[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 132 (Monday, September 30, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7029-S7035]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS
Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I come to the floor today in a state of
disbelief. With millions of people out of work, with an economic
recovery still far too fragile, with students and families being
crushed by student loan debt, with millions of seniors denied their
chance at one hot meal a day, with Meals On Wheels, and millions of
little children pushed out of Head Start because of a sequester, with
the country hours away from a government shutdown and days away from a
potential default on the Nation's debt, the Republicans have decided
that the single most important issue facing our Nation is to change the
law so employers can deny women access to birth control coverage.
In fact, letting employers decide whether women can get birth control
covered on their insurance plans is so important that the Republicans
are willing to shutter the government and potentially tank the economy,
over whether women can get access to birth control in the year 2013,--
not the year 1913, the year 2013.
I have a daughter and I have granddaughters, and I will never vote to
let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth
control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back--not
ever.
This assault on birth control is just one more piece of an ongoing
Republican assault on the orderly functioning of our government and the
orderly functioning of our economy. In effect, the Republicans are
trying to take the government and the economy hostage, threatening
serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the
Affordable Care Act.
[[Page S7030]]
This assault is utterly bizarre. Congress passed the Affordable Care
Act to solve real, honest-to-God problems. Our health care system is
broken. Forty-eight million people in this country had no health
insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with
diabetes were denied health insurance because of a preexisting
condition. People with cancer hit the caps on health insurance
spending. Health care spending in this country was growing way too
fast. So we worked hard. We compromised. We came up with a solution--a
solution that will substantially improve the lives of millions of
Americans--because that is the way democracy works.
It is time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act
should exist and whether it should be funded. Congress voted for this
law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this
law. The President ran for reelection on this law. In fact, his
opponent said he would repeal it and his opponent lost by 5 million
votes.
I see things such as this and I wonder what alternate reality some of
my colleagues are living in. So let me be very clear about what is
happening in the real world. The ACA is the law of the land. Millions
of people are counting on it--people who need health care coverage,
people who need insurance policies that do not disappear just when they
are their sickest. Women will get insurance coverage for birth control.
The law is here to stay, and it will stay. Earlier today the Senate
emphasized that reality by flatly rejecting the Republicans' newest
ransom note, just as we did last week.
We should be having a real debate about our budget because we have
real problems to solve. Earlier this year automatic across-the-board
cuts went into effect throughout the Federal Government. That is the
sequester. The sequester hits American families where they live. During
my visits to cities and towns across Massachusetts, I have heard from
families, small business owners, and community development
organizations--from the Berkshires to the Cape. They tell me what it is
like trying to stay afloat with mindless, across-the-board spending
cuts weighing them down.
More than a thousand employees at Westover Air Force Base and Barnes
Air National Guard Base in western Massachusetts are facing furloughs.
This fall, more than 2,000 Massachusetts kids could not get into Head
Start because of cuts, and the Head Start Program in Billerica will
close completely at the end of this year. Federal workers across our
State stand to lose as much as 30 percent of their salaries. Every one
of those losses will tighten family budgets. And when families make
less money, they have less to spend with local merchants and less money
to pay off bills and less money to save and less money to do all that
keeps our economy humming.
In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says ending the sequester
would add 900,000 jobs to the economy by the end of next year. Next
time you think about someone you know who is looking for a job or who
is working part time but hoping to get full-time work, think about the
900,000 jobs the sequester has destroyed.
Scientists and medical researchers in Massachusetts are also getting
pounded by the sequester. They are working hard to expand our medical
knowledge and develop new cures for devastating diseases. They are
working on discoveries that will help us in ways we cannot even
imagine. Yet here we are, bluntly hacking away at their funding,
delaying their research, and cutting off promising new work before it
even starts--not because we have to, not because it is inevitable, but
because Washington has its priorities all wrong, and it is making some
truly terrible decisions.
Consider the Framingham Heart Study. It is a generations-long study
of the causes of heart disease, a study that has helped create
groundbreaking advancements in medical knowledge. There are people
across this country who are alive today in part because of the work
that began with this study. This study continues to yield extraordinary
results, but it is scheduled to lose 40 percent of its funding--40
percent. Next time you think of someone you love who has heart trouble,
think about the sequester cutting one of the world premier heart
research programs.
