[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 135 (Thursday, October 3, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7147-S7149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 3230

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the men and women who serve our Nation in 
the Guard and Reserve shouldn't be impacted by a partial government 
shutdown.
  Recently, the House and Senate unanimously passed the pay our 
military first act, which was signed into law by the President this 
past Monday. That bill ensures that Active-Duty military and those who 
support them stay on the job regardless of the dysfunction in 
Washington. Congress was right and passed the legislation, and 
President Obama was right to immediately sign it into law.
  Today, the House of Representatives is going to pass H.R. 3230, the 
Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act. This bill provides funding to pay Guard 
and Reserve troops who are not currently on Active Duty. Although these 
men and women currently don't have Active-Duty status, they have 
regularly scheduled training requirements. They stand ready to serve in 
overseas conflicts and to respond to domestic disasters if called upon 
by their country.
  These men and women proudly serve this country, and they should not 
be impacted by spending disagreements in Washington. Today the Senate 
has a chance to give these individuals and their families greater 
certainty by passing H.R. 3220, as soon as it is received from the 
House.
  I am sorry to hear that the majority and the President have already 
indicated they are going to oppose this and that the President has 
threatened to veto this legislation. I can't imagine that we would not 
do for our Guard and Reserve troops what we have already done for our 
Active-Duty troops. I think that is a big mistake.
  So I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives H.R. 3230, 
making continuing appropriations during a government shutdown to 
provide pay allowances to members of the Reserve components of the 
Armed Forces; that the measure be read three times and passed; and the 
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from Illinois and 
the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to respond.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am going 
to offer to the Senator from South Dakota an even better deal. Not only 
will we help the reservists, not only will we open the Veterans' 
Administration, but out of the two million federal workers, 800,000 
have been furloughed. There are over a half a million veterans in the 
federal workforce and a fourth of them are disabled. Now I am going to 
give the Senator from South Dakota an opportunity to put them all back 
to work immediately, including paying the reservists and everything he 
suggested.
  I ask unanimous consent that the request of the Senator from South 
Dakota be modified as follows: that the amendment which is at the desk 
be agreed to; that the bill as amended then be read a third time and 
passed; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table, with no intervening action or debate.
  This amendment is the text that passed the Senate. It is a clean 
continuing resolution for the entire government and will put thousands 
of disabled veterans back to work. It is something already in the House 
and reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the 
House of Representatives.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection to the modified 
request?
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, as the 
Senator from Illinois has already pointed out, that has already passed 
in the Senate. What he is suggesting is already in the House, not being 
acted on.
  What the Senate can act on is legislation that is being sent from the 
House that would ensure that our National Guard and Reserve troops are 
treated the same way as our Active troops are treated. I think that is 
only fair and only fitting. These are people who not only respond to 
domestic disasters but are also involved in conflicts overseas on a 
regular basis.
  So I would object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The objection is heard to the 
modification requested.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on behalf of the one-half million veteran 
Federal employees, one-fourth of whom are disabled, I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Republican whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining 
in our allocated time?

