Republican colleagues who tried 
pointing to a recent slowdown in surface temperature as evidence that 
climate change has stopped. According to the IPCC, this phase is, 
unfortunately, only temporary, as other slowdowns have been in the 
past.
  If you look at the history of global warming and of temperature, you 
can see that across time you can add steps in because of the 
variability that is inherent in our climate. But nobody could look at 
that and not see the constant rising thread that runs through it. No 
regression analysis, to use the technical term, would not show that 
global warming is real. The fact that we are at a step is--well, here 
is what Richard Muller, noted physics professor at UC-Berkeley, had to 
say in an article that came out today. He quoted himself from 2004 when 
he wrote:

       If we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are 
     small--then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling 
     could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term 
     warming trend. . . . And that might lead in turn to the 
     mistaken conclusion that global warming predictions are a lot 
     of hooey.
       If, on the other hand, we . . . recognize that the natural 
     fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a 
     few years of random cooling.

  Which has happened over and over through the progression of climate 
change.
  He followed on today:

       The frequent rises and falls, virtually a stairstep 
     pattern, are part of the historic record, and there is no 
     expectation that they will stop, whatever their cause.

  The land temperature record is full of fits and starts that make the 
upward trend vanish for short periods. Regardless of whether we 
understand them, there is no reason to expect them to stop. The current 
cause is consistent with numerous prior causes. When walking upstairs 
in a tall building, it is a mistake interpreting a landing as the end 
of the climb.
  Whatever the cause of these recurring steps, even contrarian 
scientists understand the principle that is operating here: More carbon 
dioxide leads to more warming. It is as simple as that. It is a 150-
year-old established basic principle of physics.
  The oceans, which I talk about a lot in these speeches, have a lot to 
do with it. The deep oceans absorb excess heat, saving us from a lot 
more heat here on the surface. Researchers say the oceans have absorbed 
more than 90 percent of the excess heat over the last 50 years.
  If the ocean has absorbed this much of the heat, think what a small 
fluctuation in what the ocean is doing will do to our atmospheric 
temperature: 93.4 percent, only 2.3 percent. You do not have to wiggle 
this much in order to create the kind of steps and changes and 
oscillations that we have seen in the stairstep of climate change. 
Oceans don't just absorb the heat, they also absorb about 30 percent of 
our carbon emissions chemically, emissions that would otherwise be in 
our atmosphere, causing more warming. Absorbing those emissions has 
already made the oceans more acidic, with dangerous consequences for 
marine life as this continues. But it has spared us even more extreme 
climate effects here on land.
  Environment America recently released a report earlier this month 
highlighting the power sector's pollution, which creates an enormous 
amount of this. In 2011, 5.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide were 
emitted in the United States. The blue circle is the whole country.
  Just over 40 percent of that total, 2.2 billion tons, came from the 
power sector. That is the green sector.
  The inner circle, the red one, is the emissions just from the 50 
dirtiest powerplants in America. One out of every 8 tons of America's 
carbon dioxide emissions, the ones that are causing these changes in 
the oceans--the ones that are causing these changes in the atmosphere--
come from these filthy 50 powerplants, such as Luminant Generation 
Company's Martin Lake Plant in Texas, emitting the equivalent of 3.9 
million car emissions, or Alabama Power Company's H. Miller, Jr. Plant, 
emitting the equivalent of 4.3 million car emissions, or the champion, 
Georgia Power's Scherer Plant, the largest emitter of carbon pollution 
in America, which emits as much pollution as 4.4 million cars.
  If these 50 plants were an independent country, that country would 
alone be the seventh largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, 
just behind Germany, just ahead of South Korea.
  From my State's perspective, these out-of-State powerplants are a 
hazard. It is out-of-State powerplants that emit the chemicals that 
turn into ground level ozone in downwind Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders 
pay the price, particularly on bad air days, and we have had six of 
them so far in 2013. About 12 percent of Rhode Island's children and 11 
percent of our adults suffer from asthma, and ground level ozone puts 
them at greater risk.
  We have a lot of good Rhode Island reasons to clean up the power 
sector. That is why I support the administration's proposed standards 
for new powerplants. The standards will limit the effects of climate 
change on future generations by telling polluting industries it is time 
to clean up your act, it is time to stop dumping toxic carbon 
pollution, it is time to get responsible about what you are doing to 
our environment and our health, to our children, our oceans, and our 
atmosphere.
  We can still avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. Some changes 
cannot be avoided; some are already happening. But if we act now, we 
can avoid the worst predictions for heat waves, sea level rise, ocean 
acidification, storms, and other disruptions. That is why we in 
Congress should support the President's goal to reduce emissions to 17 
percent below our 2005 output at the end of this decade and to get 
emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.
  The standard for good powerplants is a good first step, but we also 
need to clean up existing powerplants, particularly these 50, which I 
will remind everybody emit more carbon dioxide than South Korea. We 
should get serious here in Congress and fix the market failure in our 
power sector that ignores the true costs of burning these fossil fuels. 
We should pass carbon-fee legislation.
  What do we see instead, here in Congress? Here is an example. Last 
week a House subcommittee hearing on the President's climate action 
plan brought out these wildly misleading statements, such as: ``We can 
say over 40 years we've got almost no increase in temperature'' went 
one.
  ``The arctic ice has actually increased by 60 percent'' went another.

[[Page S6923]]

  In reality, surface temperatures are up about 1 full degree 
Fahrenheit over the last 40 years. That increase in Arctic sea ice is 
only relative to last year's all-time record low. The National Snow and 
Ice Data Center reported that this year's summer minimum is the sixth 
lowest in the 34 years records have been kept, and it is right in line 
with the long-term rapidly declining ice cover trend.
  The Republicans did a lot of complaining at the hearing about the 
President's climate action plan. To my Republican colleagues who don't 
like the President's plan, I say come to the table. Let's negotiate 
climate legislation in Congress. Republicans in Congress should support 
a carbon fee, as many Republicans outside of Congress do. If you do not 
like polluting interests having to bear 100 percent of the costs of 
complying with the carbon pollution standards, let's look at a carbon 
fee. A carbon fee, by contrast, would give those same companies an 
opportunity to work with Congress to share in some of the revenue 
generated by the fee. Or the revenue could be returned to the American 
people as a tax cut, if Republicans prefer; even as a corporate tax 
cut, if Republicans prefer. Or we could use that revenue to forgive all 
Federal student debt in this country--forgive all Federal student debt 
in this country. What a shot in the arm that would be to our economy. 
Or we could give struggling seniors a $1,600 Social Security raise.
  There are a lot of wonderful things that could be done, but my 
colleagues must first come to the table. What they cannot do is deny. 
To deny is to lie. The time for that has passed. It is time to wake up.

