[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 135 (Thursday, October 3, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7149-S7154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there are two sides to every story. Before
he leaves the floor, I would like to say to my friend from Texas--and
he is my friend--I was at the World War II Memorial yesterday with an
Honor Flight from Illinois. There were no barricades stopping them from
going to the memorial, so the characterization on the floor that the
veterans were stopped is not true, it is not accurate. I hope the
record will reflect that.
The reason there is any question about access relates to the shutdown
of the U.S. Federal Government, the shutdown of this government. We
have passed a continuing resolution, which is a spending bill, to allow
the government to function for 6 weeks. We passed it here in the
Senate. The House Speaker, Mr. Boehner, refuses to call it for a vote.
There is a majority, Democratic and Republican, ready to vote for it,
ready to reopen the government, no questions asked about the NIH, about
the barricades at the World War II Memorial which were there
originally. All these questions will be resolved. Three times this
morning the Republicans have objected to bringing that measure up for
another vote in the Senate. That worries me.
Let me say one other thing about the Affordable Care Act, the
insurance exchanges. This morning--I am sorry he has left the floor--
this morning, this is what the Republican leader, Mr. McConnell, said
about the insurance exchanges:
Embarrassing, embarrassing rollout over ObamaCare exchanges
on Tuesday. I mean, one of the folks the President had
standing behind him at the White House tried to log on and
sign on to ObamaCare, and after a couple of unsuccessful
attempts, the Post reports, she gave up.
I have good news for the Senator from Kentucky. When you look across
the United States of America at the exchanges that have been opened, he
should hold as a matter of pride the fact that the Commonwealth of
Kentucky is one of the most successful insurance exchanges in America.
Listen to the report we just received this morning from the secretary
of the Governor's Cabinet for Health, Audrey Haynes, in Kentucky. The
Kentucky insurance exchange, which the Republicans want to close down,
has had 117,000 unique visitors, 109,000 prescreenings to determine
qualifications for health insurance, and 13,000 Kentuckians--already,
in 2 days--already 13,000 have applied for health coverage and 8,000
are now complete.
This is great news. They are leading the country. Kentucky should be
so proud. Mr. President, 122 small businesses have begun applications,
3,500 new families have been enrolled, and there have been 15,000 calls
to the call center.
Apologize that we have not been able to process these as quickly in
any State, but the overwhelming positive public response across America
to what they call ObamaCare is an indication of pent-up demand in
Kentucky, Illinois, and every State for people to finally get access to
health insurance.
I see others are on the floor to speak. I want to say to my friends
on the other side of the aisle, please reopen this government. We can
sit down and negotiate--we should--about important issues, the issues
the Senator from Washington addressed in the budget. Let's address all
these issues. Let's do it in a bipartisan, thoughtful, adult manner.
Telling 800,000 Federal employees to go home is really unfair to them.
It is unfair to this Nation. It doesn't speak well of us.
The last point I will make is this. I left the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee hearing this morning. Wendy Sherman is Assistant
Secretary of State. She is widely respected. We were talking about the
threat of Iran as a nuclear power. She said to us--and she said it with
some regret--that the government shutdown is hurting our efforts to
stop the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. How? Ninety percent of
the employees at the Department of Treasury office responsible for
monitoring Iran so that the sanctions are there and tough and bring
them to the bargaining table--90 percent of those Federal employees
have been furloughed at the Department of Treasury because the
government shut down; and 72 percent--almost three-fourths--of all the
men and women at our intelligence agencies in a civilian capacity have
been laid off as well because of the government shutdown. These are men
and women charged with watching the enemy every minute of every day so
we never have another 9/11. This is one of the aspects of the
government shutdown that literally jeopardize the security of the
United States of America.
For goodness' sake, let's put this government back in business before
the end of this day.
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I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for
reminding all of us of the many people and communities and the economy
in this country that are being hurt today because of the tea party's
insistence, in the House of Representatives, that this government
remain shut until ObamaCare is defunded or eliminated. I am frustrated,
as is every American today, thinking why can't our government work? Why
can't people come together?
