[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 135 (Thursday, October 3, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7161-S7165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, more and more interesting figures are
coming in to my health committee from around the country with regard to
what is happening around the Nation in terms of the health care
marketplace, ObamaCare. The Republicans said it was going to be a
failure and all that kind of stuff and how it was going to cost so much
more money. I do not have it for every State. It is starting to come
in. But I have it for some States and I want to give this body and
people watching some of the initial figures that have come in on the
savings to families. For example, in Alabama, $2,013 premiums for a
family of four--median premium for month. This is just the average,
take the median. In Alabama, for a family of four this year the premium
was $557.58 a month. We now know the marketplace premium, family of
four making $50,000 a year with the tax credits, their monthly premium
will be $112 a month, a savings of $445.58 a month for a family of four
making $50,000 year in the State of Alabama.
In my State of Iowa, that median premium per month for a family of
four this year was $549.58. The marketplace premium for that family of
four at $50,000 with tax credits is now $103 a month, for a savings of
$446.58 per month for that family of four.
I was looking at Oklahoma. Their median premium this year was $684 a
month. The marketplace premium for that family of four--again, $50,000
a year--with their tax credits, believe it or not, is $63 per month.
They will go from $684 to $63 a month. Those families will have a
savings of $621 a month in the State of Oklahoma.
The median premium per month for a family of four in Texas this year
is $504.50. Their marketplace premium for a family of four making
$50,000 a year, after the tax credits, $57 a month, for a savings of
$447.50 a month. It is an amazing savings.
Many of these people are getting insurance for the first time. Many
of these people may have had a preexisting condition or perhaps they
worked in a job that did not give them health care coverage or perhaps
they simply couldn't afford $500 a month in Texas, but now they can
afford $57 a month and get coverage for their family of four, and they
will get a subsidy for buying that marketplace insurance.
Is this what the Republicans want to stop? Is this what they want so
desperately to stop that they are willing to shut down government? They
ought to talk to some of these families in Texas, Iowa, Alabama,
Oklahoma, and Michigan.
The premium for a family of four in Michigan is $381 a month this
year. In the marketplace it will be $80 a month.
Georgia's premium for a family of four is $448 a month this year and
will go down to $132 a month under the marketplace. That is what the
Republicans want to stop? Well, I think we are seeing that what the
Republicans really wanted to do was to keep the same old system we have
where health insurance companies call the tune, you pay the price, and
if you couldn't afford it, tough luck, go to the emergency room. Now we
are going to cover all Americans.
More and more information will come in, and as it comes in, I will
take the floor to give more and more information about the call
centers. Right now--in the last 2 days--over 7 million Americans have
visited healthcare.gov
[[Page S7162]]
to get more information on what they can do to sign up. Again, the
marketplace call center--these are calls, not the Web site--received
over 295,000 calls since midnight on October 1. The wait time has been
cut in half so now the wait time is only 2 minutes. The wait time is
only 2 minutes if you call in to the call center.
Again, I want to repeat what I said yesterday--and I know the
majority leader said it this morning--about the dangers of continuing
this government shutdown. I quoted a Congressman from Iowa who said in
Politico:
We passed the witching hour at midnight last night and the
sky didn't fall and the roof didn't cave in.
Is that what has to happen? Does the sky have to fall and the roof
have to cave in before we do something? I pointed it out yesterday, and
I will point it out again today: The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention is closed down. Why is that important? Well, we are now in
the flu season. More than 200,000 Americans are hospitalized due to the
flu each year. In a mild year 3,000 people will die from the flu, and
in a severe year that number could rise to 50,000.
The CDC monitors which strains are circulating around the country and
which communities are being hit the hardest. They are the ones who look
at how to contain it and keep it from spreading. They are not doing
that now because they are shut down.
Food safety: Twelve days ago, 162 people in 10 States became ill with
hepatitis A because of eating frozen berries. Right away the CDC got on
the job, sent their epidemiologists out there, tracked it down,
isolated it, recalled it, and found out it was pomegranate berries from
Turkey. Well, 162 people got Hepatitis A, but nobody else did. CDC is
not out there doing this now because they are shut down. That was just
12 days ago.
