Congressional Record, Volume 159 Issue 136 (Friday, October 4, 2013)

[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 136 (Friday, October 4, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7184-S7192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.J. RES. 73

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, the fourth unanimous consent request that I
would promulgate: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 73, making continuing
appropriations for the National Institutes of Health for fiscal year
2014; I ask further consent that the measure be read three times and
passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon
the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, prior to my responding to my friend, I would
use just a few minutes of leader time--I will be very brief--with
permission.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Here is what I am going to say.
Mr. President, we have heard this back-and-forth stuff about
veterans. But in addition to what the Senator from Washington said, let
me read one paragraph from the Record of yesterday:

I would note also that I believe the resolution the Senator
is offering and suggested be passed provides only partial
funding for the VA. There is no funding here to operate the
national cemeteries. There is no funding for

[[Page S7185]]

the Board of Veterans' Appeals. There is no funding for
constructing VA hospitals and their clinics. There is no
funding, actually, to operate the IT system that the entire
VA needs in order to continue going forward.

I reserve the right to object to the request of my friend from Texas.
I object, as do most Americans. There is no reason for us to have to
choose between important government functions, as has been said by my
three colleagues so brilliantly this morning. But I guess my objection
is best paraphrased by reading a column from the Washington Post by
Dana Milbank. Here is what he said:

House Republicans continued what might be called the
lifeboat strategy: deciding which government functions are
worth saving. In: veterans, the troops and tourist
attractions. Out: poor children, pregnant women and just
about every government function that regulates business. . .
. Here are some of the functions not boarding the GOP
lifeboats: market regulation, chemical spill investigations,
antitrust enforcement, worksite immigration checks, workplace
safety inspections, the Environmental Protection Agency . . .
communications and trade regulation, nutrition for 9 million
children and pregnant women, flu monitoring and other
functions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
and housing rental assistance for the poor.