Senate Democrats have put forward alternatives that would adequately
fund the government while also addressing our budget deficits. Back in
March the Senate passed a budget that would have ended the sequester.
It was not easy. We had to make some compromises. No one loved
everything in the final bill, but we debated it and we passed it. This
is what Congress is supposed to do. But after we did all of that,
Senate Republicans decided to filibuster the budget again and blocked
us from going to conference with the House on the final bill. That is
just pure obstruction, plain and simple.
In July the Senate attempted to pass the first of several
appropriations bills to keep the government open and to end the
sequester. We had a bipartisan Transportation and Housing bill that
would have helped repair crumbling roads and bridges in our
communities. It would have created more jobs, and it would have rolled
back sequestration in these programs. But, once again, Senate
Republicans filibustered and blocked that bill.
Now we are just hours from the government running out of money. We
have not fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We have
not finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We have not even
passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction.
The least we can do--the bare minimum we can do--would be to pass a
continuing resolution to keep the doors open and the lights on. We can
ensure that over a million Federal workers are not simply sent home for
no reason. We can avoid a government shutdown. But the Republicans have
refused to do even that. They have continued to threaten to shutter the
government unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act.
The Senate rejected that position twice. Yet the Republican response
has been to continue to threaten to shut down the government.
These threats may continue, but they are not working, and they will
never work because this is democracy, and in a democracy hostage
tactics are the last resort for those who cannot win their fights
through elections, cannot win their fights in Congress, cannot win
their fights for the Presidency, and cannot win their fights in the
courts. For this rightwing minority, hostage taking is all they have
left--a last gasp for those who cannot cope with the realities of our
democracy.
The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the
reality of our democracy to get out of the way so that those of us in
both parties who understand the American people sent us here to work
for them can get back to work solving real problems faced by the
American people. We have real work to do, and that is what we should be
doing.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. 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. BROWN. Madam President, I urge leadership in the House of
Representatives to simply schedule a vote on the Senate-passed bill. I
understand a number of people in the majority party are going to vote
no. I also believe that--and the Presiding Officer used to be in the
House of Representatives, as I was years ago. It is a democratic House,
and I mean ``democratic'' with a small ``d.'' They should schedule a
vote. I believe a majority of Members of the House of Representatives
would vote for the bipartisan continuing resolution that passed the
Senate. I believe they would pass it in the House if the Speaker of the
House would let it come to a vote.
Is the Speaker of the House going to be the Speaker of the radical
right of the Republican Party or is he going to be the Speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives? Fundamentally, that is the question. Is
he going to be the Speaker of the radical right in the House of
Representatives or is he going to be the Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives? If he chooses the latter, if he chooses before
midnight, there will not be a government shutdown because a majority of
the House
[[Page S7031]]
of Representatives--not necessarily a majority of the Republicans, but
a majority of those who took the oath of office on January 3, 2013, who
were elected in November of 2012, and then took that oath--I believe a
majority of them will support it.
I think it is always a good idea to look back in time a little to
what happened in the past. We know that more than 30 times when
President Reagan was President and President Bush Senior was President
and President Bush Junior was President, the Congress raised the debt
ceiling, even with a Democratic Congress, without preconditions,
without threatening to shut the government down or without threatening
default; and a number of times the same situation on continuing
resolutions, passing budgets, all those things.
But never really before in the House of Representatives or the Senate
has there been a body of Members who have tried repeatedly to have
their way to, in a sense, attach their political platform from the
election of the year before to a continuing resolution, and if they do
not get that political platform attached, they are simply going to shut
the government down. That is really what is happening.
There is all this talk about that the public does not like the
Affordable Care Act. Some call it ObamaCare. The official name is the
Affordable Care Act. There is some talk from the House of
Representatives, really ad nauseam, that they do not like the
Affordable Care Act and they say the public does not like the
Affordable Care Act. But let's look at that.
(Mr. DONNELLY assumed the Chair.)
In 2012, the President of the United States was reelected--a strong
supporter of the Affordable Care Act.