As chair of the Budget Committee, I have been out here 19 times since
last March saying: Let's go to conference committee and resolve our
differences, and 19 times Members of the Republican Party have said no.
They have not allowed us to go talk.
Now we find ourselves in a mess. The government is shut down.
Families are hurting and communities are hurting and our economy is
hurting. What is the response now of the Republicans in the House of
Representatives and here on the floor? Oops, we didn't mean to hurt
everybody. We have a few friends we are going to take care of.
I have listened to the debate this morning where our Republican
colleagues came out and asked unanimous consent to take care of a few
of their favorite parts of government so that they can say they helped.
I am as passionate as anyone about our veterans. There is not one
Member of this Senate who does not fully support our military and our
veterans. No one questions that, but I take a backseat to no one in
advocating for our veterans--as the former chair of the veterans'
committee, as the daughter of a World War II veteran who earned a
Purple Heart and was one of the first soldiers in Okinawa.
As a young woman myself during the Vietnam war, I worked in the
Seattle veterans hospital with men and women my age who were coming
home from the Vietnam war. I have done so much work on this floor, as
well as worked with hundreds of thousands of our veterans who are
coming home from the current conflicts, and helped to pass legislation
to make sure they have what they need, so we don't just say thank you,
but we serve them well.
I take a backseat to no one on veterans. I can tell you one thing
about our military and our veterans that everyone here knows: They are
the least selfish among us. They have volunteered to serve our country.
They have given up for every American, and they have a motto that they
leave no one behind. I can't imagine that our veterans are out there
today saying: Take care of me with this small amendment and leave
behind the children who are in our Head Start programs or the moms and
dads who are dependent on nutrition programs in this country or the
800,000 employees who are sitting at home today scared to death about
how they are going to pay their bills because this government is shut
down.
We have an obligation and a responsibility to solve the problems in
front of us. They are widespread in terms of our differences with our
Republican colleagues, but we don't do them any favors by shutting off,
closing our arms and saying: We are not going to talk about it. We do
it by going to conference, and we do it by working together. We don't
do it by shutting out the lights across this country on our government.
In front of the House today is a solution. It is the Senate-passed
bill that is supported by a majority in the House and a majority in the
Senate as well and would pass today if it were brought up. With that
vote, we could open our government, put people back to work, and then
we would go to conference, work out our agreements in the way our
children expect us to do.
Let's be an example as adults to families and young people across
this country that when there is a disagreement, all parties involved
work together at a conference table and set aside their differences and
find a solution for the country. It cannot be done by saying: I'm not
going to let anybody go to work until I get my way, which is what the
House of Representatives is doing.
We can get this done. As I talked about yesterday, I am a former
preschool teacher, and I have seen this kind of activity before. We
have all seen our kids make a mess in their room, and then say: Gosh.
How did that happen? That is what we are hearing from the other side
today: Well, gee, how come we haven't passed any appropriations bills?
Wow, if we had a budget done, we wouldn't be here.
Why has that happened? Because time after time--and the chairwoman of
the Appropriations Committee is here--when we have tried to get our
work done, we have been blocked by the very same tea party Republicans
who today have put us into this shutdown and said: My way or the
highway; either repeal ObamaCare or this country hurts.
That is not what we should be doing. Let's tell our veterans, our
military, our Head Start moms, our 800,000 employees, and everybody in
this country: We are a country that can work. We are at work. Let's
open our doors, pass legislation in the House, and then we will work
out our disagreements. As hard as it is, we can do that.
I hope that is the focus we have today. I say to Speaker Boehner:
Bring up the bill, pass it, and allow us to get back to work.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak in morning business. How
much time remains?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Nineteen minutes.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today in a twofold role. No. 1, I
am here under my constitutionally designated responsibility as the
Senator from Maryland, duly elected and duly certified. I love
representing Maryland. We have 5\1/2\ million of the most wonderful,
patriotic, hard-working, philanthropic, community-oriented people you
can have.