I spent, 1 month ago, a day at the National Institutes of Health. I
remember so clearly one Institute I went to where this young girl,
about 12 years old--she had come back for her second visit. She has a
disease that they do not know for sure what it is. But they were trying
to figure out what she had, and they felt they were on the cusp of
being able to figure that out. Her parents, of course, were very happy.
We know how important it is that little children, babies, adults be
taken care of, especially toward the time when they have no hope. That
is what NIH is about: hope.
I truly believe we should open the government, all the government.
This is a trip down a road that is so foolish. We need not be there. If
people have a problem with ObamaCare--and I know my friend, the junior
Senator from Texas, does not care for ObamaCare--let's do it in a
context that is reasonable and fair, not have all the people in America
who are so troubled with this----
I heard an interview with the Governor of Maryland this morning. They
are losing $15 million or $20 million a day because of the government
being closed in Maryland. I would ask my friend to accept a
modification. It is a modification that is so well-intentioned. What it
would do is open the government. It would take care of the National
Institutes of Health, it would take care of the veterans, including all
the stuff that is left out of the consent we have here before which I
read into the Record a minute ago, it would take care of the national
parks, and in Nevada we are really desperate to have those open. We
have one 70 minutes outside of Las Vegas where 1 million people a year
visit. We have one about 12 miles outside of Las Vegas where we have
600,000 people a year visit, Lake Mead. The other is Red Rock, and
others. We have a Great Basin National Park. We want to open that. That
would solve this problem.
So I ask unanimous consent that the consent of my friend from Texas
be modified, that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; that
the joint resolution, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, with no
intervening action or debate.
This amendment is the text that passed the Senate and is a clean
continuing resolution for the entire government. It is something that
is already over in the House and reportedly has the support of a
majority of Members of the House.
Finally, the statement I made, if that little girl came back there
now for her clinical trial, likely she would not be able to have any
help, just as we learned earlier this week there were 200 people who
were turned away from clinical trials, 30 of whom were babies and
children.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator agree to so modify his
original request?
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would note
that the majority leader made a plea for compromise. I think most
Americans want to see a compromise. The House of Representatives has
repeatedly compromised already.
It is the view of every Republican in this body and, indeed, every
Republican in the House that ObamaCare should be entirely and
completely repealed. Nonetheless, the House started with a compromise
of saying not repealing ObamaCare but simply it should be defunded.
They funded the entire Federal Government and defunded ObamaCare. It
came to the Senate. The majority leader and 54 Democrats voted in
lockstep to say: No, absolutely not. We will not talk. We will not
compromise.
The House then came with a second compromise. They said: Fine. If the
Senate will not agree to fully defund ObamaCare, then let's all agree
to a reasonable 1-year delay.
President Obama has already delayed ObamaCare for big business. Let's
treat hard-working American families at least as well as big business.
Let's have a 1-year delay, because we are seeing how badly this thing
has worked. Now that is a big compromise from defunding.
It came over to the Senate. The majority leader and 54 Senate
Democrats said: No, absolutely not. We will not talk. We will not
compromise. Shut the government down.
The House came back a third time and said: Okay. How about we simply
delay the individual mandate, one small portion of ObamaCare, and we
revoke the congressional exemption that President Obama illegally gave
Members of this Congress to exempt us from the burdens of ObamaCare
that are inflicted on millions of Americans.
That offer represented an enormous compromise from the view of
Republicans that ObamaCare should be repealed in its entirety. What did
the Senate say? Did the Senate say: Let's sit down and work something
out? Did the Senate say: Let's meet and find a middle ground? No. The
majority leader and 54 Senate Democrats said: Absolutely not. No, we
will not talk. We will not compromise. Shut the government down. That
is why the government is shut down right now.
Just a moment ago, the majority leader gave his latest offer. It was:
Give us everything we demand, 100 percent, no compromise, no middle
ground. That is the position of the Democrats in this body. That is not
a reasonable position. That is not the way people work together to find
a middle ground.
You know, it was reported that the majority leader urged the
President not even to talk to congressional leaders. The President
apparently had a change of heart and sat down with congressional
leaders and had what, by all accounts, was an extraordinary
conversation, where President Obama told Congressional leaders: I
called you over here to say I am not going to talk to you. I am not
going to negotiate. I must admit, that is a remarkable conversation, to
call someone over to say: Hi, good to see you. We are not going to
talk.
If this matter is going to be resolved, we need to see good faith
among Members on both sides. Republicans have repeatedly been offering
compromises to resolve this shutdown. Unfortunately, the behavior of
the majority party in this body has been my way or the highway.
One can only assume their stated public belief, from a senior
administration official from the Obama administration who said: We
think we are winning politically.
I am paraphrasing.
But we don't care when the shutdown ends.
That is a paraphrase. That is not exact. But that was certainly the
thrust of the statement by what was described as a senior
administration official. I think that is cynical. I think that is
partisan. I do not think that is what we should be doing. So I wish the
majority leader and the Democrats would accede to what should be shared
bipartisan priorities. But it appears right now that they are not, that
their position is: Give us everything. Fully fund ObamaCare and force
it on the American people. That I cannot consent to. So I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, still reserving my right to object, my
friend from Texas--and I have developed a relationship with him--talks
about a meeting

[[Page S7186]]