[[Page S7148]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Thirteen minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I grew up in an Air Force family. My dad 
served in World War II in the Army Air Corps, and as I have mentioned 
on this floor many times, he continued to serve for 31 years in the 
U.S. Air Force.
  As fate would have it, he was transferred to Tachikawa Air Force Base 
in Japan right after my junior year in high school. So I graduated from 
high school in Japan, and I became acquainted with this 17th century 
stylized form of drama and dancing called kabuki.
  The thing about kabuki is that the audience oohs and aahs as the 
actors demonstrate their great skill at carrying out this stylized form 
of drama and dance. What we have seen on this government shutdown, 
contrived as it is, is a form of kabuki. We know exactly what is 
happening.
  The Senate, under the majority leader, has turned down at least 
four--and now here today four more--proposals from the House of 
Representatives to try to mitigate some of the hardship as a result of 
their determination to protect the special congressional carve-out from 
ObamaCare--which was tabled the other day at the instance of the 
majority leader--as well as to deny average Americans the same 
opportunity the President has unilaterally given to employers to delay 
the implementation of ObamaCare for 1 year when it comes to the 
individual mandate.
  That is what the majority has objected to. That is what the majority 
leader in a party-line vote has tabled, and that is the only reason we 
are engaged in a government shutdown--because of their refusal to 
accept those reasonable conditions from the House of Representatives.
  So this is kabuki as we in America understand it. We all understand 
the dance. We understand this is a form of drama. But the problem is 
the American people are suffering either hardship or great 
inconvenience as a result of the unwillingness of the President of the 
United States to negotiate and the hard-line ``my way or the highway'' 
position of the majority party.
  I ask my colleagues who are on the floor--both of whom served with 
great distinction in the House of Representatives--whether they believe 
the House has acted in good faith, whether they have tried to resolve 
this impasse by sending over to the Senate reasonable pieces of 
legislation which, if accepted by the majority, could break this 
impasse and reopen the Federal Government.
  I ask the Senator from Missouri to respond first.
  Mr. BLUNT. Let me say to my friend from Texas that until the 
leadership in the Senate changed to the current leadership 7 years ago, 
we always did appropriations by debating and advancing individual 
things.
  The idea that we don't want to debate anything if we don't debate 
everything makes no sense. It is not the way the government should run.
  I think the House is not only well intended but that their goal is a 
worthy goal. The House of Representatives, led by Republicans beginning 
in 1995, doubled NIH funding in 10 years. My good friend from South 
Dakota and I were there for the majority of that 10-year doubling of 
NIH funding.
  Last year in the Appropriations Committee markup I voted for a bill 
that would add $1 billion extra to NIH funding. It was defeated in the 
committee. This year I voted for a bill that would add almost $1.5 
billion of additional NIH funding.
  This makes a difference in the lives of people. Dr. Francis Collins, 
the Director of NIH, has estimated that each week there is a shutdown 
his agency's research hospital would have to turn away an estimated 200 
patients. He estimated 30 of those patients would be children.
  I know they took the children and individuals who were coming Monday 
and Tuesday but are now beginning to notify people: If you were 
scheduled to come, we have 4,000 people working and 14,000 people not 
working. We can't accept you right now.
  I think this is the right thing to do. It is an easy thing to do, if 
we would just stand and do it.
  If we do not oppose NIH--and I do not believe there is a Senator who 
does--why don't we continue their funding and do it right now?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I heard the assistant leader on the 
Democratic side, the majority side, yesterday make what I thought was a 
very impassioned speech on behalf of access to research that is 
provided by the NIH for children who are suffering from cancer. I ask 
the Senator from Missouri, would the bill the House has passed and the 
Senator asked consent the Senate consider address the very same sort of 
cancer research for children the assistant majority leader was arguing 
for yesterday?
  Mr. BLUNT. I was impressed by the comments of my friend from Illinois 
yesterday about NIH funding. I am for NIH funding. I have never failed 
to vote for NIH funding. Frankly, I have never failed to vote for an 
amendment that would increase NIH funding, as far as I know. I have 
seen it increase dramatically.
  Opening the doors of that research facility is the right thing to do. 
We could do it today. I cannot imagine the President would not sign a 
bill that let three-quarters of that workforce go back to work and let 
the 200 people who will be turned away in the next 7 days be told 
instead: Come on, be part of this process. We are waiting for you. We 
are here. We are doing the kinds of things your family critically needs 
us to do.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask the Senator from South Dakota, I know South Dakota 
has a lot of uniformed military. The Senator has already addressed a 
piece of legislation that has passed the House and come over here. Is 
it the Senator's impression that the House is trying to address some of 
the hardships--inconvenience in some cases, hardships in others--that 
are caused by the government shutdown? In his experience, are they 
being reasonable in demonstrating good faith in trying to break this 
impasse?
  Mr. THUNE. I say to the distinguished whip, the Senator from Texas, 
he is exactly correct. The House of Representatives has moved several 
pieces of legislation--and will this morning--that address some of what 
we think are the real needs out there in the midst of a very 
unnecessary government shutdown. Some of those have been mentioned here 
on the floor this morning. I would point out two in addition: taking 
care of our Guard and Reserve troops as we have our Active-Duty 
troops--it is really important. All of us have Guard units with 
families that have been impacted. The House of Representatives has 
given us an opportunity to do that.
  The other thing I would mention, I spoke yesterday about President 
Obama's refusal to open the World War II Memorial for veterans on their 
Honor Flight. He rejected their appeal to visit the memorial dedicated 
to their service, an opportunity to honor their brothers in arms, many 
of whom died in that great war. I am pleased that the veterans--not 
ones to be defeated--breached the barricades and took their memorial.
  I have had the opportunity--my father is a World War II Navy fighter 
pilot--to be able to show him some of these memorials we have, 
monuments here in Washington, DC, particularly the one that was erected 
in honor of his generation.
  They should not be denied the honor of visiting these monuments to 
their service.
  When we are thinking about that generation of Americans, we had 
Senator McConnell put forward an opportunity today to address the needs 
of our veterans. We found out that even though the veterans budget is 
advance-funded by a year, there are certain elements of that budget 
that are going to run out of money. We want to make sure those of the 
great generation that served our country, defended our country around 
the world, have access to the programs and the benefits that have been 
assured and promised to them.
  I think it is unconscionable, unacceptable that we not agree to allow 
those services to continue to be funded. I am very disappointed to see 
our colleagues on the Democratic side resist and object to that motion 
here this morning. If anything, if any group of people in this country 
deserves to have the respect and also the promises honored, the 
promises we made to them, it is those American veterans.
  If we look at the last shutdown in 1995 and 1996, President Bill 
Clinton