I also love representing Maryland because in my State we have one of
the largest concentrations of civilian agencies in America. They have
wonderful names such as the National Institutes of Health, and the
National Institutes of Standards and Technology that helps to set the
standards that enable the private sector to be able to develop the
products they can sell around the world. We are home to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. We are home to the Consumer Product Safety
Commission that looks at a variety of things from children's toys to
the safety of our mattresses to make sure they are not flammable. I
could go on listing those agencies: the Census Bureau, the National
Weather Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which helps to keep the
seafood industry safe and operational.
I have a lot of Federal employees, and they are asking me: What are
they doing? What I am telling them is that the other side--one faction
in one party in one House of government--is prohibiting a reopening of
our government because of their failure to take up the Senate
continuing funding resolution, which would reopen government for 6
weeks while we work out our fiscal problems.
Their solution is to do this piecemeal. Piecemeal does not work. We
cannot do this one agency at a time.
Weren't we proud of our World War II veterans and how plucky and
spunky they were when they essentially broke the line to be able to see
a memorial in their honor? Absolutely. When the National Park Service
put that ban up around it, they were operating under the orders of what
a shutdown is. Now, unofficially, that World War II museum is open. But
while we say, aren't we proud of our veterans--Yes. Don't blame the
National Park Service for closing the World War II memorial. Blame the
others for shutting down government. Our veterans--who wanted to see
the memorial which salutes them, the greatest generation who fought
World War II--should not have to worry about their own government.
Then the other side says: Well, we are going to fund veterans'
benefits. We cannot fund veterans' benefits without reopening Social
Security and the IRS. I have looked and investigated and worked with my
committee on why the veterans had a backlog for disability benefits.
One of the ways claims are processed is they not only have to get what
the veteran says, but they have to get paperwork from the Social
Security Administration and from the Internal Revenue Service to be
able to process the claim.
They can beat the drum, raise the flag, sound the bugle all that they
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want, to say they want to fund veterans' benefits, but unless the
Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are
reopened, they are still placing our veterans at a disadvantage. We
need to reopen the whole government.
While they are doing their piecemeal approach, they are so busy
showing off and trying to show their pro-defending America stance--they
passed a bill to make sure the military gets paid. Sure, what American
would not want our troops in harm's way to get paid? We are for that.
But they were so fast and so facile and so showbiz, they forgot the
National Guard.
Now they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to add the National
Guard. I love the National Guard. We are the home of the fighting 29th.
They were heroes in World War II, and they have been heroes in every
war since then. I want to see the National Guard helped, but they are
kind of Johnny-come-latelies to the piecemeal approach because in their
fast-track, showbiz, showoff approach, they forgot the National Guard.
Oh, wasn't that a cool thing to do.
I support what Senator Reid just did on each and every one of those
piecemeal bills, to add the continuing funding resolution to open all
of government. Over the last few days we have shamed them into thinking
about the National Institutes of Health. I love the National Institutes
of Health. It is in my State. Every day people go to work there to find
cures for the dread diseases, such as Alzheimer's and autism, not only
for the American people here but also around the world. In a few weeks
we will be racing for the cure. Let's race to open government.
In their disdain for civilian agencies, NIH was closed down, but now
they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to reopen NIH. Do I want
NIH open? Absolutely. Over 70 percent of the people who work there have
been laid off. Last year NIH announced--because of its research and
work with wonderful academic centers and our private sector to develop
biotech and pharmaceutical products--that cancer rates in the United
States were reduced by 15 percent. With all of that work, they have now
been furloughed.
Some might say: Senator Barb, do the piecemeal. I would love to. But
if NIH workers were here, they would say: If you reopen us, it is a
hollow opportunity unless you open the FDA. We do the basic research at
our institutes, but somebody has to take that research and make use of
it in other medical devices, biotech products, or pharmaceuticals. They
then go through clinical trials because in this country we want to be
sure that whatever you put on your body or in your mouth to help you is
safe and effective. The Food and Drug Administration does that.
We can do lots of research, and have brilliant ideas that could lead
to new and credible solutions for people in pain, agony, and suffering,
but unless we can put it into clinical trials and have it go to the
FDA, it is a hollow opportunity. If we're going to reopen NIH, we have
to reopen the FDA. And guess what. The Food and Drug Administration is
furloughed. We pay a good part of the FDA through fees, such as
pharmaceutical fees and medical device fees. But guess what. During the
shutdown, the government is prohibited from collecting the fees that it
is owed.