In 2012, supporters of the Affordable Care Act were elected,
including the new Presiding Officer, who replaced the Senator from
Hawaii, who is a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I was
reelected--a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. A strong majority in
the Senate support the Affordable Care Act, many of whom stood for
reelection and were successful. In fact, two more were elected this
time who held office prior to this election and who supported the
Affordable Care Act. More people voted for House candidates who
supported the Affordable Care Act. More people voted for Democrats in
the House races than Republicans, even though redistricting made the
outcome a little different, obviously, from that.
So the point is, there is no public sentiment to shut the government
down in order to defund or repeal or hold back or delay or emasculate
or pull apart--or whatever--the Affordable Care Act.
But let's go back a bit in history.
In July 1965--48 years and a couple months ago--President Johnson
signed Medicare into law. It passed bipartisanly, although a number of
Republicans were strongly against it, especially the far right. In
1965, when Medicare passed, the John Birch Society did not like it.
That was sort of the tea party of today. A lot of doctors did not like
it. A lot of insurance companies did not like it in 1965. But a lot of
people who were suspicious of government overall said they did not like
it and opposed it, and a lot of them continued to oppose it after the
election.
But 5 years later, the country clearly was very happy with Medicare.
Certainly 48 years later, the country is very happy with Medicare. I do
not think there is much question that 5 years from now people will be
happy with the Affordable Care Act. They know it will have worked for
people in this country. Much of it already has worked, as the Presiding
Officer knows.
In my State, almost a million seniors have already received benefits.
They have gotten free preventive care with no copays, no deductibles.
Seniors from Youngstown and Toledo have had screenings for osteoporosis
and physicals and all and there is no copay or deductible for those
living on Medicare. People from Cleveland to Cincinnati, people in
their twenties--100,000 Ohioans in their twenties--have been able to go
on their parents' health care plan up until the age of 26. Because of a
rule in the Affordable Care Act, we have seen thousands of Ohioans get
a rebate check from the insurance companies because the insurance
companies charged too much.
We know a lot of those benefits have been out there. Families who
have a child with a preexisting condition are no longer being denied
coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. So we know much of it has
taken effect and much of it has been to the public benefit. We also
know come tomorrow, October 1, much more of the Affordable Care Act--
the rest of it--will be rolled out.
Seniors have saved in my State--and I think in the State of Indiana--
an average of about $700. Those who are in the prescription drug plan
have saved about that amount of money on their prescription drugs,
again, because of the Affordable Care Act. We know that. Put that
aside.
Let's simply ask the House of Representatives to bring this bill up.
We know what happens if we do not. A shutdown would hurt the financing
of more than 1,000 small businesses per week in my State--from Hamilton
to Chillicothe, to Mansfield, to Ashtabula. The Small Business
Administration in 2012 approved nearly 54,000 applications through
their credit loans program, supporting over half a million jobs. A
shutdown would stop the ability of the SBA to loan to small businesses
through this program.
A shutdown would put 52,000 Ohio federal employees at risk of being
out of work. Most of them would temporarily lose jobs. We know that is
a drag on the economy. We know it would mean government services are
not being rendered. It would mean those tens of thousands of workers
would not get paid. It would mean a stumbling, a faltering, a
sputtering of our economic growth and the economic recovery, because
people are not making the money and putting money back into the
economy.
Senior citizens would be ineligible, if there is a shutdown, to apply
for new Social Security benefits. The Social Security applications
would not be taken as a result of Federal furloughs and service cuts.
In 2012, more than 2.2 million Ohioans received--obviously many had
been receiving for years--Social Security benefits.
All we ask is that the Speaker of the House do what one should do in
a democracy. Let the elected representatives of Congress have the
opportunity to vote. Give them the opportunity to vote yes or no on the
Senate-passed, bipartisanly passed continuing resolution. Speaker
Boehner needs to make a decision. Is he going to be the Speaker of the
radical far right Republican party or is he going to be the Speaker of
the House of Representatives? That choice is clear. Bring that bill to
the floor. Let all 435 Members of the House of Representatives who were
elected last November and sworn in in January have the opportunity to
vote.
I think if they do, it will mean the President will sign the bill
before midnight and keep this government operating. There is simply no
reason for it, as we lurch from crisis to crisis, all created by a
political agenda, that most of the people in this country have rejected
at election time.