  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this hour of 
time for the Republicans be divided as follows: I ask for 12 minutes 
for myself and then Senator Hatch for 15 minutes, Senator Portman for 
10 minutes, Senator Coats for 10 minutes, and Senator Toomey for 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise again in strong support of my no 
Washington exemption from ObamaCare amendment. I have refiled it on the 
CR, which is before us, the spending bill, and it is a germane 
amendment as I filed it to the CR. It is amendment No. 1983.
  We are on a timetable--a collision course--where unless we act, a 
horrible policy and illegal Obama administration rule will go into 
effect, and so it is important that we vote, we act, and we do that 
now. That is why as soon as we came back from the August recess, I 
brought this to the attention of the Senate and the Congress and the 
country and I demanded a vote. It wasn't my choice to be on that tight 
timetable. It certainly wasn't my choice on the administration issue, a 
draft illegal rule, but that is where we are, and so we must vote and 
act before October 1.
  After being blocked out of a vote on the previous matter on the 
floor, the energy efficiency bill, and after being blocked out for 2 
weeks by the distinguished majority leader and others, I bring it again 
in the context of this spending bill as a germane amendment numbered 
1983 to this spending bill.
  The principle is clear, and to me it is the first principle of a 
democracy--in our case, the United States of America. What is good for 
America should be good for Washington, and what is applied to America 
should absolutely be applied in the same way to Washington across the 
board and certainly including ObamaCare.
  We had a debate about that several years ago during the ObamaCare 
debate. Actually, that concept won out, and we were able to add a 
Grassley amendment to the bill, which was passed into final law. I was 
a strong supporter of that language. I was somewhat amazed that we got 
it included, but it did go through the democratic process, and it is 
now part of the law, part of the statute.
  That law says clearly and unequivocally that every Member of Congress 
and all official congressional staff have to go to the exchange for 
their health care. They have to go to the same fallback plan as is 
there for the American people under ObamaCare. I advocated for that 
strongly since the very beginning of the ObamaCare debate. Whatever the 
fallback plan for America is, that should be the plan for Washington. 
There should be no other choices, no special privileges or exemptions 
or subsidies for Washington.
  That was part of the statute that passed into law, but I guess it was 
a classic case of what Nancy Pelosi said--we need to pass the law in 
order to figure out what is in it--because after it passed, a lot of 
folks on Capitol Hill read that provision and said: Oh, you know what, 
we can't live with this. We can't let this stand. We need to ``fix 
this.''
  So there was furious scheming and furious lobbying to fix that simple 
concept that what applies to America should apply to Washington. Where 
that ended up after months of scheming and lobbying was the President 
of the United States, President Obama, became personally involved. This 
was confirmed in numerous news reports. He had his administration issue 
a special rule to save Congress from this horrible fate that is being 
visited on at least 8 million Americans.
  As Congress was leaving for the August recess--conveniently getting 
out of town and away from the scene of the crime--the Obama 
administration issued this draft rule. In my opinion, it is clearly and 
unequivocally illegal because it is in conflict with the language of 
the statute.
  The rule does two things:
  First of all, even though the statute clearly says that every Member 
of Congress and all official congressional staff go to the exchange, 
the draft rule says: We don't know what official staff is, so we are 
going to leave that up to every individual Member of Congress to decide 
who on his or her staff is official staff for purposes of this 
provision and we are never going to second guess them. So in theory, a 
Member of Congress can say: My committee staff is part of the official 
staff; my leadership staff is part of the official staff. In fact, in 
theory, under this proposed rule a Member of Congress can say: Nobody 
on my staff is ``official staff'' for purposes of this provision. OPM 
has made it clear that they are not going to second guess that. That is 
ridiculous on its face.
  Second, the rule says that for Members and any staff who do get to go 
to the exchange, they get to take a big taxpayer-funded subsidy with 
them--a subsidy that is completely unavailable to any other American at 
that income level going to the exchange. That is not in the statute at 
all. That is contrary to the statute, the letter and spirit of the law. 
That is completely contrary to it. Again, that is what provoked me to 
act with many other Members.
  I wish to recognize and thank all of the cosponsors of this important 
legislation on the Senate side and also Congressmen DeSantis of Florida 
and all House cosponsors of identical legislation on the House side.
  Our fix is simple, basic, and important. It is, first of all, let's 
live by the law with regard to Congress. So every Member of Congress 
and all congressional official staff have to go to the exchange as 
mandated by law with no special deal, exemption, or subsidy. They can 
only have what is available to other Americans going to the exchange. 
The whole purpose of that language was for Congress to feel the 
dislocation, inconvenience, and experience of millions of other 
Americans going to the exchange--8 million or more Americans going 
there against their will. They had health care. They had employer-
provided health care. They heard the President say: If you have 
coverage you like, you can keep it, and they found out that was a big 
lie. So now they are losing that and going to the exchange. The whole 
purpose of the language was that Congress walk in their shoes.
  This amendment goes further and applies the same principle of 
fairness to the administration. It says the President, the Vice 
President, and all of their political appointees will do the same 
thing--go to the exchange for their health care, just like every other 
American does, with no special deals, exemptions, subsidies, and no 
special rules.
  Again, this is very time-sensitive because this rule is set to be 
made final October 1. That is not my choice. I 

[[Page S6924]]

think the rule is flatout illegal. That is a decision and action by the 
administration, but it does demand that we vote and act now. That is 
why as soon as we came back from the August recess and went back into 
session, I filed the fix and demanded a proper up-or-down vote. 
Unfortunately, that was blocked out for 2 weeks by the distinguished 
majority leader. That is why I am on the floor again in the context of 
this spending bill. It is very appropriate to have the debate on this 
spending bill. We are talking about spending. I filed it as a germane 
amendment to this spending bill, and we need a full debate and vote on 
this matter before October 1.

  Interestingly, in the previous bill, after blocking me out of any 
vote, the distinguished majority leader said he had no problem with 
this clean up-or-down vote. I guess he said that in theory because it 
never happened in practice.
  This is a perfect and appropriate time to have that up-or-down vote. 
It won't delay anything. It is perfectly appropriate to have it on the 
spending bill. This is a germane amendment.
  I urge us to vote and act and not block out this debate and not block 
out this vote. My request is as simple and basic and straightforward as 
that. I think it is consistent with the distinguished majority leader's 
promise that we would have a vote. He said that. Again, that must have 
been in theory because he blocked it in practice.
  Mr. President, in that spirit, I ask unanimous consent that the 
pending amendments be set aside and that it be in order to call up my 
amendment No. 1983.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, reclaiming my time, I think that is very 
unfortunate. It is very inconsistent with what the distinguished 
majority leader said. We need a debate and a vote on this matter. It 
should happen before October 1--and it will happen, I guarantee that. I 
don't know when. I don't know if it will be before October 1, but it 
will happen. We will have this debate and vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, it is no secret that the so-called 
Affordable Care Act is a train wreck waiting to happen. Some of it has 
already happened. We know that. The American people know that. My 
constituents all over Utah know that. But sadly the President of the 
United States doesn't seem to know it. In fact, the President is out 
today trying to convince the American people that his signature 
domestic achievement is a winner. Few people believe him, however, and 
no amount of spin on his part will change that.
  Frankly, Republicans have been saying ObamaCare would be a disaster 
since well before it was enacted. Indeed, if we look back at the 
original debates on ObamaCare, we will find that we predicted virtually 
all of the problems we are seeing now as the administration attempts to 
implement this poorly crafted law.
  Let's look at some of the predictions we made. We predicted, for 
example, that in order to avoid the employer mandate, businesses would 
cease hiring new workers and they would move existing employees to part 
time. ObamaCare requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees 
to offer their workers health coverage of a minimum value or pay a 
penalty. As we predicted, a number of small businesses, which are the 
main job creators in this country, are simply opting to unilaterally 
limit their full-time employees in order to avoid the mandate. Just 
think about that. We have the lowest labor participation rate since the 
Carter administration, but instead of working to create the jobs 
American families and workers need, more and more businesses have 
stopped hiring to avoid the costs that come with ObamaCare.
  The law defines full-time employees as those working more than 30 
hours a week. As a result of this bizarre definition, many employers 
have opted to simply cap workers' hours. That is happening everywhere. 
It is happening in the private sector and among public schools and 
municipalities. In fact, it is happening so often that even the leaders 
of big labor, who are among the biggest supporters of ObamaCare, have 
publicly argued that the law is destroying the 40-hour workweek. That 
is just one Republican prediction about ObamaCare that came true.
  We also predicted that ObamaCare would cause people who currently 
have health insurance to lose it. We all remember the President's 
infamous promise that ``if you like your plan, you can keep it.'' 
Sadly, our post-ObamaCare experience hasn't borne that out. At the 
time, Republicans said there was no way he could fulfill that promise, 
and we were right. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 
millions of Americans are likely to lose their current employer-
provided health insurance under the President's health law.
  We also predicted that the cost of health insurance premiums would 
skyrocket as insurance companies struggle to comply with all of the new 
mandates under the law. This is also happening. Numerous studies have 
shown that the cost of premiums have continued to go up since ObamaCare 
was passed and are predicted to go up even further next year as the law 
is more fully implemented.
  The question is: How high are the costs going to go?
  Yesterday, the administration released a report claiming that 
ObamaCare is bringing down the cost of health insurance premiums. 
Specifically, the report claims that premiums ``will be 16 percent 
lower than projected.'' Lower than projected is not the same as lower 
than they are now.
  If we compare the cost of ObamaCare health plans with the cost of 
plans available on the market today, it is indisputable that costs are 
going up under the law. The administration is free to cherry-pick data 
in order to make the best case possible. Indeed, that is what they have 
done with this most recent report. However, even when they cite the 
most favorable data available, we see that ObamaCare is making health 
insurance premiums more expensive in this country.
  When we look at the more complete picture of the data, we find it is 
even worse. As the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research recently 
found, individual market premiums will increase 99 percent for men and 
62 percent for women nationwide under ObamaCare. This, once again, was 
not unforeseen. While the President was claiming his health care plan 
would reduce premiums by an average of $2,500 a year, Republicans 
predicted costs would actually go up under the law. As it turns out, we 
were right on that one too.
  Republicans also predicted that health care spending would increase 
as a result of ObamaCare. The President, if my colleagues recall, 
promised the law would lower the costs of health care. However, health 
care spending is projected to increase dramatically as a result of 
ObamaCare.
  Republicans also predicted that ObamaCare would increase the deficit. 
Wouldn't you know it, a former Director of CBO has projected that the 
health care law will add $500 billion to the deficit in the first 10 
years and more than $1.5 trillion in the second decade.
  We predicted middle-class families would see their taxes go up as a 
result of ObamaCare. When we look at the law, we see it includes no 
fewer than 11 taxes and penalties that directly impact the middle 
class, including taxes on medical devices, prescription drugs, and 
flexible spending accounts.
  In addition, Republicans predicted health insurance exchanges, where 
people go to sign up for ObamaCare's mandated insurance, and the system 
of verifying and approving premium and cost-sharing subsidies for 
people in those exchanges would be a nightmare to manage. This has been 
confirmed time and time again as the administration has continually 
missed deadlines and offered only scant details as to how these 
exchanges are going to work, even as they are set to go live on October 
1.
  Studies from the Government Accountability Office have confirmed that 
the exchanges are not likely to be ready in time. In fact, just 
yesterday, the District of Columbia announced it will be delaying the 
implementation of its exchange because of ``high error rates.'' Two 
other States, Idaho and