What is this? This is showbiz politics. This is not pragmatic
solutions.
We need to reopen government--reopen the entire government--so it can
do the job we have authorized them to do, and have the men and women
who do that job be able to come back to work. That is why Senator Reid
has--instead of cherry-picking individual items--offered the
comprehensive solution that would reopen our government.
This is not only affecting government workers because government
workers actually affect the economy. Right this very minute, the
President has been in Rockville, MD. I would have loved to have joined
him this morning, but I wanted to be here at my duty station. The
President was at Rockville Pike, which is a road in Montgomery County
that has some of the greatest civilian agencies in the world clustered
around it.
He was going to visit the Luis family. They are a minority, woman-
owned asphalt contractor. They are a wonderful family and an American
success story. They came to this country with just a little money in
their pocket but with big dreams in their hearts to have freedom and
the opportunity to open a business. They opened an asphalt contracting
business which gets most of its business from local, State, and the
government for roads. They are the infrastructure people. Not coming up
with a way to keep our government open, cancel sequester, and move
legislation to fund our physical infrastructure is dramatically
affecting them.
Around Rockville Pike, there are several agencies, and I have already
said their names: The National Institutes of Standards and Technology,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety
Commission. That is affecting businesses up and down Rockville Pike.
People aren't buying their groceries, they are not buying gas. I am
going to say more about that in a little while.
Remember that Social Security agency I talked about? It is in a
neighborhood called Woodlawn in Baltimore. Nine thousand--nine
thousand--Social Security workers in Baltimore and around the country
have been furloughed. Right near them is the CMS agency which also
looks out for our Medicare.
A few blocks from Social Security is the FBI field office. Those FBI
agents are on the job--on the job--but they are being paid with IOUs.
Do my colleagues know that because of what we have had to do with our
budget they don't even have gas for the FBI cars? In a recent book
called ``Voices From The Field,'' the FBI agents have spoken out about
what is happening to them; that when they get in their car to chase a
bad guy or gal, they have to pay for their own gas. What kind of
government is this, with all that pomp and strut, the ridicule of our
Federal employees? Now this shutdown is humiliating our country and
humiliating the people who work for our government, and so on.
Across this Nation and in my own State, because of thousands of
Federal employees being furloughed or paid in IOUs, businesses are
hurting. I am the daughter of a small business owner. My father owned a
small grocery store. I am the granddaughter of a woman entrepreneur--a
wonderful woman of Polish heritage who opened a Polish bakery to be
able to help her family. Every day they said, ``Good morning, can I
help you?'' I know what it is like to be in the retail food business,
and I understand what it is like when your customers are facing the
fact that they are unemployed. All of these, mom-and-pop stores to the
larger agencies, are being affected.
The government shutdown threatens our progress. We know in 1995 and
in 1996, it cut our gross domestic product. The shutdown can cost our
economy as much as $10 billion a week.
Every week the Small Business Administration, because it is shut
down, can't process loans or give technical assistance to small
businesses. The International Trade Association, which helps our people
sell products around the world--and what is left of our manufacturing
sector in Maryland has told me how important our foreign commercial
service officers are--is shut down.
The Department of Labor processes applications for visas, for farms,
for seafood processors as in my own State. Businesses typically file
for visas 2 or 3 months in advance. Because of the shutdown, it is
going to affect everybody from citrus farmers in the South to those
people who have New England ski resorts. People might say, Oh, that is
a Gucci job. A Gucci job in a New England ski resort? I don't think so.
It is very important to Vermont and New Hampshire and the citrus
farmers down South.
We have to reopen the government. The way we reopen the government is
not by a piecemeal approach but by the House taking up the Senate
resolution.