that he did not attend. I was there. I was one of five people, the
President, Speaker Boehner, Leader McConnell, Leader Pelosi, and me--
the Vice President was also there. I am sorry.
I attended that meeting. The President did not say: Come on in, I am
not going to talk to you, I have nothing to say, words to that effect.
The meeting lasted an hour and 20 minutes. There were a lot of things
said. But one thing that was not said is this ``Alice in Wonderland''
what took place in that meeting, when someone talks about the meeting
who was not there.
Let's talk about compromise. My friend brought up compromise. We have
before us a continuing resolution. My friend, the Speaker of the House
of Representatives, John Boehner, called me and said: We have got to
work this out. We have got to get this done quickly.
I thought: So how are we going to get it done? This was on September
9 after our recess ended. He said: We have got to have the 988 number
for this year.
I said: I cannot do that. I cannot do that. Chairman Murray's number
is $70 billion above that that we passed here in the Senate. We passed
that. I cannot agree to 988.
He said: You have got to do it. I do not want to be fighting. I want
to get this done.
So I talked to Chairman Murray, Chairman Mikulski, and others. Even
though it was desperately hard to do--because we do not like the number
988, we do not like it. It is not our number--we agreed to do it. That
was a compromise. I have been in Congress 31 years. That is the biggest
compromise I have ever made. My caucus did not like it, but we did it
in an effort to have a clean CR.
You talk about compromise, that was big time. But, Speaker Boehner, I
am sure, was well intentioned. He could not get it done. He could not
get it done. It was his idea how to get it done.
Then, talking about further compromise, one of the last things we had
walked over from the House is: Go to conference. So I thought: I have
something. It is an offer so good that he cannot refuse. What did I do?
With the cooperation of all 53 Democratic Senators, here is what we
agreed to do: Open the government. What we will do is go to conference.
Not on little select areas. We will go to conference on a list of
everything. I listed everything--not everything, but everything I could
think of. We listed agriculture, we listed discretionary spending and,
yes, we listed health care.
I gave the letter to the Speaker. I talked to him 45 minutes later.
He said: I can't do it.
Wow.
I know what legislation is all about. It is the art of compromise. I
understand that. We have compromised in big-time fashion. The problem
is that the Speaker and some other Republican Members of Congress are
in a real bind because the only thing they want to talk about is the
law that passed 4 years ago, which the Supreme Court declared
constitutional. This is a little unusual, I would think, in my
experience here.
So we are where we are because we not only have the government
shutdown, but we have the full faith and credit of our Nation before us
in a week or 10 days.
I suggest, I do not want anyone to say I have not compromised. All
one needs to do is talk to any Member of my caucus and they will talk
about how difficult it has been for us to accept that number, and agree
to go to conference on anything.
I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. REID. If my friend would yield, following his statement of 20
minutes, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be
recognized: Mikulski already has 15 minutes; Murray, I ask unanimous
consent that she follow Mikulski for 10 minutes; Heinrich, 10 minutes;
Schumer, 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are those the next Senators in order or on the
Democratic side?
Mr. REID. If some Republicans want to come and talk, my friends, I
would be happy to yield to any of them. But we have not had a large
number of people over here this morning.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, Bismarck famously talked about legislation
being like making sausages. There are aspects of both that are not
pretty. I wish we saw our elected leaders in both parties working
together to listen to the American people.
You know, the majority leader talks about a meeting at the White
House. I will note, he noted that I was not at that meeting. That is
certainly true. But the statement that the President said he would not
negotiate came directly from Speaker Boehner who was at that meeting,
who came and gave a press conference immediately thereafter.
I know the majority leader is not impugning the integrity of the
Speaker of the House or disputing that that is exactly what President
Obama said and what the position of the Democrats is. Their position
is: Give us 100 percent of what we want or the government stays shut
down. That, quite simply, is not reasonable.
I would like to address for a moment a few of the arguments that have
been raised against these very reasonable bipartisan proposals to fund
essential priorities in our government because I think the arguments do
not withstand scrutiny. There are some on the Democratic side of the
aisle who have said: We are not going to pick and choose. Indeed, the
majority leader said: There is no reason to have to choose between
government priorities.
Let me suggest that is the essence of legislation. We have a $17
trillion debt, because far too many people have said, as the majority
leader just did, there is no reason to choose between priorities; we
should spend on everything.
I would note also that what the Democrats in this Chamber deride as a
piecemeal strategy is the traditional means of appropriating and
legislating. The only reason we have this omnibus continuing resolution
is because Congress has failed to do its job to appropriate on specific
subject matters.
So we should be considering the VA on its own merits. I would note,
the majority leader is right, that the House bill funded the most
critical components of the VA: pension, home loan, GI bill, and
disability payments. But I would readily accede to the majority leader
that if he would like a continuing resolution that funds the entirety
of the VA, including the elements he laid out, I think we could reach a
unanimous consent agreement on that within hours.
The traditional means of legislating is one subject at a time. It is
not typical when considering funding for the VA that the argument be
about unrelated matters, whether it is the Department of Agriculture or
ObamaCare. The way this body has always operated is it has considered
one subject matter at a time--except when Congress has failed to
appropriate, and then everything has gotten lumped together in a giant
omnibus bill. But there is no reason for that.
Secondly, every bit as critically, we have done it already. This is
not theoretical. At the beginning of this proceeding the House of
Representatives unanimously passed a bill saying: Let's fund the men
and women of our military. When it came over, a great many people
expected the majority leader to do what the majority leader just did--
to object to funding the men and women of our military. Indeed, some 20
Republican Senators came to the floor prepared to make the argument
that we shouldn't hold the men and women of the military hostage. Yet,
much to our very pleasant surprise, the majority leader reconsidered.
He decided, one must assume, that it was not defensible to hold hostage
the paychecks of the men and women of the military. The majority leader
agreed, and this body unanimously passed funding for the men and women
of the military. He said: Regardless of what happens with a government
shutdown, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should not be held
hostage. They should get their paychecks.
Indeed, I rose on the Senate floor. I commended the majority leader
for doing the right thing and for acting in a bipartisan manner. Yet,
sadly, that was the last of that behavior we were to see. I hope that
majority leader returns. I hope the majority leader who said we are
going to fund the men and women of our military returns to say the same
thing to our veterans. I hope that majority leader returns to say the
same thing to our National Guard. I