[[Page S6925]]

Minnesota, also might delay their exchanges.
  During the debate over ObamaCare, Republicans predicted that despite 
all the claims that ``health care reform is entitlement reform,'' the 
law would not shore up our unsustainable entitlement programs. We are 
set to spend more than $10 trillion on Medicare and Medicaid over the 
next 10 years. The CBO has called our health care entitlements our 
``fundamental fiscal challenge.'' According to the CBO--the 
Congressional Budget Office--the President's health care law hasn't 
done anything--has not done anything--to diminish the problems facing 
these massive programs.
  As I said, none of the problems we are seeing today were unforeseen. 
Republicans predicted all of these difficulties years ago. We weren't 
psychic; we just know how markets work and, more important, we have 
learned from experience just how inept government can be when it 
ventures into uncharted territory.
  The Democrats who drafted this monstrosity and forced it through 
Congress either didn't understand the inherent problems with the 
legislation or they just plain didn't care. I suspect it was a little 
of both. At the time, they were more concerned with just getting 
something passed so the President could claim victory on one of his 
central campaign promises than they were with passing something that 
would actually work. Now we are all seeing the results and only part of 
the results. I am only mentioning a few things today.
  Nearly every week we learn of another problem the administration is 
having with implementing ObamaCare. As I said, we constantly hear 
announcements that certain elements of the law are going to be delayed. 
We have heard this about the employer mandate, the small business 
health insurance market, and employee automatic enrollment in the 
exchanges.
  We got the latest announcement just today. Today we found out the 
Obama administration is postponing online enrollment in some of the 
small business exchanges that were scheduled to open this coming 
Tuesday. The administration makes these announcements almost 
nonchalantly, never acknowledging they are indications of larger 
problems with the law. Instead, they simply press forward, ignoring the 
warning signs and pushing our Nation's health care system even further 
toward the cliff.
  It is clear what needs to be done. It is not complicated or 
convoluted. On the contrary, it is quite simple. This law needs to be 
eliminated and Congress should do whatever is in its power to get that 
done. This has been my position since the day the law was passed, and 
it continues to be my position today. I have supported repealing 
ObamaCare, I have supported delaying it, and I support defunding it.
  I have introduced multiple pieces of legislation that would repeal 
the most egregious parts of ObamaCare, including the individual 
mandate, the employer mandate, the medical device tax, and the health 
insurance tax. With days to go before the exchanges go live on October 
1, I have legislation backed by 31 of my colleagues delaying them until 
the GAO can certify that private and personal information of consumers 
and patients will be secure. I have come to the floor on numerous 
occasions to call for either repeal or a permanent delay to the 
implementation to the law. Regardless of how the debate over the 
continuing resolution plays out, I will continue to do so.
  This law costs more and will do far less than was promised when the 
bill was first drafted, debated, and passed. The Democrats who wrote 
this law and forced it through Congress may have thought the American 
people were naive enough to believe all the promises that came with 
ObamaCare, but from the beginning polls have shown the majority of 
Americans do not support it and with good cause. That is why I publicly 
applauded the House of Representatives for passing its continuing 
resolution that defunds ObamaCare.
  Getting rid of ObamaCare is just the first step. Once we do that, we 
need to work together on a bipartisan basis to find a way to reduce 
health care costs for the American people while also making sure we 
cover the American people. We have seen what happens when one party 
tries to fix health care on its own. What we got was a disaster of a 
law that has actually increased health care costs, all while imposing 
new taxes and mandates on the American people and creating chaos of the 
entire American health care system.

  The American people deserve better, and the legislation before us is 
the first step toward giving them that.
  I understand the Democrats are going to peel out the one provision 
the Republican side supports. Everyone on the Republican side supports 
the defunding of ObamaCare and starting over and doing it right in a 
bipartisan way, instead of this partisan way that has wound up with the 
biggest fiasco I have seen around here in my 37 years in Congress.
  I am concerned. We can do better. This has become too much of a 
partisan exercise and, frankly, I am very concerned that our country is 
going to suffer because some of our friends think they have to continue 
to support this dog of a bill, even though day after day after day we 
find more and more reasons to oppose it.
  We have brought up these things before, maybe not some of these 
because some of them have just occurred, as a matter of fact, just in 
the last day. Think of the fraud. Think of the open door for scam 
artists because they are going to go ahead on October 1 with 
individuals saying they think it is fine. But there has been no 
independent verification done by this administration, or by anybody, to 
make sure the private information of our individual citizens is 
protected. It is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that we are letting them 
get away with it, and it is a disgrace that is going to come back to 
hammer us as Members of Congress who didn't do our job right in the 
first place and who continuously keep supporting a bill that is eating 
us alive.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, over the next couple of days we will 
have a chance to vote on ObamaCare. This will be an opportunity for us 
to allow our views to be expressed on both sides of the aisle. I am 
glad we are going to have that opportunity. We will see what happens. 
But I think it is certainly an opportunity for us to have a good debate 
about why we think it is important for us not just to change ObamaCare 
but to actually start over and do it right. It is a time for us to undo 
the mistake this Senate made 3 years ago when that legislation was 
jammed through the process--without a single Republican vote, by the 
way--which is something the American people are tired of. The 
partisanship, on that particular vote, I think has led to a bad result.
  ObamaCare was sold, by the way, to the Nation under false pretenses. 
We were promised that ObamaCare would bring premiums down. You remember 
those discussions: This is a way to get health care costs down and 
reduce premiums. In fact, what we are learning--and there is a new 
report out this week--is that premiums are going up.
  We were promised that Americans would be able to keep the insurance 
they have. That was a specific commitment made. Yet millions of 
Americans are losing the insurance they have. It is insurance they 
like, and they cannot keep it.
  We were promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your 
doctor; everything will be fine. In fact, many Ohioans and many 
Americans are losing their doctors.
  We were also told that ObamaCare would help grow the economy and 
create jobs. Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening. More 
Americans are looking for work because many of the jobs that are 
available now are part time, in part because of ObamaCare encouraging 
more part-time work. There are companies that are not expanding because 
they do not want to reach that magic number of 50 employees.
  As we talk today, we are learning that there are even more problems 
with the implementation of ObamaCare. One of our Democratic colleagues 
on the floor said he thought