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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, we are here tonight in the Senate, hours
away from a deadline which, if action is not taken on the House side,
the other body, will lead to a government shutdown. Unfortunately, when
I have been asked today by either constituents or reporters, and they
ask: Is it less likely or more likely that there will be a shutdown, I
have had to be honest and say: At least at this moment it seems more
likely than less likely.
I think we have to examine not just how to try to resolve this in a
way that makes sense, but also to remind ourselves how we got here.
This is not the typical battle in Washington. We have had a lot of
those. We should all try to work in a bipartisan fashion. But this one
is unique in the sense that you have, on the one side, Democrats in
Congress and across the country who
[[Page S7032]]
are united in an effort to continue the operations of the government
and not have a government shutdown, even if we want to make a point,
even if we want to make an argument about this or that policy.
We see a growing number of Republicans here in the Senate and across
the country, and maybe even a few in the House, even in the last 24
hours or so, who are saying: Let's just get the government funded so we
can move forward. We might be able to have a debate in the middle of
November or somewhere down the road. But let's not hold up the
operations of government or default on our obligations for the first
time since 1789 in order to make an ideological point or a political
point.
It is clear from the national data that Independents are on that side
of the argument as well. So you have this consensus on one side, with
Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, who say that we should not--
in order to make a point about an issue, whether it is health care or
the economy or whatever it is--we should not act in a way that would
shut down the government to do that.
On the other side, you have the far right of the Republican party
which not only believes that in order to make their point they are
willing to allow the government to shut down, but they also have a
determination to do that to the extent one wing of one party is really
driving the train in that party. It happens to be the Republican Party.
So this is unusual. It is not the typical Democrat versus Republican
debate. It started months ago when politicians who work in this town
would go home to their State or their districts and make the point
that, no matter what, they were going to argue that this is the moment
where they should stop the health care bill. No matter what was in
their way, they were going to continue to drive in that direction.
That is how we have gotten here. What happens if we go past the
deadline and there is a shutdown of a few days or longer? Here is what
some of the data show from some of the folks who are not in the
Congress but who observe broader trends, especially economic trends.
Mark Zandi is Moody's chief economist. He is widely respected. I
think people in both parties respect his opinion. According to him--and
I am not quoting, I am just summarizing what he said--a shutdown
lasting a few days would cost the economy 0.2 percent of GDP, while a
longer shutdown could cost as much as 1.4 percent.
Sometimes it is difficult to say what 0.2 percent of GDP means. What
it means for sure is the economy, which has been moving in the right
direction--we have had tremendous job growth, over 9 quarters now, and
many months of job growth. But we are not moving fast enough. We are
not creating jobs at a fast enough pace.
When I go home to Pennsylvania people do not say to me: Score every
point you can for your point of view. They say to me: Work together
with the other side to create jobs. Work together with the other side
to put in place strategies that will lead to economic growth and to job
growth.
If you are going to go in the wrong direction when it comes to
growth, and you lose 0.2 percent of growth, and then, if the shutdown
goes longer you lose 0.4 or 0.5 or 0.6, over time you are going in the
wrong direction. But we know when you lose even 0.2 percent of growth
you are killing jobs. So first and foremost, any shutdown is a big job
killer. A default on our obligations would be a much bigger job killer.
A shutdown would not just slow growth, but it would spread anxiety.
This is just human nature. It will spread anxiety among consumers. We
know that in the summer of 2011 the almost default on our obligations
caused consumer confidence to take a nosedive. We did not come out of
that hole of consumer confidence until many months later. A government
shutdown has a similar effect.
How about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not usually on my side of a
lot of debates or on the Democratic side? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
has urged Congress to keep the government open and has said that a
shutdown would be ``economically disruptive and create even more
uncertainty in the U.S. economy.'' So this is the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, which is often making arguments about uncertainty in other
contexts. They are saying that a shutdown would create even more
uncertainty.