What if we have another outbreak of food poisoning? How fast will it
spread? How many people have to get sick? Is that what this Congressman
from Iowa is saying, that we have to have more people get sick? Is that
what he means when he says the sky hasn't fallen or the roof hasn't
caved in?
In August, cyclosporine infected 643 people from a salad mix. It
started in my home State of Iowa. They immediately called the Centers
for Disease Control. The CDC got on it right away and found that this
salad mix was sent to 25 States. They recalled it all, traced it to
salad that had come from Mexico, and they stopped it.
How many people have to get sick? Do we have to have a West Nile
virus, hepatitis, e. coli, or a vast outbreak of the flu virus before
they say: Well, that is enough, I guess we can start the government up
again. It is totally irresponsible to say: Well, we can shut down the
government because the sky hasn't fallen and the roof hasn't caved in.
Members of Congress are getting their paycheck. They are coming to
work every day. We are here and we are getting our pay. How about all
of those government workers who work on our staffs, on our committees,
and run the Senate? They are good, hard-working public servants, and
they are out of work and not getting a paycheck.
I have staff people who don't make a lot of money. They have
families, a mortgage, and maybe a car payment to make, but they don't
have any money coming in. If they wanted to go to the credit union here
to get a bridge loan to get them through the crisis, they can't because
the credit union is shut down. Now where do they go? Do they get the
money from their credit card? I say to the Congressman from Iowa that
for these people the roof has caved in and the sky has fallen.
There are thousands of Head Start kids who will be sent home from
Head Start this month and working parents will have to find something
else for them. What are they going to do? For them the sky has fallen
and the roof has caved in. Don't we care about them?
I mentioned Social Security too. Social Security will still take your
claims and your application for a Social Security card, but that is it.
You won't get it because the backlog is backing up. They will take it,
but they won't process it.
I mentioned that 445,000 people call their Social Security office
every day in this country. They will not get an answer now. There are
180,000 people who visit a Social Security office every day in this
country, but they can't now because they are closed. They lost their
Medicare card or Social Security card or they need a new Medicaid card.
There are 22,000 Americans who file for retirement benefits every day
and 12,000 apply for disability benefits. They can still apply, but
they are not going to get any help. For them the sky has fallen and the
roof has caved in.
What is this Congressman saying, that the sky has to fall on him and
the roof has to cave in on him before he will do something to help open
the government? And to hear them talk about it--a representative said
``this is about the happiest'' she has been. This is a Congresswoman
from Minnesota. ``This is about the happiest I've seen members in a
long time,'' she said.
``We are very excited,'' said Representative Michele
Bachmann. ``It's exactly what we wanted, and we got it.''
Shutting down the government is exactly what they wanted and they got
it.
``It's wonderful,'' said Representative John Abney
Culberson of Texas, clapping his hands to emphasize his
point. ``We are 100 percent united.''
So this is where we are. The tea party group in the House is happy to
shut down the government. It is the happiest they have been, they said.
They want this discord, disunity, chaos, and confusion. The American
people don't want that.
The American people don't want to turn their back on ObamaCare either
because they see that now they are able to get coverage. Even if they
have a preexisting condition, they can get a good rate for themselves
and their families which they could not get before.
Now it is time to open the government again, put people back to work
so we can meet our responsibilities to the American people.
I call upon Speaker Boehner to take the continuing resolution that is
sitting over in the House now--it is a continuing resolution that will
open the government. He says we wouldn't negotiate. We already
negotiated because before that we had one level of spending in the
bill, they had a lower level of spending, and we agreed with them. We
took the lower level. We took the Republicans' level.