[[Page S6926]]

this implementation was going to be difficult. In fact, one Democrat 
who was prominent in the legislation said it is likely to be a train 
wreck. Well, unfortunately, that train wreck is occurring. We see the 
District of Columbia this week making changes. We see today apparently 
the administration now saying the small business part of the exchanges 
is not going to go forward as planned. We have already seen a 1-year 
delay in terms of the business mandate and on and on. So that train 
wreck is already upon us as we move toward October 1.
  Let me give one example of the impact of ObamaCare. In Columbus, OH--
my home State of Ohio--the Wall Street Journal reported that premiums 
could increase by as much as 436 percent. Some of my colleagues will 
take issue with that number. Maybe it is not going to be 436 percent, 
but the point is that we know it is going to be more expensive, we just 
do not know how much. That is part of the uncertainty the law creates. 
In other words, sometimes uncertainty is the worst thing, and that is 
what we are seeing not just in Ohio but around the country. We do not 
know what the effect is going to be on our families. We do not know 
what the effect is going to be on small businesses. We do not know what 
the effect is going to be on our economy.
  Throughout this debate over the continuing resolution, my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle have talked about this uncertainty. They 
have talked about how a showdown going up to a potential government 
shutdown creates uncertainty in the economy. I agree. I do not think we 
should shut down. In fact, I am offering an amendment to say we should 
never be shutting down government. It is called the no government 
shutdown amendment. It is bipartisan. In the budget debate we actually 
had a few Democrats support it, I am sure against the urging of their 
leadership, and I appreciate that.
  Uncertainty is a problem, but, boy, talk about uncertainty--in the 
implementation you have some things delayed, others things not delayed, 
a lot of confusion about how the legislation is going to work. Every 
day it seems as if we discover a new wrinkle in the law that is going 
to cost more money and cause more problems in terms of people just 
understanding what their options are.
  The effects of ObamaCare, by the way, do not stop at the hospital 
door, and they are not limited to our pocketbooks. If you ask Americans 
what is the most important issue to them, they will tell you it is the 
lack of good jobs--jobs and the economy. ObamaCare kills jobs.
  Take the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic, as some of you know, 
is the largest employer in northeast Ohio. It has been talked about on 
the floor by other Members. They have about 40,000 employees.
  By the way, it is one of the few things that both President Obama and 
Governor Romney agreed on in the campaign, which was that the Cleveland 
Clinic is providing cutting-edge health care that should be a model for 
the rest of the country. They do a terrific job.
  A week ago the Cleveland Clinic announced it is cutting $330 million 
from its budget. What does that mean? That means a bunch of my 
constituents in the Cleveland area are going to lose their jobs. Why is 
the Cleveland Clinic having to cut $330 million from their budget? 
According to their own spokesperson, to prepare for increased costs and 
decreased revenues because of ObamaCare.
  So, look, it is something I have heard about again and again when I 
visit with small business owners throughout Ohio. I hear it from our 
employers, who say they have no choice but to freeze growth. I have a 
friend who runs a small company in the Cleveland area. He has 47 
employees. He has confided in me: You know what. I am not going to 50. 
Even though I have some additional business--he is starting to see a 
little pickup in his particular sector--I am not going there. I don't 
want to get to 50 because I simply don't want the uncertainty and the 
cost associated with the new mandates and requirements I would have to 
endure because of ObamaCare.
  So you have the ``49ers''--employers who are sticking at 49 or fewer 
because they do not want the onerous requirements of ObamaCare when 
they cross that threshold of 50 employees.
  Others, of course, are reducing the hours of folks who already work 
for them to well under 40 hours because they have to get under the 30-
hour-a-week threshold in ObamaCare. It is so very sad.
  You go to somebody and say: You know what. You have to come in at 28 
hours now because the health care I am going to have to offer under 
ObamaCare is not something I can afford. It does not fit within our 
bottom line.
  And this person says: I have a car payment or I have a house payment.
  This is sad, and it is having an effect in my State, and I know it 
from talking to people, but I also know it just by looking at what 
these requirements are doing to small businesses. It is no surprise to 
me that this ``underemployment'' figure we see every month in the 
employment numbers is growing. Those are the people who are not working 
full time but working part time. Unfortunately, if you look over the 
last few months, we have seen a big increase in part-time jobs and not 
full-time jobs.
  In 2010, I do not think many of my Democratic friends thought they 
were voting for a bill that would kill jobs. I really do not. I do not 
think they would have voted for it. I cannot believe they thought 
ObamaCare would drive up premium costs and make health care harder to 
get, as it has, but that is what is happening. That is why I believe it 
needs to be repealed and replaced with more sensible reforms.
  The current health care system--before ObamaCare--is far from 
perfect. It cries out for reform. But, unfortunately, the prescription 
of ObamaCare is not making things better but worse.
  I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes Congress makes 
mistakes. In this case, in my view, Congress made a big mistake. But we 
can fix it, and we can replace it with real bipartisan health care 
reform that does foster an environment where jobs can be created, that 
does provide for health care to be available rather than harder and 
harder to get. We can get there but only if we start by--in this vote 
today--saying: Let's defund it, let's repeal it, and let's replace it 
with something better.
  As we learn more about the effects of ObamaCare, we are seeing some 
courage on the other side of the aisle. I know one of my colleagues 
today on the Democratic side said he could look to delaying ObamaCare's 
individual mandate for a year, for instance. That only makes sense. We 
have already told the businesses they are going to get a 1-year delay, 
but a woman or a guy who works at that business is told: You have a 
mandate even though your business does not, and you have to pay a fine 
if you do not get health care. So 22 House Democrats voted in favor of 
delaying the individual mandate as well. So I think on both sides of 
the aisle you are beginning to see some interest in at least having a 
delay to be able to try to improve this legislation.
  But the Senate has the opportunity to speak here this afternoon. We 
are going to vote on this amendment as to whether to defund ObamaCare. 
I have heard from my constituents. I am sure you have heard from yours. 
Overwhelmingly, I say to my colleagues, what I am hearing is they do 
not want this law to continue. Do they think the health care system is 
perfect? No. But they think what ObamaCare is offering makes it worse, 
not better.
  Republicans cannot do it alone. We have 46 votes here. You need 60. 
But in an act of bipartisanship and real political courage, maybe we 
will have a good result this afternoon and begin this process of moving 
toward a better system. I urge my colleagues to show that courage so we 
can turn to a better way to lower health care costs, to increase health 
care choices, and ultimately to improve the quality of care for all the 
families we represent.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I wish to take a moment to reflect a 
little bit on this impasse where we find ourselves. The Senator from 
Indiana is going to join me in a discussion here, and I will have a 
unanimous consent request along the way.
  First of all, as to where we are, as we all know, we are at an 
impasse on how to fund the roughly 40 percent of the

[[Page S6927]]