How about the economic recovery? I mentioned those 9 quarters of
growth we have had. We have had job growth as well. Just in terms of
how you measure it: 7.5 million private sector jobs--7.5 million added
in the last 42 months. That will take a nosedive. So instead of growing
at 160,000 jobs a month, roughly, which has been kind of the pace for a
while now, which is not fast enough--we need to be at 200,000 or
230,000 or 240,000 if we really want to say that the economy has taken
off. But instead of growing at 160,000, 170,000, or even higher, we
will go backwards. Maybe the job growth for the next couple of months
will be substantially less than that. A shutdown all but ensures that
to happen.
We don't know exactly how much slowing or how much damage would be
done to the job growth, but there is going to be a job impact for sure,
and I think that is pretty clear from the data.
Both sides in a lot of debates in Washington say they stand for small
businesses. We can debate which side does a better job for small
business. We know when a small business person needs some help, a
measure of help from the Federal Government, they usually turn to the
Small Business Administration. We know the SBA, their approval of
applications for business loans guarantees and direct loans to small
business would cease. If we take the Small Business Administration off
the playing field, they average about 1,000 loans or loan guarantees
per week. That is national.
What does that mean for Pennsylvania?
From October 2012 through August of this year, 2013, the SBA
supported over 1,400 loans for over $600 million for small businesses
in Pennsylvania. On average, that is about 30 loans for over $13
million to entrepreneurs each week--every week, on average, based upon
the recent data in Pennsylvania, 30 loans and $13 million helping small
businesses in Pennsylvania. To shut that off would make our economic
circumstance even worse.
In Pennsylvania, we had many months in a row where the unemployment
numbers were 500,000 people unemployed or more. Thankfully, it dipped
below 500,000 for a couple of months. We just received the numbers from
August because the State numbers are always behind. The State data for
August unfortunately shows we are just above 500,000 people out of
work. A shutdown will bring that 500,000-persons out-of-work number and
send it higher and send it in the wrong direction.
What about veterans? People say veterans' disability checks would go
out, just as Social Security checks would go out, in the aftermath of a
shutdown. That is only part of the story. If you are a veteran getting
disability checks or a pension benefit--in our State we have 109,000
veterans who receive disability or pension help. They may get their
check, but it is highly likely, if not a certainty, that those checks
will be delayed.
If you are a veteran and are entitled to this because of what you did
for our country, because part of a political party wants to make an
ideological point, you have to wait for your check. You have to wait
for your disability check. That makes no sense. To say it is unfair to
a veteran or to his or her family is an understatement.
What about Social Security? People say: Well, the checks are going to
go out so people will be just fine in a shutdown.
That is only part of the story. Yes, current recipients will get
their checks, but if you reach the age of 65 and you wish to have your
application processed, you will not be able to do that or, at a
minimum, that will be slowed substantially.
In our State, every month more than 11,600 people are able to start
the process for Social Security benefits. Those people will have to
wait and wait in the advent of a government shutdown.
What about national parks? We have a great blessing in our State
where we have an abundance of national parks and historic sites which
are wonderful for the country, wonderful for enrichment, learning, and
history, but they also are a big economic driver in different
communities.
[[Page S7033]]
In southeastern Pennsylvania, when you add it all, one of the numbers
I saw was over $200,000 of impact. Those, unlike a lot of others I
spoke about, those parts of the government will stop completely. An
economic engine in one part of our State that averages about $200,000
of economic impact will stop. Maybe we will lose $10,000 over the
course of a shutdown. Maybe Pennsylvania will lose $20,000 or $30,000.
We are going to lose for sure and a lot of other States will as well.
The Flight 93 National Memorial is one of those from 9/11 and
Gettysburg and Valley Forge/Independence Visitor Center in
Philadelphia, there are many examples and many job impacts when it
comes to all of those.
The basic point is some people would say: Look, you are in the Senate
or the House, and you wish to have a debate about something as
significant and consequential to people's lives or to our economy such
as health care, you ought to be able to debate that. I would agree with
that. There is no question about it. We had big debates in 2009 leading
up to a vote in the Senate. Then the debate continued in 2010. The bill
was enacted in 2010. There was still debate about it after that. There
were votes taken one after another to repeal it. Then the Supreme Court
litigated it. That took months until the Supreme Court made a decision.