All he has to do is bring that to the House floor and it will pass in
the next 10 to 30 minutes. It will pass, and then we can open the
government so people can get back to work. The Centers for Disease
Control can get their people back out in the field. The National
Institutes of Health will open once again. Head Start kids will be able
to stay in their Head Start Programs. The Women, Infants, and Children
feeding program will be able to get the necessary nutritious food for
poor kids and kids who are homeless.
All Speaker Boehner has to do to end this is to bring that bill on
the floor. He doesn't even have to vote for it. Congressman Boehner
doesn't have to vote for it. Just throw it out, and I will bet that
enough moderate Republicans and Democrats will vote to pass it. I
challenge him to bring it out. Let's see what happens. That is the way
to end this debacle right now.
With that, I yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. 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. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have been informed that I spoke
incorrectly a few minutes ago when I said the credit union was closed.
I guess one office is closed someplace, but another office is open and
they will take calls. So I guess the office in the Hart Building is
still open. I guess another office someplace else is closed. So I spoke
incorrectly.
But I will continue to make this point: Isn't it a shame that our
staffs, who work hard, have to go to a credit union to borrow money to
get them through this period of time, to meet a mortgage payment or a
car payment or whatever it is? We don't have to do that; we continue to
get paid while we are here.
[[Page S7163]]
Again, in response to the remarks that, well, the sky hasn't fallen
and the roof hasn't caved in, according to this Congressman from Iowa,
for someone who now has to borrow money, even from a credit union--I
belong to the credit union--for someone who has to borrow money from
the credit union, it is just not right. This is simply not right and
another reason why we have to call off this government shutdown, which,
as I said, we could do in the next few minutes if Mr. Boehner would
just put on the floor the continuing resolution he has over there and
let his people vote on it.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, we are now 3 days into a completely
unnecessary, completely avoidable Republican shutdown, and there is
more talk than ever about the inability of our leaders to find common
ground on central, economic, and fiscal issues of our time.
This government shutdown is throwing a major wrench into a fragile
economic recovery. Nearly 1 million Federal employees are sitting at
home for no reason, and other public servants are working but not
earning a paycheck. Cancer patients are being turned away from clinical
trials at the NIH. Veterans' benefits are at risk. Basic nutrition
services for pregnant women and new moms will be disrupted. Small
businesses won't be able to get Federal loan guarantees. And all this
is happening on top of the idiotic sequester--drastic, across-the-board
spending cuts that have crippled Meals On Wheels, Head Start, and
investments in medical research.
We all know how we got here. For years now we have heard a small
minority in this country rail against government. When I hear the
latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, I am struck by
how vague these complaints are. From their rhetoric, one would think
they believed that anytime we, the people, come together to improve our
lives, the Nation is committing some terrible wrong. From their
rhetoric, one would think they believe that the government that
functions best is a government that doesn't function at all. So far,
they haven't ended government, but they have achieved the next best
thing--shutting the government down.
But behind all the slogans of the tea party and all the thinly veiled
calls for anarchy in Washington, behind all that there is a reality.
The American people don't want the extremist Republicans' bizarre
vision of a future without government. They don't support it. Why?
Because the American people know that without government, we would no
longer be a great nation with a bright future. The American people know
that government matters.
The anarchy gang is quick to malign government, but when was the last
time anyone called for regulators to go easier on companies that put
lead in children's toys or for food inspectors to stop checking whether
the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria or for
the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible
deformities in little babies? We never hear that--not from political
leaders in Washington and not from the American people. In fact,
whenever the anarchy gang makes headway in their efforts to damage our
government, the opposite happens. After the sequester kicked in,
Republicans immediately turned around and called on the technical
funding for our national defense and to keep the air traffic
controllers on the job.
Now that the House Republicans have shut down the government, holding
the country hostage because of some imaginary health care bogeyman,
Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start
reopening parts of our government. Why did they do this? Because the
bogeyman ``government'' is like the bogeyman under the bed. It is not
real. It doesn't exist.
What is real and what does exist are all the important work we as
Americans have chosen to do together through our government. In our
democracy, government is not some make-believe thing that has an
independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how
we describe what we, the people, have already decided to do together.