[[Page S7149]]

came to the table and supported legislation to protect veterans 
programs. I hope we could get some cooperation from our colleagues on 
the other side to do that today, I say to my colleague from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. May I ask how much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Three minutes.
  Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senators from South Dakota and from Missouri 
for making very important points. I know the leaders--bicameral 
leadership of the House and the Senate--were called to the White House 
last night, at which time Senator McConnell, the distinguished 
Republican leader, reported here on the floor, the President announced 
he was not going to negotiate. Bizarre. Why would the President call 
the Republican and the Democratic leadership to the White House to say: 
I am not going to negotiate. Is it for a photo opportunity? Is it to 
give sort of some false impression that he is actually rolling up his 
sleeves and is engaged in the business of government to which he was 
elected?
  I hope the President reconsiders leaving town while the government is 
shut down, in the words of the majority leader, and leaving for a trip 
to Asia while, as our distinguished Democratic colleagues just pointed 
out, many federal employees are furloughed during this government 
shutdown. My hope would be that the President would cancel his trip and 
that he would stay here in Washington, as we are, trying to solve this 
problem and break this impasse.
  These proposals we have made here today, many of which have been 
voted on by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan fashion, are 
designed to do exactly that--to break this impasse. Yet what is the 
response of the White House to some earlier proposals? They sent out a 
Statement of Administration Policy saying: If it is passed, I would 
veto it. That is President Barack Obama. How is that rolling up your 
sleeves and being engaged in the job you got elected to? He earned it. 
He was elected twice as President of the United States. But it is not 
leadership to convene a meeting of Republican and Democratic leadership 
at the White House and say: I am not going to negotiate. And by the 
way, I am leaving town on Saturday. Good luck.
  That leads me to conclude that the President and his party are 
actually enjoying this shutdown because they see this as partisan 
political gain. They read the public opinion polls, just as we do, but 
I do not think the American people should be fooled and they are not 
being fooled. House Republicans and Republicans in the Senate have made 
many reasonable proposals, only to be given the Heisman, and the 
President is not negotiating and the government remains shut down.
  The President needs to stay here, demonstrate leadership, continue to 
meet with leaders on both sides of the Capitol, and we can break 
through this impasse, get the money for children's cancer research, get 
the money for the troops, and open the World War II Memorial to the 
Honor Flights coming from Texas and around the country. We can do this. 
They call it self-government for a reason. We all ought to be working 
together toward that end.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican time has expired.

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