The Supreme Court, which is dominated--or at least the majority are
Republican-appointed Justices--said the Affordable Care Act was
constitutional. Then there was a Presidential election, which was
another kind of litigation or debate. One candidate said: I am going to
keep the Affordable Care Act in place, and we are not going to repeal
it. The other side said: We are going to repeal it. The side that said
they were going to put it into effect won the election--that of
President Obama.
This has been debated and litigated several direct ways in several
different branches of our government. That will continue and, frankly,
it should continue. Some of the impacts are already in place. We know
that.
We know, for example, that since 2010, when the consumer protections
went into effect, which had nothing to do initially with those who were
uninsured, the tens of millions of uninsured, but we put in place the
consumer protections for those with insurance, those who had coverage,
were making payments--premium payments--yet their children were still
not protected because of a preexisting condition.
Up until 2010, it was the law--or it was the prevailing policy that
if an insurance company wanted to say to those who were paying
premiums, sorry, I know you are making your payments, but your child
has a preexisting condition, and they are not covered, that was
permitted when insurance companies had all of the power. I would argue
they had all the power, an unfair advantage and bargaining advantage.
Since 2010, we have had something on the order of 17 million children
who could no longer be denied coverage due to a preexisting condition,
solely and completely because of the Affordable Care Act.
We have millions of young people who can stay on their parents'
policies from the ages of 19 to 25. They can only stay on those
policies solely because of the Affordable Care Act, because it was
enacted into law.
We have millions of seniors who are getting payments over time to
help them fill the coverage gap of the so-called doughnut hole. They
are getting those payments solely because of the Affordable Care Act.
Tomorrow, we are going to see the beginning of the exchanges going
up, where people can go into a marketplace and shop for the best
possible health care insurance that they can afford. Most people--
probably as many as 150 million Americans--already have coverage and
their employer provides it, so their status will not change that much,
if at all.
These changes are going into effect over time. I would hope the
people who wish to keep debating it and making changes to it--and I
voted for changes as well--would allow it to be, if not fully
implemented, something close to fully over the next couple of months or
maybe even over the next couple of years. Then at some point this
debate about who is right or who is wrong about the impact will have
been determined.
We are all for debate on the budget, health care, and everything
else, but we shouldn't bring the country to these cliffs--the cliff
meaning this deadline tonight on the budget, where the House has our
legislation, which is only about the budget. They could pass it. It
will pass if the Speaker puts it on the floor tonight. It would pass,
and we would be beyond this crisis. Then we would move to the next
deadline, get beyond these deadlines, have a big debate, and have very
strong arguments made about how we get a full year's worth of a budget
starting in the middle of November. That is the appropriate time and
the appropriate place to make arguments about the budget, the economy,
jobs, health care or whatever else it is. Now is not the time.
I would hope between now and midnight, the House would put up our
bill, which is very simple--it keeps the government operating with no
conditions and no add-ons--and pass that legislation. We would be done
with this, and we could move on to issues people want us to work on.
I will restate what I said before. People in Pennsylvania, when they
say to me what they want me to do, they say work together to create
jobs. If you had to put that in a sound bite, that is what it is.
I am hoping between now and then this consensus of Republicans,
Democrats, and Independents that prevailed throughout the country will
have the appropriate influence on those who are trying to push this to
the end and shut down the government. A government shutdown is bad for
everybody, no matter what party you are in. We should keep working to
make sure it doesn't happen.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Mr. LEVIN. Earlier today the Senate rejected for the second time the
House Republican continuing resolution. The approach they have adopted
over in the House attempts to and would deprive millions of Americans
of health insurance if it were passed here. It is not going to pass
here.
I would say to Speaker Boehner we have given your proposal a vote. In
fact, we have voted on it twice. Now you owe it to the American people
to hold a vote, a vote on the bipartisan, clean continuing resolution
which would keep the government open. This is the resolution which the
Senate sent to you just a few hours ago.
The only thing preventing us from keeping this government open is
Speaker Boehner's refusal to bring a bipartisan Senate continuing
resolution to the House floor. I think most Republicans over there even
acknowledge that it would pass if Speaker Boehner would allow a vote on
it.