Federal Government that is funded through discretionary spending--the 
spending that Congress controls, the spending that is supposed to 
happen through the ordinary appropriations process but does not around 
here.
  As we address this issue, it has become obvious that every single 
Republican in the House and the Senate wants to defund ObamaCare as a 
step in the direction of completely repealing this completely 
unworkable bill. But all the Democrats support ObamaCare, and they want 
to implement it and they want to fund it and they want to move forward.
  The impasse arises, obviously, because the Democrats cannot have 
their way in the House where the Republicans are in control, and we 
Republicans cannot have our way in the Senate where the Democrats are 
in control. So I have a suggestion. My suggestion is, maybe--maybe--
there is a third way. Maybe this does not have to be completely binary. 
Maybe this does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition in which 
one side completely wins and the other side completely loses.
  Among my Democratic friends--who are big fans of ObamaCare--I would 
think there is nobody who actually thinks that is a perfect bill. I 
cannot imagine that when the American public has made clear, 
overwhelmingly, their opposition to this bill. When you cannot pick up 
a newspaper in America today without reading a front-page story about 
the huge problems and costs and negative effects ObamaCare is creating, 
I cannot imagine that anyone thinks this is all perfect.
  So here is my suggestion: Why not repeal a few of the more egregious 
flaws that have been acknowledged as flaws on both sides of the aisle--
those things that are not working that are most problematic--just a 
few. Couldn't we do that and at least make some progress?
  So the three items I have in mind are the subject of my unanimous 
consent request. One would be repeal of the medical device tax, which 
is one of the most egregious flaws in this badly flawed bill, and I 
will speak some more about this tax in a little while. A second would 
be to delay for 1 year the individual mandate. I think Senator Coats 
from Indiana is going to speak a little bit more about how important it 
would be to delay that individual mandate. The third would be to 
protect the religious freedom of those who object based on deeply held 
religious views. They object to the contraception mandate that is 
imposed on them, including faith-based institutions.
  So I am going to request that we consider these amendments. That is 
all--just asking for an up-or-down vote on these amendments. I think 
that is a pretty reasonable request. Every one of these has had 
bipartisan support.
  By the way, the repeal of the medical device tax was supported by 79 
Senators. Two-thirds of the Democratic Senators voted in favor of an 
amendment to repeal the medical device tax, and every single 
Republican. That is not even controversial anymore, to repeal the 
medical device tax.
  They all have some level of bipartisan support. Taken together, they 
are about budget neutral. Repeal of the Medical device tax would cost 
the government some revenue, but the delay of the individual mandate 
would save the government expenses, so it is about revenue neutral.
  This could probably speed up the whole process. If we allow these 
amendments, frankly, they all would probably pass. If they became part 
of the underlying bill and if Senator Reid has the votes to pass the 
amendment he wants to pass, what would go back to the House would 
probably pass the House and it probably would not have to get ping-
ponged back here and risk a government shutdown. Finally, it would 
break this impasse, and it would demonstrate that we are at least able 
to come together on the things where there is bipartisan agreement.
  So I think the most reasonable thing in the world is to have the 
vote. That is all. I do not know for sure how it will turn out. I think 
it will pass because these items have demonstrated bipartisan support 
before. But I think it is unreasonable not to be able to have the vote.
  So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendments be set aside and that it be in order to call up the 
following amendments, which are at the desk: No. 1971, to repeal the 
medical device tax; No. 1972, to delay the individual mandate; and No. 
1973, to protect religious freedom; I further ask consent that each 
amendment be limited to up to 1 hour for debate equally divided in the 
usual form; I further ask consent that following use or yielding back 
of time on each of the amendments, the Senate proceed to a vote in 
relation to each amendment with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. TESTER. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania 
for his efforts here. We very much share the same sentiment and the 
same concerns going forward here. We are going to vote sometime today, 
perhaps tomorrow, perhaps on Saturday. We have had a week-long effort 
here undertaking a very important issue, serious to the future of the 
American people's health and to the American economy.
  I think it is pretty clear that there are a couple of hard truths 
that we have to recognize as we come to this vote. I am still hopeful 
that we will be able to see at least five of our colleagues from across 
the aisle come and join us.
  For months we have heard about the impact of the health care act and 
the mess that it has created, the confusion, and the egregious taxes 
that are attached to it.
  My colleague has talked about the medical device tax. In Indiana, it 
is one of our key industries which provides high wages and skilled 
positions for people. These are products that are exported around the 
world which in turn helps our balance of trade. These products are 
saving the lives of millions of people. Some of these innovations that 
come out of Warsaw or Bloomington or other parts of Indiana, and the 
companies that are in this medical device business, are truly 
extraordinary.
  Yet they got socked as a ``pay for'' for ObamaCare by a 2.3 percent 
tax on their gross sales, not on their profits. As a company, say they 
are developing a new product and they come to a point where they know 
they are not going to make a profit for 2 or 3 years, but they know 
they have something that is really going to work, really going to 
provide life saving or life enhancing benefits.
  Say they lose money, but they are selling their product. The sales 
have not yet caught up with all of the research costs. So they report a 
loss at the end of year, or maybe they break even. These companies are 
being taxed 2.3 percent on the total amount of money that they take in, 
even though that money does not reach a profit.
  That is egregious, offensive, unbelievable. I mean, who could think 
up stuff like this, and who could vote for stuff like this? A repeal of 
this tax is one of three amendments my colleague from Pennsylvania has 
offered. I regret that it has been objected to. We will not even have a 
chance to debate it. We will not have a chance to vote on it. We will 
not have a chance to put down our yeas or our nays on where we stand.
  The real tragedy of this is that a majority of Democrats voted to 
repeal this egregious tax in the budget.
  Mr. TOOMEY. The Senator from Indiana pointed out exactly correctly 
the nature of this tax. It is extremely unusual that we choose to 
punish a company based on its sales, irrespective of whether it is 
making any money at all.
  Senator Coats observed that this is a 2.3 percent tax on sales. I 
want to touch on some of the real world consequences that are happening 
right now in Pennsylvania because this tax went into effect on January 
1. It is happening now. Here is what is happening in Pennsylvania: 
Fujirebio Diagnostics in Mahler, a world leader in the production of 
diagnostics that detect cancer, had to put on a hiring freeze. They had 
been hiring. They were planning on more hiring. They cannot do it now. 
So there is a hiring freeze there.
  Cook Medical in Pittsburgh, PA. They manufacture pacemakers. They had 
plans to build five new plants over time in the United States. Those 
plants are all on hold. Everything has been put on the shelf; no new 
plants as long as they have to contend with this.

[[Page S6928]]

  Boehringer Laboratories in Phoenixville, PA. They make surgical 
equipment. No new hires. Hiring freeze at a time when our unemployment 
is so unacceptably high, so many people looking for work.
  B Braun. They make a wide range of medical equipment, located in the 
Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. They have a hiring freeze and immediate 
and drastic cuts in research spending. What else can they do? Such a 
huge new chunk of their revenue has being taken.
  This is an ill-conceived tax. It is costing us jobs. It is costing us 
innovation. It is costing us in the quality of health care. Finally, 
everybody gets that, as evidenced by 79 Members of this body voting to 
repeal it. We are denied the opportunity to have a binding vote.
  It is shocking to me.
  Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for listing those 
companies. Many of those same companies have facilities in Indiana. In 
fact, Cook International was founded by Bill Cook in Bloomington, IN, 
initially working out of his study in his home. Now it is an 
international company providing thousands of jobs across the country, 
in Pennsylvania, in Indiana and other places.
  Unfortunately, Bill passed away this year. That company is going 
forward. But there were five new facilities hiring that are now put on 
hold as a result of this tax being imposed on their gross sales--not on 
their profits, but on their gross sales.
  So you can take in $1 million, but it costs you $2 million because 
you are developing a new product. You lose the million and the 
government says: We are going to tax you on every penny that you took 
in regardless of whether you made a profit or not. It is just 
unthinkable.
  Thankfully, a majority of Democrats have joined us in this effort. We 
got 79 votes out of 100 to repeal this. Yet we are not able to vote on 
it. Why are we not able to vote on it? Because the White House does not 
want to lose that money coming in that is so egregiously taxed to pay 
for some of the unaffordable care act.
  That is one of many things that we would like to debate. We would 
like to vote on that. We think we can vote on some of the egregious 
stuff that is in this ObamaCare. The hard truth is this: Despite all of 
our best efforts--I want to make this point clear: Every one of 46 
Republicans, our total here in the Senate, is fully 100 percent 
committed to the repeal, the defunding of ObamaCare.
  Unfortunately, it takes 51 in order to achieve our goal, unless we 
get some help from the other side. There is no indication of that now. 
We have gone through several machinations this week. There will be some 
votes coming up. I want the vote to be clearly a yea or a nay. People 
go home and they say: ``You know, do not hide behind this procedural 
process of cloture. We do not even know what that means.'' This is a 
procedural move. Over time, politicians have figured out ways to go 
back and say: ``No, I am really not for that.'' Or to say: ``I am not 
really against that. We had a procedural move. I was for this or I was 
against that procedural move because it denied this amendment or it did 
this or did that.''
  The real vote is when it comes down to it--it is as old as the Bible. 
Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. Are you for ObamaCare or 
against ObamaCare? That is the vote we will have when the majority 
leader comes down here and offers a motion to strip the defunding of 
ObamaCare out of this bill.
  I do not support a shutdown. I might support a shutdown if it would 
achieve the goal of actually defeating ObamaCare. But the truth that 
has not been told to a lot of the American people, by some outside 
groups promoting this, is the fact that a government shutdown won't 
stop ObamaCare because a majority of the funding is mandatory not 
discretionary. Our vote on this matter will not affect that mandatory 
funding.
  All of the taxes will go forward. Much of the implementation of 
ObamaCare will go forward no matter how we vote on this. So that fact 
has to be recognized. It also has to be recognized that it does not 
appear that we have the votes. Certainly we do not have the votes to 
override a veto by the President.
  He is not going to say: ``Hand me a pen. I am sorry, this is a 
terrible idea. I see what is happening here. Yes, we should cancel this 
program.'' I have not heard the White House giving the indication that 
is what is going to happen. So those who say the vote is on a 
procedural motion, essentially want to shut down the government, No. 1.
  Maybe that would be worth it if it accomplished the goal. But to do 
it by not accomplishing the goal takes us nowhere. So what we are 
trying to do is basically say: ``Yes, let's vote to defund it. Let's 
vote to repeal it.'' But if that does not work, if that does not pass, 
then let's see if we can at least do something. I am not ready to give 
up. I am not ready to say: ``If we do not pass this vote on a cloture 
motion then that is it. We will never have a chance at this again.''
  Are you kidding me? I mean, people are just learning about ObamaCare. 
The public sentiment is building. I commend Senator Cruz for standing 
up and highlighting this issue. I could not have stood here for 21 
hours. I would not have made it. More power to him. He has brought this 
issue to us. He has focused the attention of Americans on this 
particular issue.
  But given that attention, that certainly does not mean we are going 
to give up. Senator Toomey and I are going to go forward. We have some 
provisions here that we think will make a difference. I have offered, 
and Senator Toomey has also offered, to delay the implementation of 
this. We delayed it for the employers, big business, but what about the 
individuals? What about the people in North Dakota, Louisiana, or 
Alaska, just to name a few? I know for sure Indiana and Pennsylvania.