It is not complicated. Our government has three basic functions:
provide for the national defense; put in place rules of the road, such
as speed limits, and bank regulations that are fair and transparent;
and build that which none of us can build alone--roads, power grids,
schools--that which gives everyone a chance to succeed.
We are a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, growing small
businesses and thriving big businesses. But our people succeed, our
country succeeds because we have all come together to put public
institutions and infrastructure together. We all decided to pass laws
and put cops on the beat so that no one steals a purse on Main Street
or a pension on Wall Street. We all decided to invest in public
education so that businesses have skilled workers and a kid with an
idea can create the next breakthrough company. We all decided to invest
in basic science so there is a great pipeline of ideas to create our
future. These achievements aren't magic. They didn't simply occur on
their own or through dumb luck. In each instance we made a choice as a
people to come together.
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure the white pills we take
are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure all new cars
have effective brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes
sure babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and toasters don't
explode. We don't know who they are, but there is no question that
there are Americans alive today, Americans who are healthier, Americans
who are stronger, because of these and countless other government
efforts--alive, healthier, stronger because of what we did together.
The anarchy gang in the House can dump on their make-believe version
of government all they want, but when the real government fails to live
up to the high expectations we have all set for it, politicians in both
parties rush to outrage. Why? Because the American people know
government can work and believe government should work.
Today--that is right, today--marks the fifth anniversary of President
Bush signing the bank bailout into law. That financial crisis cost us
upwards of $14 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t.'' That is
$120,000 for every American household--more than 2 years' worth of
income for the average family. Billions of dollars in retirement
savings have disappeared, millions of workers lost their jobs, and
millions more families lost their homes.
In April 2011, after a 2-year bipartisan inquiry, the Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 635-page report
that made it plain: Regulators could have and should have used their
existing tools to prevent the crisis. Republicans and Democrats, a
bipartisan group, found strong agreement that--we better believe it--
government matters.
The attacks on government are abstract, but the consequences of this
shutdown are real: less accountability for cheaters and rule-breakers,
less opportunity for our children, cracks in the foundations that
businesses need to succeed, and a tilted playing field that limits
opportunities for all of our people.
We know that government doesn't always work. We know no institution
is infallible. People make mistakes, ideas fail, and sometimes we get
it wrong. But our response isn't to give up. Our response isn't to sit
back and say: I told you so. We are not a nation of quitters. Our
response, the American response, is to fix it, to make government work
better.
Our democracy is an experiment, and it is always evolving. We
constantly redesign and reimagine and improve on what we do together.
But time and time again throughout our history we have reaffirmed the
simple truth that government matters. Right now, right at this moment,
if we look closely, we will see that we are reaffirming it once again.
It is not an accident that the desire to shut down government is
confined to one extremist faction of one political party of one Chamber
of Congress of one branch of government. It is not an accident that
this extremist faction must resort to absurd hostage tactics--threats
to turn off the government, threats to default on our debt, threats to
tank the economy--to force their views on everyone else. It is not an
accident that this faction is doing everything in its power to make
government appear dysfunctional.
[[Page S7164]]
In a democracy, these hostage tactics are the last resort for those
who can't win their fights through elections, can't win their fights
through Congress, can't win their fights for the Presidency, and can't
win their fights in courts. But these threats are not working and they
will never work because this is a democracy, and for more than 200
years our democracy has defeated extremists and rejected the idea that
government does not matter.
So to those who have forced us to the brink, to those who rail
against a make-believe government, to those who seem to rejoice in
anarchy, to those who have salivated at the chance to shut down our
government because their extremist views have left them disconnected
from the experiences of the American people, it is time to hear a
simple message:
You can do your best to make government look like it does not work
when you stop it from working, you can do your best to make government
look paralyzed when you paralyze it, you can do your best to make
government look incompetent through your incompetence and through your
ineffectiveness, but sooner or later the government will reopen because
this is a democracy and this democracy has already rejected your views.