The Senate, a short time ago, approved a measure to allow for the pay
of our men and women in uniform to continue in the event of a
government shutdown. This measure was necessary because requiring our
military to go into combat with only an IOU instead of pay would be a
travesty. Nobody should be fooled. It is only one travesty that was
avoided among many. Even if we restrict our view to the impact of a
government shutdown on the military, there are many other terrible
impacts of a government shutdown.
Our military Members would be paid so a shutdown would result in at
least avoiding that problem. However, there are other unthinkable
outcomes to our security with a government shutdown. Family members of
military members who die in combat would not receive death benefits
during a shutdown. It defies belief that in the pursuit of a narrow
ideological goal House Republicans would prevent the payment of
benefits for those who died defending our country. That is the result
of a government shutdown.
In the event of a shutdown, the Department of Defense would also
further reduce already curtailed training and bring routine maintenance
to a halt, exacerbating the corrosive effects that sequestration is
already having on military readiness. The Department of Defense would
be barred from entering most new contracts. That would harm
modernization programs.
A shutdown would severely curtail medical services for troops and
their families. Commissaries would close, with hundreds of thousands of
civilian
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employees. Workers vital to our defense would be laid off. Outside of
the DOD, a shutdown would disrupt some operations in the Department of
Veterans Affairs which is providing benefits to those who have served.
Then there is the extraordinary disruption of having to plan for all
of this absurdity. As Under Secretary of Defense Hale said on Friday:
Even if a lapse never occurs, the planning itself is
disruptive. People are worrying right now about whether their
paychecks are going to be delayed, rather than focusing fully
on their mission. And while I can't quantify the time being
spent to plan, it has or will consume a lot of senior
management attention, probably thousands of hours in employee
time better spent on supporting national security.
Again, that only covers the impact on our military and on our
veterans. While Border Patrol agents and FBI agents would continue to
work, they would be putting their lives on the line for an IOU instead
for a paycheck. Health clinics would stop taking new patients.
Lifesaving research would grind to a halt. The far-reaching effects of
a shutdown on government services across the country should give us all
pause, as should the fact that a shutdown is likely to damage the all-
too-fragile economic recovery.
This has gone on for far too long and Speaker Boehner can end it
now. There is still time for him to bring to the floor of the House of
Representatives a clean continuing resolution and avert a government
shutdown. For the good of our men and women in uniform and our national
security, for the good of our economy, and for the millions of
Americans who rely on and who benefit from important Federal programs,
I hope the Speaker will allow our bipartisan continuing resolution to
be voted on.
I hope that even this late in the game reason is going to prevail. I
hold that hope in part because while House Republicans have put tea
party ideology ahead of the good of the Nation, many of our Republican
colleagues here in the Senate have not. These Members recognize there
is a difference between on the one hand debating serious policy
preferences and on the other hand threatening government shutdown if
you don't get your way.
All of us in the Senate have issues on which we feel every bit as
passionately as the opponents of the Affordable Care Act feel about
that law. I happen to feel strongly, for instance, that we should have
universal background checks for firearms purchases. By the tea party
method of proving the strength of my belief, I should threaten a
government shutdown if I don't get what I want on that subject. If all
of us threaten legislative anarchy in pursuit of our goals, democracy
will cease to function.
As appalled as I am that some Members would threaten such damage to
our Nation, I am heartened that many of our Republican colleagues here
in the Senate have spoken out in opposition to this approach.
When I came to the floor last week to speak on this topic, Senator
Ayotte was speaking. I commended her for saying that the American
people expect us to keep the government running even though I disagreed
with much of what she said about the Affordable Care Act.
I commend Senator Collins for saying a shutdown ``will only further
damage our struggling economy'' and that we should resolve our
differences ``without resorting to constant brinkmanship and the threat
of government shutdown.'' I commend Senator Collins, even though I
disagree with her on the Affordable Care Act, for taking that position
against a shutdown and for seeing the distinction between fighting hard
for what you believe in and threatening to bring down government
operations overall if you don't get what you want.
I commend Senator Portman for saying that the differences on the
Affordable Care Act ``ought to be handled outside the context of a
government shutdown.''
I commend Senator Chambliss for saying that while, in his words, he
would love to defund ObamaCare, a government shutdown is ``going to do
great harm to the American people if we pursue that course.''
I commend Senator Kirk for saying, ``Let's not shut down the
government just because you don't get everything you want.''