  Why should we impose a mandate on individuals when we do not impose 
it on the businesses? The President has said: ``We cannot get our act 
together here with the businesses so we will give you a 1-year 
waiver.'' In fairness, let's give that to the individuals. That is 
exactly what we are about here.
  At this point, I would ask unanimous consent that the pending 
amendments be set aside, and it be in order to call up my amendment No. 
1979. I further ask consent that the debate on the amendment be limited 
to up to 1 hour equally divided in the usual form, and I further ask 
consent that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate 
proceed to a vote on that amendment with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I want to yield back to my colleague 
here. I regret that we are not able to take this up. I regret that we 
are not able to have a debate or a vote on this matter. We are going to 
do all we can to continue to address, to work for, and to fight for the 
repeal and the defunding, however we accomplish it, of the piece of 
legislation that was jammed through the process without any bipartisan 
support, that is now unfolding before our very eyes. We see what a 
colossal mess it is making.
  We are not giving up on this process. In fact, we are going forward. 
This first vote on cloture, that is not the end of this. This is the 
beginning. As this unfolds for the American people, I think we are 
going to gain the support on a bipartisan basis to get rid of this, to 
start over with more responsible, cost-effective, meaningful, 
worthwhile provisions that address our health care needs and not take 
this one-piece-fits-all bill and jam it down the throats of the 
American people.
  I yield back.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I want to commend the Senator from 
Indiana. I agree entirely. I think this is really an outrageous 
process. Let's consider where we are and why. We have another 
manufactured fiscal crisis, manufactured because the majority party 
that controls this body refuses to bring out appropriations bills.
  We had one appropriation reach the floor this entire year. If you do 
not do appropriations bills, you run into this cliff at the end of the 
process. So now where are we? We have this giant CR, this huge omnibus, 
whatever you want to call it, that is going to be here on the floor for 
a vote.

[[Page S6929]]

  Senator Reid has decided he would use his power to make sure that he 
gets to have an amendment. Actually, he gets to have a couple of 
amendments and gets to gut the language that would defund ObamaCare, 
which will be on a party line vote.
  When I ask for unanimous consent to bring up amendments that have 
broad bipartisan support, including one which has been supported by 
two-thirds of all of the Democrats and every Republican, I am not 
allowed to offer that amendment.
  We have a completely dysfunctional Senate. It is manifesting itself 
very clearly today. Frankly, given where this is leading, given the 
fact that one party here is not given an opportunity to weigh in and 
engage in this debate and offer amendments, I cannot support cloture on 
the underlying bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. For this hour of majority time, I ask unanimous consent 
that the following Senators have 20 minutes each: Senator Baucus, 
Senator Franken, and Senator Leahy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. On September 26, 1987, 26 years ago this very day, 
President Reagan faced a Congress playing politics with the Nation's 
debt ceiling.
  Knowing the catastrophic consequences a default would have on 
America's economy, President Reagan addressed the Nation. Speaking from 
the Oval Office he said:

       Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of 
     default before facing its responsibility.

  He warned:

       This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government 
     bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans 
     benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would 
     occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would 
     soar.
       The United States has a special responsibility to itself 
     and the world to meet its obligations.

  That was a pretty stern warning. While spoken more than a quarter of 
a century ago, President Reagan's words, sadly, still ring true today.
  I hope my colleagues listen to those words of reason. I hope my 
colleagues in the House of Representatives heed the warning from 
President Reagan about using the debt ceiling for brinkmanship.
  As we know, the Federal Government hits its debt limit on May 19. For 
the past 130 days, the Treasury Secretary has been using what are known 
as extraordinary measures to continue funding the government. We are 
running, therefore, on borrowed time. But those extraordinary measures 
will be used up by October 17. At that point we will have exhausted 
every measure. Default--that is the United States not paying its 
debts--will occur unless Congress acts to raise the debt limit.
  There will be much debate in the coming days on how to deal with the 
debt limit. The House continuing resolution which we have before us 
today contains a proposal that some claim would avoid the default. What 
is it? What do they claim, what is the provision?
  It is a dangerous plan that gives the Treasury Secretary the 
unprecedented power to prioritize payments; that is, the Treasury 
Secretary decides what obligations should be paid and not paid; that 
is, once the debt limit is surpassed--in short, the power to pick and 
choose which bills to pay.
  The House CR does, however, identify two specific payments as 
priorities they have to pay first. What are they? Social Security and 
interest to holders of U.S. bonds. They are all first in line. Everyone 
else has to fight among themselves.
  We are all familiar with Social Security and its importance. It is a 
given. But the American people may not be as familiar with the 
principal and interest on U.S. bonds. This is the payment Uncle Sam 
makes to various persons and countries that hold our debt. It can be 
U.S. citizens who hold our debt or it can be countries such as China, 
Japan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. I might add that the foreign countries 
that hold most of the U.S. debt among the countries I listed are China 
and Japan. They hold the most foreign debt.
  The continuing resolution categorizes the interest to these foreign 
bondholders as a must-pay bill--we must pay those first; that is, 
Social Security and interest. It leaves all other obligations of the 
Federal budget to be paid only by the revenue Treasury has on hand on 
any given day. Some days revenue comes in and some days revenue comes 
in more than others.
  Critical programs will be left fighting for the remaining scraps of 
funding. In effect, the House proposal to prioritize payments would 
result in the interests of America's veterans, the unemployed, and 
students, among others, being left behind the interests of China, 
Russia, and Saudi Arabia. It is pay Russia first, pay U.S. veterans 
second--if there is money left over to pay U.S. veterans.
  This proposal makes no sense. A few of the programs that would 
compete for funding under the House plan are veterans' benefits, child 
nutrition, military salaries, military operations and maintenance, 
Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals, student loans, highway 
funding, dollars for air traffic controllers, unemployment insurance, 
and tax refunds, to name a few. They are all going to have to compete 
with each other for what is left after interest on the debt and Social 
Security payments are made under the House measure.
  Can you imagine the result? Medicare beneficiaries will be pitted 
against disabled vets, each fighting the other. Students receiving Pell 
grants will be up against patients receiving medical care; doctors 
conducting cancer research would be pitted against agents patrolling 
our borders. The chaos that would ensue would be unimaginable. We can't 
even begin to fathom the chaos. When this scheme was first proposed 
during the debt limit debate in January, it became obvious what it 
would be like. I compared it to the movie ``The Hunger Games,'' hunger 
games where individuals were out scrapping, trying to save their own 
lives and killing other people to save their own lives. The sequel 
``The Hunger Games'' is not out until November, but we can now see the 
coming attractions of the House CR. Their plan for a debt 
prioritization would pit one program against another in a fight for 
survival.
  Under this ill-conceived plan, the Secretary of Treasury would be 
given unprecedented power to decide which programs are funded and which 
are eliminated. It is in the Treasury Secretary's hands. He decides, 
the President decides: Do veterans get paid, do Medicare beneficiaries 
get paid, does the military get paid? That is up to the Treasury 
Secretary and the President.