I have a lot more to say, and I will say it during the day today. I
know my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, is on the floor. He
is a member of the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Defense
authorization committee. He is a staunch defender of people. He has
been so outspoken on the need for student loans. He has also been so
outspoken on the need for energy assistance for poor people with the
coming winter. He is a defender of America, a graduate of West Point,
and he has been a defender of the little guy
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and the little gal who should have a government on their side. I want
to make sure he has a chance to speak, and I will be back later on to
speak on the floor again.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, first let me commend the chairwoman for her
extraordinary leadership in so many different ways, including her
articulate explanation of the crisis we face at the moment and her
compelling argument that a piecemeal approach to resolving the
government shutdown will not work, since the pieces are so critically
interrelated.
I rise to speak about this government shutdown as well. Today is day
three of the Republican government shutdown, and it seems increasingly
clear that Speaker Boehner is trying to drag this out long enough to
merge the shutdown with brinkmanship over whether to pay our Nation's
bills. This attempt to gut existing law and put the full faith and
credit of the United States at risk is no way to run a country. If we
are dragged into the commingling of the Republican government shutdown
and the Republican proposals to default on our debt, we could be facing
a catastrophic financial situation that would affect not just
government operations but markets worldwide, and that is not something
we should even contemplate. So we have to move very quickly to a
resolution of this manufactured crisis.
When I hear a discussion of what is going on, the words I hear used
are words such as ``reckless,'' ``irresponsible,'' and, indeed, words
much worse than these all across this country. The bottom line is the
average American is fed up. They expect government to open, to serve
them, to perform its basic function--not selective functions but its
full range of functions.
Survey after survey notes two simple things: No. 1, the government
should be reopened for business. No. 2, the effort by some to connect
the Affordable Care Act to funding the government should be ceased.
These aren't the views of one particular political party; they are the
views of a very, very large majority of Americans, and I share their
sentiment. The government should not be closed. The Affordable Care Act
should not be tied to reopening the government.
There is a very simple solution here: Pass the short-term, continuing
resolution at current levels of spending so then we can begin the
process of resolving the budget impasse. Let me say that again: Pass
the bill that funds the government at the current level of spending.
Doing so means keeping, in effect, the sequester--something that many
on the other side of the aisle have demanded. Frankly, I would hope
that having done that, we could then seriously get into discussions
with the leader and with the chairwoman on our side about how we create
a budget for 2014 that does away with the sequester. This was inherent
in the budget resolution which I supported last March.
Regrettably, the tea party has refused to allow negotiations on the
budget, even though we heard day in and day out complaints by our
colleagues in a previous session of Congress that we need a budget, we
need a budget, we need a budget. Well, we produced a budget, and now we
are being blocked.
What is happening instead of moving to meaningful, comprehensive
budget negotiations is that we are in a government shutdown, and now
the Republicans are trying to extricate themselves from this
manufactured crisis, created by their own hands, by sending over
piecemeal bills to fund preferred and selected agencies of the
government. As the chairwoman pointed out, it doesn't work, because the
government is related. NIH can make discoveries, but if the FDA is not
authorized and operating so they can approve their use by people, it
doesn't work. We can't disassociate these things.
We saw today in Rhode Island about 26,500 women and children might
lose their WIC benefits, their nutrition benefits, their support.
Ignoring them and helping others is not going to benefit this country.
In fact, it will contribute, I think, to decline.
We have looked at the National Guard, veterans' benefits, and
national parks. Those are all worthy elements, but they are not the
entire range of elements we must perform. I believe the other side is
trying to come up with some type of coherent argument for their
actions. Is this about the debt? We have made progress in reducing our
deficit. Because of actions we have taken, we have reduced projected
deficits over 10 years by $2.4 trillion. Do we have to do more? Yes.
But we have to do it in a current, thoughtful way.
Is it about the sequester? Well, let's talk about the sequester.
Let's talk about it in the context of a budget and appropriations bills
for 2014.
Is it about the Affordable Care Act? Well, it has begun. There has
been a huge demand in the first few days and it is working through
problems. And there will be problems. There is no major initiative of
this kind that is rolled out by any business or any government that
doesn't have issues, and those issues will be dealt with.
What is very clear, though, is closing the government and then, in
sort of an ad hoc way, opening up parts is no way to operate. It is
unfair to the American people who aren't getting services they expect
and deserve. Also, it's unfair to furloughed Federal employees at the
Defense Department and elsewhere--not just the Defense Department but
all Departments--some of them are working without the certainty that
they indeed will be paid.