There are others who have made that critically important distinction
between opposing a certain policy and shutting down the government if
one doesn't get his or her way.
I welcome spirited debate. I welcome differences of opinion. As my
friend Senator McCain said last week, there was plenty of both during
the debate on the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But it is deeply
distressing to hear Members of Congress argue that the litmus test of
whether you are fighting for your beliefs is whether you are willing to
shut down the government if you don't achieve a particular goal. That
is more than fighting for your position, that is wanton destruction. I
hope at least some House Republicans will come to see the difference
between fighting for your goals and sowing anarchy in pursuit of them.
Mr. President, 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. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, moments ago the House of
Representatives adopted a rule which clearly indicates that it is set
to adopt a resolution containing unrelated conditions that will
forestall its approval by this Chamber. That is a tragic result which
threatens harm and havoc to countless people who depend on government
programs and to our economy. It threatens harm to veterans and children
who depend on Head Start, seniors who receive meals, and it threatens
jobs and economic growth with a ripple effect that will set all of us
back in the continuing fragile and all-to-slow recovery we have seen
from the greatest recession in recent memory.
Today's result in the House of Representatives is a tragedy for
democracy. Without any overstatement, we have to recognize that this
result reflects a dysfunction in democracy. The threatened shutdown of
our government is the result of an extreme ideological fringe element
in one House and one party that has made the decision that their agenda
is a take-it-or-leave-it condition, that it is more important than
economic growth, more important than our seniors, our children, our
veterans. Key services, our economic growth, and jobs will be impacted
very directly by this impending shutdown.
This morning I was at a gathering in Glastonbury, CT, with a group of
manufacturers, their employees, and economic experts. One economic
expert in particular, Steven Lanza of the University of Connecticut,
told us that a shutdown of 3 to 4 weeks alone would cost the State of
Connecticut 2,000 jobs.
We know from the predictions of expert economists such as Mark Zandi
of Moody's Analytics that the result for the country as a whole could
be percentage points of lost growth. In fact, we can ill-afford this
self-inflicted, manufactured wound to our Nation and to the trust and
confidence people deserve to have in our democracy and our economy.
For some businesses these problems will be more than acute; they will
be life-threatening injuries because their existence--not to mention
their profits--depends on consumer demand that will be diminished by
the ripple effect and the ramifications of the 9,000 Federal employees
in Connecticut who will be furloughed, not to mention the hundreds of
others whose jobs will be threatened by a shutdown of just days or a
week. The fact is that at this point we can't know what the full
economic ramifications will be. There are more questions--serious
questions--than there are answers.
I will support an amendment and a measure that will be offered I
think later this evening or within hours to preserve the benefits and
payments that are due to our veterans for their service and sacrifice.
That is a provision we need to make. It is our responsibility to keep
faith with those veterans and make sure we leave no veteran behind and
that the processing of claims goes forward so our veterans receive the
benefits they have earned.
At the forum I had this morning, Brian Montanari, the president of
Habco, which is in Glastonbury, told us
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he relies on contracts with the Federal Government for much of his
business, and his employees--to whose ranks he has been adding--will be
impacted by this potential shutdown, if only the uncertainty it
creates. He is not alone. Businesses all over Connecticut and the
country will face a tougher economic climate because of the shutdown.
The Small Business Administration will stop processing applications for
the business loans it provides to tens of thousands of entrepreneurs,
risk takers, and job creators around the country. Perhaps the most
galling aspect of this shutdown is the direct economic hardship it will
cause to families whose jobs will be threatened and whose livelihoods
will be at risk.
There are hours to go before the final hour, but the point is, as the
President said so well earlier, keeping the government open is not a
bargaining chip, it is our job. President Obama said: ``You don't get
to extract a ransom for doing your job.''
Families need to be able to plan for their future, businesses need
certainty in order to make investments and hire new workers, and the
Nation needs both parties, not just one, to be fully committed to the
democratic process.
I hope in the time remaining the House does its job, that these
extremist demands are rejected--and certainly by this Chamber they will
be. My hope is that we can move forward, keep the government open,
provide the services people need, and support the economy, which is all
too necessary at this point in our history.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________