We have already chosen to work together because we all know we are
stronger when we come together. And when this government reopens, when
our markets are safe again, when our scientists can return to their
research, when our small businesses can borrow, when our veterans can
be respected for their service, when our flu shots resume and our Head
Start programs get back to teaching our kids, we will have rejected
your views once again.
We are not a country of anarchists. We are not a country of
pessimists and ideologues whose motto is ``I got mine. The rest of you
are on your own.'' We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs,
unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages. We are not that nation, we
have never been that nation, and we will never be that nation.
Today, a political minority in the House that condemns government and
begged for this shutdown has had its day. But like all the reckless and
extremist factions that have come before it, their day will pass and
our democracy will return to the important work we have already chosen
to do together.
I thank the Chair.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORKER. 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. CORKER. Madam President, I did not really expect to come down
here and speak. I was just checking on a judge vote, which I understand
has been postponed. But I do say this: It appears to me that the CR
discussion and the debt ceiling discussion are going to be combined
maybe into one effort, and I just want to say that I think that is a
great opportunity for all of us. I was down here yesterday talking
about the same.
Typically, when we have dealt with issues such as this, what we have
tried to do together is figure out a way to strengthen our country
through making those kinds of reforms that lessen the amount of
deficits we are going to have in the future. That is typically what
debates such as this have been about.
So I think the realization that people have right now--that we could
well try to deal with the CR and the debt ceiling at the same time--
could move us back into the kind of constructive conversation we have
had for so long around mandatory spending reforms, figuring out a way
to keep spending reductions where they are but build upon them, but do
it in a way that is more sensible than what we have done in the past.
So, again, I was beginning to get worried. And I will stop in a
minute. It looks as if the senior Senator----
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, will my friend from Tennessee yield for
a question?
Mr. CORKER. I would be tremendously honored to take a question from
the distinguished Senator.
Mr. McCAIN. Has the Senator seen the polls of American public opinion
about what we are doing here? Has the Senator had a chance to see that?
Mr. CORKER. I do not pay as much attention to polls possibly as I
should. My understanding, in listening to the senior Senator from
Arizona, is they are not particularly favorable.
Mr. McCAIN. To all of us. To all of us.
Mr. CORKER. Yes. I did not mean to individuals.
Mr. McCAIN. To both sides of the aisle. And they do not understand,
isn't it true, why we have not been able to come to some conclusion?
As the Senator from Tennessee just said, we now are going to have
this merged into the debt limit.
Mr. CORKER. Right.
Mr. McCAIN. The Senator from Tennessee has an extensive background in
finance. Isn't it true that the world markets would react in a very,
very severe fashion if we allowed the debt limit to expire?
Mr. CORKER. I think everyone understands that is very problematic for
markets. Actually, we are beginning to see some volatility now that we
have not seen in the past.
I would like to respond, if I could, a little more fully to say that
I think we have an opportunity--look, we have been in a place that I
think people have known. We have known exactly where the discussions in
the past were going to lead; that is, to this box canyon.
I think the fact that we have ended up in a place now where these two
things may merge--and I know the senior Senator from Arizona has been
involved in multiple conversations about this--I think we have an
opportunity now to begin talking again about those things that
strengthen our Nation and looking at some reforms, not to do so in a
chicken way, in a way where you have two cars heading at each other,
but to use this like previous debt ceilings have been used where adults
sit down, they look at the problems our Nation is facing, and we do
some things that, candidly, in a bipartisan way, people have been
trying to do for a long time.
I would like to mention one more time--I know I did this yesterday,
and I know the senior Senator from Arizona and myself have spent a lot
of time together on this issue--the President, in his budget in April,
put forth some mandatory reforms. Many of those are pretty good. I
would like to make them better, but they are a pretty good start. We
have a few days--a week, 2 weeks--here where we could actually sit down
maybe and cobble something together that would mean that while all this
acrimony has existed for some time, we might get back on target and
back to focusing on making our country stronger.