There is a simple way to avoid this situation. The House should stop
preventing an up-or-down vote on the Senate's continuing resolution and
open the government. The Speaker can call up that vote in less than an
hour, get it on the floor, and go ahead and reopen our government. Then
reopen the thoughtful, careful, collaborative discussions about where
we are going in terms of our budget, in terms of our deficit, in terms
of serving the American people.
I have heard a lot of talk such as: Oh, we have to have a lot of
negotiations and compromise, et cetera. I have supported legislation I
believe in strongly. I have opposed legislation, but I don't think I
have ever stood up and said it is either my way or nothing happens.
That is not the way to responsibly represent the people of America. It
is the give-and-take of principled compromise. Sometimes there is
legislation that reaches this floor that I can't support, but I think
in a democracy it is the majority, ultimately--after we go through our
procedural convolutions--it is the majority ultimately that prevails.
There is a strong sense, as reflected in the newspapers, that the
majority of the House of Representatives wants this situation resolved.
They want all government agencies opened. And through the procedural
votes on this side, it is very clear that our colleagues were willing
to allow a majority vote to come to this floor, which carried. So the
majority of the House and the Senate are with the American people. We
just have to get the leadership of the House to get with the American
people.
We have to talk about some of these serious issues, but I think the
best place to do so, in my view, is in the context of budget
negotiations, and we have been repeatedly blocked from bringing the
budget to conference. In fact, many of our Republican colleagues--and I
will give them credit; many of them have stood up and said we have to
go to the budget negotiations in the conference. Senator McCain said,
for example, ``It's not the regular order for a number of Senators, a
small number, a minority within a minority here, to say they will not
agree to go to conference.'' That is what is happening. It is happening
in terms of a minority of Republican Members in the House who are
demanding that this Speaker not relent on this government shutdown, and
it is happening here to a degree with respect to the conference
committee on the budget. We have to go ahead and do our job.
We have had colleagues on the other side talk about how the closure
has detrimental effects. The Member who represents Yosemite National
Park was very sad it was closed. I am also distressed that it is
closed. I chair the subcommittee that appropriates funding for our
national parks. We do our best to maintain the parks, to make sure we
support those individuals who work for the Park Service. I understand
the impact is not just within the confines of the park, it is the
businesses all around the park. That is
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what we said a week ago. That is what I said a week ago, asking, in
terms of our deliberations, that we pass a continuing resolution. So
this should come as no surprise to those people who voted against
keeping the government open.
But this is not just about the value of a national park. It is about
all the functions the government performs. It is about those women and
children who receive benefits through the WIC Program. It is about
those Federal workers who are furloughed who cannot perform their
duties. We have to go ahead and open up our government. We have to
recognize what a democracy ultimately is all about: It is the will of
the American people--the majority of the American people--that has to
be reflected, ultimately, by the Representatives and the Senators.
Again, I think it is very clear, except for the bottleneck at the
House leadership, that the majority of the House and the majority of
the Senate want this government to open up. Let's do it. We need a
vote. We have to stop relitigating the Affordable Care Act. It passed.
It was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. It is open for
business starting on October 1, with significant interest by the
public. There were 3,000 page-hits per minute in Rhode Island as it
opened up on October 1, which I am told by the technologists is an
amazing number. There were 2,000 calls to our call center--people who
were looking for insurance, to buy it in a private marketplace, which
is the core of the Affordable Care Act.
So we have to move forward. If we do not move forward, SBA lending is
effectively cut off, so small business men and women, who are
struggling to get their businesses going, to keep them going, and hire
Americans, will not have that ability to receive support from the SBA.
We need, as they say--and everyone has become familiar with this
term--a clean CR that opens everything up. If we do not, then we know
the impact is going to be dramatic.
In 2011, economists estimated that a shutdown would cost the economy
0.2 percent of GDP each week. And it accumulates.