  No such power should ever be placed in the hands of any Treasury 
Secretary, regardless of party affiliation. No Member of Congress who 
believes in our system of checks and balances can honestly advocate for 
this idea to stand. In article I of the Constitution, Congress decides 
what appropriations should be paid, not the executive branch.
  Finally, this House proposal is wrong for the country. Why? Because 
it ignores the progress we have made over the past 2 years to actually 
reduce America's deficits and debt.
  With the adoption of the Budget Control Act in 2011 and the fiscal 
year cliff agreement earlier this year, debt has been stabilized. 
Together with interest savings, these actions will cut the deficit by 
about $2.8 trillion over the next 10 years. Add in the savings for 
winding down operations for Iraq and Afghanistan, and the total deficit 
reduction reaches almost $3.7 trillion over 10 years. These are real 
savings. All this progress must not be ignored.
  I agree with many of my colleagues that even more can be done to 
reduce the deficit and promote economic growth. But those actions 
should be separate from the debt limit debate. It is a different 
subject.
  We are in no position to play games with the economy. It is 
completely irresponsible to threaten default on the debt. Since 1789, 
this country has always honored its obligations. We paid our bills. We 
are known for that. Americans know and people around the world know 
that America, up to this date, anyway, has always paid its bills. Even 
when the Capitol burned to the ground in 1814, guess what, America 
still honored its debts. Yet I heard a Senator say a few weeks ago that 
failing to raise the debt limit is ``no big deal.''

[[Page S6930]]

  No big deal.
  I couldn't imagine when I heard those words. It is more than a big 
deal; it is more than a huge deal. It is a catastrophic deal. It is 
something that is so bad it is unimaginable.
  People have forgotten the summer of 2011. Remember August of 2011? 
People have forgotten what happened when Congress failed to address the 
debt limit decisively. I remember what happened. The dysfunctional 
debt-ceiling debate led to the first ever downgrade of America's credit 
rating--the first ever downgrade of America's credit rating. I remember 
the stock market plunged 635 points the day after the S&P downgrade. I 
remember that 14-day trading period in the summer of 2011 when the Dow 
plummeted more than 2000 points, about 20 percent. Consumer confidence 
back then dropped even lower than it did in the heat of the 2008 
financial crisis, and it took nearly a year to recover.
  Worst was the impact on jobs. During the months Congress was fighting 
over the debt limit, job creation fell by nearly 50 percent.
  Remember, Congress did still raise the debt ceiling without 
defaulting, but the political brinkmanship did all that damage to the 
economy. We did raise the debt, but look at what damage the 
brinkmanship caused to our economy. We cannot let that happen again.
  Time is running short. We need to stop playing games. This will to 
fight is getting us nowhere. Enough with the threat of default; enough 
of the schemes to prioritize payments. As President Reagan said:

       The United States has a special responsibility to itself 
     and to the world to meet its obligations.

  It is time we accept our responsibility. It is time for us to work 
together. It is time for us to get the job done.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I wish to talk a little bit about 
health reform.
  Soon over 1 million Minnesotans will have the opportunity to buy 
their health insurance on MNsure, Minnesota's health insurance 
marketplace. Minnesotans who buy their own insurance in the health 
insurance marketplace, including Franni and me, will have the 
opportunity to compare plans and choose the coverage that works best 
for their families.

  Not only will MNsure make the options clearer and more accessible, 
but the health care reform law is also making sure that Minnesotans 
feel secure in their health care coverage. That is because insurers can 
no longer cap the amount of benefits you can get over the course of 
your lifetime, they can't drop you if you get sick, and they cannot 
discriminate against you based on a preexisting condition.
  There is a lot in the health care reform law that a lot of Americans 
don't even know about yet. For example, I championed a couple of key 
provisions that are improving the quality and the value of health care 
coverage that we all rely on. I authored a provision requiring health 
insurers to provide a good value for your premium dollars, and I helped 
to establish a national fund for health care prevention.
  Why is this especially important right now? Because the House of 
Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the budget that 
also defunds the health care reform law. So before we decide on that 
measure, I wish to make sure we remember what is in this important law.
  First, we are requiring insurance companies to give their customers 
good value for their premium dollars. One thing many Americans don't 
know is that millions of Americans are getting rebates from their 
health insurance companies when those companies don't provide that 
value. I wrote the provision that does this. It has the catchy name 
``medical loss ratio,'' which is sometimes called the slightly more 
catchy 80/20 rule. Because of my medical loss ratio provision, which is 
based on a Minnesota State law, health insurance companies must spend 
at least 80 percent of their premiums on actual health care--not on 
administrative costs, not on marketing, not on profits, not on CEO 
salaries. If insurance companies don't meet the 80 percent for 
individual and small group markets or the 85 percent for large group 
policies, then the insurance company has to rebate the difference.
  The fact is my provision is working. Last year, nearly 13 million 
Americans benefited from checks from their insurers, and this year 
about 8\1/2\ million Americans benefited from rebates that were sent 
out in July of this year. That is a good thing--fewer people getting 
rebates. This year is a good thing because that means insurers were 
saving you money on the front end instead of rebating you the money on 
the back end.
  That is part of why health care costs have risen in the last 3 years 
at a slower rate than at any time in the last 50 years. Is that 
entirely due to the Affordable Care Act? No. But in contrast with what 
is being put out here and there, we are not seeing the cost of health 
care spike. In fact, the opposite is true.
  I will say it again: Health care costs have gone up less--have risen 
at a slower rate--in the last 3 years than at any other time in the 
last 50 years. The bottom line is that my provision is making insurance 
companies more efficient at helping keep health care costs in check for 
people, and I am very proud of that.
  People also don't know how much we did to improve access to 
preventive health care in health care reform. Anyone who has ever 
gotten a flu shot knows an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure. Along with former Republican Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, I 
fought to get the National Diabetes Prevention Program included in the 
health care reform law, and it exemplifies the benefit of this kind of 
reform to our health care system.
  This program, which was piloted in St. Paul, MN, by the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention, involves structured nutrition classes 
and exercise at community-based organizations such as the YMCA. It has 
been shown to reduce the likelihood that someone with prediabetes will 
be diagnosed with full-blown type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent. That 
is pretty good.
  The program doesn't just make people healthier, it also saves 
everyone money. The Diabetes Prevention Program costs about $400 per 
participant, as compared to treating type 2 diabetes which costs more 
than $7,000 every single year. That is why United Health, the largest 
private insurer in the country--that also happens to be headquartered 
in Minnesota--is already providing the program to its beneficiaries. In 
fact, the CEO of United Health told me that for every $1 they invest in 
the Diabetes Prevention Program, they save $4 on health care costs 
later on.
  This homegrown program is funded out of the Prevention and Public 
Health Fund, which is another program in the health care reform law 
that is designed to invest in evidence-based health care prevention in 
communities across the country. In Minnesota, the Prevention and Public 
Health Fund has supported tobacco cessation programs, it has helped to 
prevent infectious diseases, and it has expanded our desperately needed 
primary care workforce. Preventing disease while saving money--
preventing disease while saving money--is smart reform.
  We did a lot of other things in the health care law too. I worked 
with several of my colleagues to develop a value index which will 
change the way Medicare pays physicians to take into account the 
quality of the care the doctor provides--reward quality instead of 
quantity.
  My home State of Minnesota is the leader in delivering high-value 
health care at a relatively low cost. Yet, traditionally, we have been 
woefully underreimbursed for it. For example, Texas gets reimbursed 
almost 50 percent more, on average, per Medicare patient than 
Minnesota.
  This isn't about pitting Minnesota against Texas or Florida. It is 
about rewarding those States to become more like Minnesota. Imagine if 
we brought Medicare expenditures down by 30 percent around the country. 
It would bring enormous benefits not just to Minnesota but across the 
country because it will bring down the cost of health care delivery 
nationwide.

[[Page S6931]]

  I am working very hard to make sure health care reform works for 
Minnesota. The implementation of any major reform is going to be a 
challenge, but I don't think Minnesotans or Americans want us to keep 
looking backward. They want us to move forward and to implement the law 
as best we can. They do not want the House of Representatives to waste 
precious time and vote to repeal the law--for the 42nd time.
  The fact is, if the law is repealed, a lot of things Americans like 
will be taken away from them. Americans don't want seniors' 
prescription drugs to go back up. They do not want children with 
preexisting conditions to be kicked off their health plans. Those are 
just a couple of things that would happen if the law were repealed.
  Last year, more than 54,000 seniors in Minnesota got a 50-percent 
discount on their covered brand-name prescription drugs when they hit 
the doughnut hole in Medicare Part D. This discount resulted in an 
average savings of $644 per person and a total savings of more than $34 
million in Minnesota alone and we are not done. By 2020, the doughnut 
hole will be closed completely. But the closing of the doughnut hole 
would go away if we repealed the health care reform law.