I know today we were in this incredible hearing on Iran, and I
certainly appreciated the comments of the senior Senator from Arizona
about our concerns there. One of the biggest issues we have around the
world right now is just people look at us--as the Senator was alluding
to a minute ago--as unable to deal with our fiscal issues.
So I look at what has happened. I know it can be viewed in whichever
way you want to view it. I look at it as being a glass half full. We
have an opportunity over the next short period of time to do some good
policy, put some good policy in place, to pass a CR, to pass the debt
ceiling, and again move our country ahead toward being stronger.
I am sorry to respond with such a long answer.
Mr. McCAIN. May I ask just one more question of my friend from
Tennessee.
We know that sooner or later the government will begin to function
again--sooner or later.
Mr. CORKER. It will function again.
Mr. McCAIN. Sooner or later we will address the debt ceiling because
the United States is not going to renege on its debts.
Mr. CORKER. That is right.
Mr. McCAIN. It is going to meet its obligations. So we know those are
facts. We know that at some point there is going to have to be a
resolution. It is not going to go on forever. Nothing does. So if it
argues for a solution, shouldn't we ask all parties to sit down and
start discussions that the Senator and I and others have had kind of on
an ad hoc basis, sort of, with people here and there and then
conversations here and there, to start laying the groundwork?
[[Page S7165]]
I also want to point out that I think it is important that the
President of the United States, rather than saying ``I will not
negotiate with anybody under any circumstances,'' say ``I am willing to
sit down and negotiate. I am willing to join with all parties in trying
to find a way through this.''
We will sooner or later. The question is not whether we will solve
these issues. The question really is--and I ask my friend from
Tennessee--how much damage will be done before we solve it. Right now,
there are people beginning to hurt all over America, and maybe it is
not so bad right now, but it is going to get worse every single day
that goes by. Frankly, I think we owe the American people more than
that. Now, if somebody wants to blame me, fine. I will take the blame.
If they want to blame the Senator from Tennessee, put the blame on
him--on the President, on anybody. But shouldn't we remember what our
duties are here?
Mr. CORKER. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I am just looking down
to see what the date is, but it seems to me that we have 2 weeks here,
and to get to the Senator's comments, hopefully a week. In other words,
the quicker we resolve these issues, the better it is for our Nation,
the better it is for the world, because at the end of the day, let's
face it, what we care about most is the well-being of our citizens back
home. We know that uncertainty creates uncertainty in the economy. It
affects people's jobs. I would agree.
Look, we are at that moment in time where we have all realized the CR
and the debt ceiling are probably going to be linked together. They are
linked together in essence, and, as the senior Senator from Arizona
just mentioned, there is no question we are going to resolve those. So
what we ought to do is sit down right now, the President of the United
States, the appropriate leadership here in the House and Senate--and
whether it is they or their proxies--but to sit down, and let's figure
out if there are some reforms we can put in place to make our country
stronger and to again get back on the right topic, which is our
financial strength. I think we could do that.
The fact is that there are no new issues. Every single issue has been
litigated. There is legislative language. They are scored. There is not
a new issue for us to talk about relative to putting some good policy
in place to move ahead.
The Senator from Arizona has been so involved in these issues. I just
could not agree more. I know the junior Senator from Arizona is sitting
in the back, and I know he has been incredibly responsible fiscally.
I think we have an opportunity. I think this body should take
advantage of it. I think the President should come to the table, take
advantage of it, the leadership of the House. Let's do something good
for our country. Let's do it in an appropriate amount of time. Let's
put this behind us and move on--move on as a nation.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank my friend.
Does the Senator yield the floor?
Mr. CORKER. I do.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I want to thank my friend from
Tennessee, whose commitment to achieving solutions and resolution of
this bitter environment in which we find ourselves is admirable. I am
grateful for his participation and his leadership. I also thank my
young, handsome colleague from Arizona, who also has had a many
yearlong commitment to fiscal sanity and balance. I thank my
colleagues.
____________________