Looking back to 1995 and 1996, when a Republican House also shut down
the government for 27 days, it reduced GDP growth by roughly 0.5
percent. Those are jobs, not just statistics. Those are lots of jobs
and confidence in our economy. If we do not have jobs and confidence,
then we are not doing our job and we are not fulfilling what we were
sent here by the people to do: grow the economy, give us work, give us
confidence that you can at least perform the basic functions of
government.
Now we have to move forward. I am uncertain as to how long this will
continue to fester. We should do this immediately. As I said,
procedurally the House--and I had the privilege to serve there for 6
years--can bring this continuing resolution up on very short notice and
get, which I believe they have, the majority votes they need to pass
it. That should be done. Then we can sit down and work again--work hard
on those issues that face us in the context of budget negotiations and
a conference and also recognize that while we are here involved in this
manufactured crisis, the world is moving. The world is moving in ways
in which we cannot be so preoccupied that we do not sense: foreign
affairs issues in Syria, foreign affairs issues across the globe;
international economic issues; future competitive issues with other
economies. While we are fixated and focused on this manufactured
crisis, which is completely unnecessary, we are not doing the important
work, we are not anticipating the problems that are developing right
now in the world or in our economy, we are not investing in jobs and in
job creation, we are not looking ahead. We have to do that also.
I would urge a quick, decisive vote on a continuing resolution so we
can get back to the business of leading America.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, let me second the very powerful and
eloquent remarks just made by my colleague from Rhode Island: that we
must vote, we need to have a vote in the House of Representatives to
give moderate Republicans the opportunity to put the Federal Government
back to work in the service of Americans and keep America--in the
private as well as public sector--at work so they can meet the
obligations of their families.
We have developing a situation in America where more and more the
ripple effects of this shutdown will affect private employees, not just
the Federal and government workers who are told to go home and told
they cannot do their jobs.
As I have said repeatedly, we need to end the hostage-taking tactics
by one small faction of one party in one House of this branch of
government. The ripple effects of this shutdown are beginning to grow
across America.
Last night, United Technologies, the largest employer in Connecticut,
announced it has been forced to furlough thousands of employees,
starting initially with more than 1,500 at its Sikorsky facility in
Stratford, which makes Black Hawk helicopters for our Army, Navy, Air
Force, Marines, and Special Forces. Thousands of other jobs may be at
risk at Pratt & Whitney and at defense manufacturers all cross the
Nation.
This political gamesmanship and budget brinkmanship has stopped
production of the Black Hawk helicopters, an iconic symbol to all our
servicemembers that help is on the way. They are the ones that
transport troops into combat, rescue the wounded, and deliver supplies
to the most inaccessible and inhospitable parts of the Earth. Black
Hawk helicopters are vital to our national defense. Why is the
production line at Sikorsky being shut down? Because 45 Federal
employees who work for the Defense Contract Management Agency have been
sent home as a result of this shutdown--sent home by one small group of
rightwing extremist ideologues in the House of Representatives, one
part of this Congress, one branch of the government--and those 45
employees who work for the Defense Contract Management Agency cannot
certify and inspect the work of the Sikorsky employees. So there is no
way the U.S. military can take delivery of those helicopters.
My hope is this situation can be resolved quickly and that we can
find a way to get these DCMA employees back doing their vital jobs that
contribute so directly and importantly to the success of our military
operations. They are civilian employees. They should be back at
work certifying and inspecting and making sure those helicopters are
the best in the world, as they have always been, and that they can be
delivered to our military; that the military can pay Sikorsky, and
Sikorsky can keep its people at work rather than furlough them, and so
that those Sikorsky helicopters are available to help our troops in the
toughest challenges they face all across the globe. They need and
deserve those helicopters.
But even if we put those Sikorsky workers back at their jobs
tomorrow, the needless chaos and confusion caused by the shutdown is an
outrageous and inexcusable dereliction by those small, rightwing
extremists who have insisted on ideology over country and fearmongering
over job creation.
The ripple effects of Sikorsky shutting down its assembly line will
be felt by the suppliers who provide parts and components used in those
helicopters. I have visited them, and I have seen those parts and
components used on those assembly lines by those Sikorsky workers. If
Sikorsky is not using those parts and components, workers in those
suppliers will be furloughed as well, or worse.