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hope that majority leader returns to say the same thing to our parks
and war memorials. I hope that majority leader returns to say the same
thing to the National Institutes of Health and to say the same thing to
children who are facing life-threatening diseases such as cancer.
We may not be able to resolve 100 percent of this impasse today;
there are differences. To resolve those differences will take sitting
down, talking, and working through the matters of this disagreement.
One side of this Chamber is prepared to do this. The Democrats are not.
In the meantime, it ought to be a bipartisan priority to fund our
veterans.
A second possible objection--I can see some watching this debate who
think, well, OK, but if you fund the VA, doesn't that mean the
Democrats have given in on ObamaCare? Somehow it has to be connected to
ObamaCare, right?
As every Member of this body knows, the VA is totally disconnected.
The VA bill that passed the House doesn't implicate ObamaCare, doesn't
mention ObamaCare, and does nothing on ObamaCare. We have a
disagreement on ObamaCare. Part of this body thinks it is a terrific
bill. Part of this body thinks it is a train wreck, a disaster that is
hurting millions of Americans. That is an important debate. Whether our
veterans get their disability payments shouldn't be held hostage to
resolving that debate. It is exactly like the bill my friends on the
Democratic side of the aisle already voted for to fund the men and
women of the military. It is exactly the same. They have done it once,
and yet, for whatever reason, they have made a decision that certainly
appears to the public to be cynical and partisan.
There should be no confusion. The House of Representatives has
overwhelmingly voted to protect our veterans and fund the VA, and 35
Democrats joined Republicans in the House to do that--35. It was
bipartisan legislation. It came over here. Every Senate Republican
agrees we should fund the VA, we should pass this bill. There is
unanimity. Indeed, the President, when he addressed the Nation, said
his priority was to fund the VA. We have Republicans and Democrats in
the House agreeing we should fund the VA. We have Republicans in the
Senate and a Democratic President of the United States agreeing we
should fund the VA. Sadly, we have Democrats in the Senate and a
majority leader in the Senate objecting and stopping the VA from being
funded.
If my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle simply stood right
now and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day the VA would
receive its funding. If my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle
simply stood and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day our
friends in the Reserves would receive their paychecks or have the
paychecks and the funding returned. If my friends on the Democratic
side of the aisle withdrew their objection, by the end of the day our
national parks and memorials would have their funding and we would be
able to open our Statue of Liberty and open our war memorials. By the
end of the day we could restore the funding to the National Institutes
of Health.
Let me note that there are many other priorities. My friend from
Maryland, when he was talking about other priorities, said there are a
great many aspects of government. For example, earlier this week the
Director of National Intelligence and the head of the NSA testified
before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The head of national
intelligence said that some 70 percent of civilian employees in the
intelligence community have been furloughed and that represents a real
threat to our national security. If that is right, where is the
Commander in Chief? Why is the President of the United States not
saying: Regardless of what you do in the rest of the budget, don't
expose us to national security threats. Let's fully fund the Department
of Defense. Let's fully fund our intelligence agencies.
Indeed, I would note that one Senator, the junior Senator from
Arizona, asked the head of national intelligence: Have you advised the
President that Congress should pass a continuing resolution funding the
intelligence community as we did for the members of the Armed Forces?
The answer from the head of national intelligence, appointed by
President Obama, was this: Yes, Congress should do it, and, yes, I will
advise the President.
Now we have Senate Democrats who are not listening to the testimony
and advice of the members of our intelligence community who say there
is a grave national security threat against which we are not adequately
prepared to defend ourselves. Surely partisan politics should end.
Surely at that point we should be able to come together and say: We can
keep fighting on ObamaCare. We may have disagreements, and eventually
we will work it out, but surely we shouldn't expose our national
security to threats from terrorists or attacks on our homeland in the
meantime. That ought to be 100-to-0.