  Thanks to a provision that allows young adults up to the age of 26 to 
stay on their parents' health insurance, 35,000 young people in 
Minnesota and more than 3 million young people nationally were able to 
keep their health care coverage. Those young people would be kicked off 
of their coverage if we repealed the health care law.
  Health care reform also ended insurance companies setting lifetime 
limits on the amount of care an individual can receive. So if you or a 
loved one gets sick, you can never be told by your health insurer: That 
is it, no more coverage for you. Go ahead and file for bankruptcy. 
Guess what. If Congress repealed the health care reform law, that would 
go away too.
  I am not saying the law is perfect. But if there are problems, the 
American people want us to work together to fix them, not refight old 
fights. That is what I hope to do--move forward by implementing the 
law, making any changes we need to make along the way.
  Millions of Americans across the country are already experiencing the 
benefits of this law. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the 
implementation of the important provisions I have outlined.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is currently considering H.J. Res. 
59, the continuing budget resolution.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, I listened this week to the distinguished chairwoman 
of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Mikulski, make a compelling 
case for passing a clean, short-term continuing resolution through 
November 15 of this year so we can get on with the business of debating 
and passing appropriations bills.
  We have a lot of sound and fury here signifying nothing, to quote 
Shakespeare, but we ought to vote up or down on something. It is easy 
to give speeches or phony filibusters or whatever and say: Look what we 
are accomplishing. No. It is not accomplishing anything.
  I agree with everything the chairwoman has said, particularly about 
the bipartisan way the committee has written and reported bills this 
year. Any one of those bills could be debated and voted on today. Vote 
yes, vote no--but vote. Conference them with the House, if they pass, 
and send them to the President.
  Actually, there is some precedent for doing that--a precedent of over 
200 years doing it that way.
  Instead, we are repeating this all-too-familiar drama where we are 
again in a high-stakes stalemate over simply keeping the Federal 
Government functioning. What was once the regular business of Congress 
has again been replaced by political theater and another artificial 
made-in-Congress crisis that threatens the economy and, in ways large 
and small, threatens every single family in America.
  Don't come on this floor and say you stand for family values when you 
are willing to destroy retirement plans of families, savings for their 
children to go to college, and possibly their jobs. Once again, 
grandstanding prevails over common sense, comity, and cooperation--
three values that are vital to the effective functioning of a 
representative government.
  Those who travel around our States--and I do all the time--and listen 
to our constituents, know the costs of a government shutdown and the 
devastating effects of sequestration.
  Vermont is not unique in having fewer children in Head Start 
programs, medical researchers at our universities who cannot obtain 
research grants, seniors cut from Meals On Wheels, or young veterans 
back from Iraq or Afghanistan who can't find jobs, or families living 
in shelters or on the streets because there is no safety net housing 
assistance. But some members of the House and the Senate say we have to 
cut all of this. Is that who we have become as a country?
  The decisions we make have real and serious consequences for our 
economy, for our children, and for our community--ranging from St. 
Johnsbury, VT, to Houston, TX.
  As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the 
Department of State and foreign operations, I want to speak briefly 
about the consequences of shutting down the government and a full-year 
continuing resolution for U.S. national security. It should make every 
Senator think long and hard about the role they want the United States 
to play in an increasingly competitive and dangerous world.
  We hear over and over again on this floor the saying, ``freedom isn't 
free.'' Well, it is not. And the corollary to that is, neither are U.S. 
security and U.S. influence.
  That is what is at stake: U.S. leadership in the Middle East, at the 
United Nations, in Africa, in South and Central Asia, and in our own 
hemisphere. If the government shuts down, the impacts will be felt here 
at home and by our allies, and exploited by our adversaries.
  It is the worst hypocrisy, because those same Senators who are toying 
with shutting down the government want the United States to respond 
when war breaks out in Syria, or famine in Ethiopia, or an outbreak of 
the Ebola virus, or a devastating earthquake in Haiti, a terrorist 
attack in Kenya, the false imprisonment of a constituent in Nicaragua, 
or the kidnapping of an American missionary in the Philippines.
  They expect the United States to solve the problem or to rally others 
to help solve it, but they are willing to do away with paying the 
salaries of our diplomats, or our aid workers, or our dues to the 
United Nations, or emergency food aid, or our support for NATO or the 
World Health Organization, or the myriad of other programs and 
organizations that depend on us and that serve our interests around the 
world. They think that somehow this is going to be paid for with pixie 
dust. We are grown-ups and this is the real world. When we pull back, 
when we don't lead, others are only too happy to fill the vacuum.
  A shutdown would mean that the Export-Import Bank, which provides 
financing to United States companies, would immediately stop processing 
new applications, and would lose $2 to $4 billion in monthly income for 
U.S. exporters, jeopardizing approximately 30,000 American jobs, 
reducing deposits to the U.S. Treasury by $15 to $20 million per month 
as a result of fees that go uncollected by the Bank.
  The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, that provides financing 
and insurance to American companies that invest overseas, would lose 
its authority to function. No longer could it make disbursements, it 
would bring to a screeching halt the activities of hundreds of U.S. 
businesses that rely on OPIC financing.
  The State, Foreign Operations bill that Senator Lindsey Graham and I 
wrote that was reported by the Appropriations Committee on July 25 by a 
lopsided bipartisan vote of 23-7, protects U.S. national security 
interests and responds to compelling humanitarian needs. Americans 
recognize that we have a moral responsibility as the wealthiest, most 
powerful nation on earth. This is who we are.

[[Page S6932]]

  Senator Graham's and my bill includes $8.5 billion for global health 
programs. A full-year continuing resolution means $389 million less to 
combat HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases like malaria, 
tuberculosis, and pneumonia, and malnutrition. None of us have children 
or grandchildren that have to worry about these illnesses, but with the 
relatively small amounts that we spend we can save the lives of 
countless children in other countries.
  A full year continuing resolution would mean tens of thousands of 
additional deaths from these diseases. It means tens of thousands of 
additional children orphaned by AIDS. It means millions fewer life-
saving immunizations for children resulting in tens of thousands of 
preventable deaths.
  For pennies we can vaccinate millions of children around the world. 
Are we going to say, instead, that we can't do that because we have a 
political point to make? We are grown ups. We are not sound-bite 
aficionados. We should be legislators.
  The Senate bill includes $2.5 billion, which is $115 million above a 
full year continuing resolution, for programs in the poorest countries. 
These have bipartisan support, with Republicans and Democrats, 
supporting basic and higher education, food security, energy, and water 
and sanitation programs.
  If you don't agree that we have a moral responsibility, then let's 
just be pragmatic about our own security. Because if we don't do this, 
the alternative to development and opportunity is poverty, religious 
extremism, transnational crime, and violent insurgencies. It is a 
growing reality across the globe, from Somalia to Mexico, and it 
threatens our economy, our security, and the security of our allies.
  A government shutdown is a complete failure of our responsibility as 
legislators. We are sent here to make decisions--not slogans--to make 
government work for the American people and for the good of the Nation, 
including our national security and our interests around the globe.
  Over and over again there are those who want to give speeches, but 
they don't want to make hard choices. They were elected to serve, yet 
they make a career of blaming the government.
  Funding the government by continuing resolution is irresponsible and 
it is dangerous. It diminishes our standing in the world. It erodes our 
leadership. It is unworthy of the Congress. It is a betrayal of the 
people who sent us here.
  Let's have, if not the courage, at least the honesty to bring up the 
appropriations bills and vote on them. Vote yes or vote no. Stand up 
and be counted. Stop hiding behind the delaying tactics and partisan 
sloganeering that have become such a tiresome refrain around here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I am reminded, when I hear the 
distinguished President pro tempore of the Senate talk, why the people 
of Vermont so love him.
  Here is a man who has set all kinds of records in Vermont: the first 
Democrat elected, and on and on, with all the many accolades that he 
has. I have always admired and appreciated him. Each day that goes by, 
I understand better than I did the last why the people of Vermont 
revere this good man.

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