We are talking about men and women who live--many of them--paycheck
to paycheck. They do not have huge savings. They may well, in fact,
probably will not be paid for the time they are furloughed. The ripple
effect on consumer demand will be felt across Connecticut and, as a
result of similar situations, across the country.
All too often, we tend to think of the Federal workforce as a
nameless and faceless group, but this shutdown is bringing home what
the real impact of their work is--from the NIH employees who do cancer
research and provide treatment to people who need it and now will go
without it; to the Head Start workers and programs across the country
that provide for educational readiness to children who now will go
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without it; to the Social Security recipients who encounter problems
with their check or payment and need someone to guide them or help them
receive those checks that they need to survive and now will go without
those checks; and resolving veterans' benefits, other kinds of issues
all across the country. The chaos and confusion will ripple and
accumulate. These effects are cumulative, and they will multiply.
The damage done by these wounds to our workforce are, tragically,
self-inflicted and they dramatize how that cumulative effect will, in
fact, increase exponentially.
I warned of the effects on job creation and economic growth
repeatedly before and after the shutdown occurred. In addition to the
vital services that are imperiled and impacted, these economic effects
on job creation and recovery are irreparable. They affect people's
lives. They are real consequences to real people.
I have called on this body to let compromise and cooler heads prevail
and end those ripple effects, end the shutdown, end this self-inflicted
wound before it becomes an economic tsunami.
I hope everyone in this body, everyone in this Congress, will use
every ounce of their energy, every minute of this day and the days to
come to cause this inexcusable shutdown to end, to fix the train wreck
before it leads to other wrecks of other trains that may collide.
We have spent a lot of time in this body talking, and it is time we
started listening. We ought to be listening to the American people, who
are telling us: Get the job done. Get back to work. We ought to be
listening to voices of our local communities which are seeing the harm
of this shutdown.
Jim Finley, for example, the CEO of the Connecticut Conference of
Municipalities, said yesterday:
Our poorest communities. They're the ones who are going to
feel the hit first.
That is because the Women, Infants and Children's Program and housing
vouchers for low-income families are just two of the programs that make
the social safety net work and help people most in need. The WIC
Program provides food assistance to more than 58,000 low-income
pregnant women, mothers, and children in Connecticut.
Listen to Mayor Pedro Segarra of Hartford, who said:
After 30 days it becomes very difficult. We've already been
under pressure from the feds because of sequestration to
reduce expenses in several categories.
Recently, Newtown and Monroe, along with other Connecticut
communities, received Federal grants to hire local police officers. So
listen to Monroe First Selectman Steve Vavrek, who said he has no idea
whether that money will ever arrive, and he has no way of checking on
it, and, of course, he has no way of planning for future law
enforcement in his community.
Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School were relocated to a school
in his town of Monroe. Let's listen to those kids. Let's listen to
their parents. They have no one to speak for them here, unless we
listen to them.
Similar to children across the country, they need those Federal
grants for their schools. If we listen to our local leaders, if we
listen to America, we will put the Federal Government back to work. We
will avoid that train wreck and tsunami that will result from the
spreading ramifications and ripple effects of the loss of income and
service that results from this shutdown.
Finally, let me just emphasize one of the very important unintended
consequences of actions that we have taken or failed to take. When
Congress passed the resolution to pay our troops, we intended to cover
all of the men and women who wear the uniform, all who serve in our
military forces, including all categories of National Guard service.
Unfortunately, some are not covered in actual practice. I am
committed to ensuring that everyone in uniform is paid for their
service and sacrifice. Regardless of the numerous diverse categories of
service that may exist in the National Guard or in other branches of
service, every man and woman who wears the uniform, every man and woman
who serves in our military should be paid and paid on time now.
I am committed to making sure our Department of Defense and our
government recognizes that obligation. So let's think about them. Let's
keep in mind the brave men and women who are serving and sacrificing to
keep us free, to make sure our democracy functions in the service of
people. Let's keep faith with them as well as with the American people.
Let's do our work by making sure we put the American Government back to
work and make sure the country is at work. Let the House vote.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
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