At the end of the day, there is only one explanation that makes sense
for why you saw one Democrat after another standing up and objecting:
No, don't fund the VA. No, don't fund the Reserve members of our
military. No, don't fund the parks. No, don't fund the memorials. No,
don't fund the National Institutes of Health.
The only explanation that is at all plausible is that many Members of
this body agree with some of the pundits that this shutdown benefits
the political fortunes of Democrats. I hope people are focused on
things other than political fortunes and partisan politics because I
know each one of us takes seriously the obligation we have to our
constituents back home. I hope that is not going on, but it is hard for
the American people not to be cynical when they read about Mount
Vernon--which is privately owned and operated and doesn't get its money
from the Federal Government--being effectively forced to shut down
because the Federal Government blocked the parking lots and put up
barricades to prevent people from going to Mount Vernon. It is hard not
to be cynical when we read about what my friend Senator John Thune told
me about Mount Rushmore. The Federal Government erected barricades on
the roads leading to Mount Rushmore--spent the money to do it, mind
you. There is a shutdown. They spent the money to erect the barricades.
The problem is that those aren't Federal roads, those are State roads.
The Governor said: Take them down. The only conclusion that is possible
there is that we are seeing cynical, partisan, gamesmanship--a decision
by President Obama and, unfortunately, by Democrats in this body that
inflicting maximum pain on the American people will yield political
benefits.
We ought to be able to agree that our veterans are above politics. We
ought to be able to agree that our war memorials are above politics. We
ought to be able to come together and agree that defending national
security and defending against terrorist threats is above politics.
Everyone in Congress is prepared to do so except for the majority
leader and the Senate Democrats who are insisting that everything be
shut down.
If a Federal Government worker is at home today furloughed, you
should know that the reason is in large part because the Senate
Democrats refused to let you come back to work, because we could agree,
for significant portions of the Federal Government, to come back to
work Monday morning if, simply, the Democrats would stop objecting and
stop insisting that they get everything on ObamaCare.
Let me note that the issue on ObamaCare is very simple. Is there a
double standard? President Obama has exempted Big Business and has
exempted Members of Congress. Yet he has forced a government shutdown
to deny that savings exemption to hard-working Americans, millions of
hard-working Americans who are losing their jobs, being forced into
part-time work, facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, and
losing their health insurance.
Let me remind this body of the words of James Hoffa, president of the
Teamsters: ObamaCare is destroying the health care--he used the words
``destroying the health care of millions of working men and women in
this country.'' If you don't believe me, perhaps James Hoffa--who put
it in writing that it is destroying the health care of millions of men
and women--will underscore what this fight is about. All of the
seniors, all of the people with disabilities, all of the people who are
now

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getting notices that they are losing their health insurance--that is
what this fight is about.
At a minimum, we ought to agree on common priorities. We ought to
come together today, right now, and fund the VA. We ought to come
together today, right now, and fund our reservists in the National
Guard. We ought to come together today, right now, and fund our
national parks, open our memorials, and stop barricading and sending
police officers to prevent World War II veterans from visiting to the
World War II Memorial. We ought to come together, right now, to fund
the National Institutes of Health because everyone agrees on that.
The decision to hold those priorities hostage because the Democrats
want to force ObamaCare on everyone--it is not related to them, has
nothing to do with them, and it is all about political leverage. That
is not the way we should be doing our jobs. We should be listening to
the people, and we should make DC listen.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Levin be the next
Democratic speaker following Senator Schumer's remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Before I go into my commends, I want to express my
thanks to the Capitol Police, to the Secret Service, and to all who
responded to yesterday's pretty scary and dramatic incident. I also
want to express my hope that the injured Capitol Police officer quickly
and fully recovers, and to the little girl who has now been left
without her mother--I hope that as this great tragedy unfolds, we give
support to the people who have suffered.
My colleague from Texas has laid out a vision of how he would like to
see the day end. He would like to see the day end with funding for VA,
NIH, and with the Park Service open, and I think there was one more
item, but I will stick with those three--NIH, FDA and VA. He would like
to see them open for business at the end of the day.
I have a different vision for the end of the day. At the end of the
day today, I would like to see the House of Representatives consider
and vote on the Senate-passed continuing funding resolution that would
reopen the entire Federal Government and keep it open--not for a long
term because we have fiscal issues through November 15--at fiscal year
2013 levels. At the end of the day, if they took up the Senate-passed
resolution and actually voted on it, the Federal Government would be
open.
At the end of the day, people would actually be back on the job,
getting paid for the job they signed up to do, and we would have the
Government of the United States of America working the way it should.
At the end of the day, it means the Capitol Hill police officers who
were at their duty stations would get their pay. Now they are working
without pay.
Under my vision of America, if we open the entire U.S. Government, it
means FBI agents who are currently working and doing their job
protecting America would be paid. Right now, FBI agents and other
Federal law enforcement are working for IOUs. Those very FBI agents we
count on are using their own money to put gas in the cars they need to
use to go after the bad guys or the bad girls. So under the Mikulski
recommendation that was passed by the Senate, at the end of the day,
FBI agents would be paid and they wouldn't have to use their own money
to put gas in their cars. That is what my vision of the end of the day
is. We have to reopen government.
The cynical strategy of the other side, given with ruffles and
flourishes and pomp--self-righteously standing up for our veterans,
opening our national parks, and funding NIH--really is hollow. It would
be great if they actually understood how government works.
Let's take the VA disability claim process. In order to get your
disability benefits, your eligibility is determined not only by the VA
but with information you get from the civilian workforce at DOD, from
the Social Security Administration headquartered in Woodlawn, MD--where
9,000 Federal employees are furloughed--or you would get it from the
Internal Revenue Service--also headquartered in Maryland, where 5,000
Federal employees are furloughed. So if we reopened the government, at
the end of the day, yes, veterans would get their benefits, but they
will get them because not only is the VA open but so is Social
Security, and the civilian workforce will be working at DOD and the
people who work at the Internal Revenue Service will be there making
sure all the paperwork is done in the way it should be. That is what
the end of the day should look like.
My colleague from Texas talks about how he would like to reopen NIH.
Oh, boy, so would I. Seventy-one percent of the people at NIH right
this minute are furloughed. He wants to, at the end of the day, open
NIH. So do I. But I also know that after they do their research and
they have engaged in all of that, our private sector comes in and
begins to develop the products, and they need to take those great
ideas--the great ideas that turn into the new products that will save
lives and create jobs in the United States--to the FDA, the Food and
Drug Administration.
So at the end of the day, we want to help NIH stay open, to find the
cures for the diseases we want them to find, but we also want the
private sector inventing the products to be able to take those great
ideas and turn them into what can save lives here and to be able to
sell them around the world because they have been certified as safe and
effective. So at the end of the day, I would like to open the FDA.
But I don't want to do it one agency at a time. I want to reopen the
entire Federal Government. It seems that whenever we now shame them
with regard to the reality of the closing of a particular agency, they
then decide that agency is important and the House then passes a bill.
I don't want shame, I don't want blame, and I don't want political
games. I want the Government of the United States of America to be
open.
Now let's go to another agency. They haven't even talked about some
of these other agencies. Let's take the weather service. Right now
storm clouds are gathering not only here in Washington, DC, over
politics, but they are gathering in the Southeast. A hurricane is on
its way. The weather service is also in Maryland. Eight hundred people
are supposed to be on their job.
I was there during another hurricane, just a few months ago. Last
October, I was there while they were at their duty station for
Hurricane Sandy. We watched this hurricane come. It was devastating. We
all recall how devastating it was. In my own State, my mountain
counties were hit by a blizzard, and down over on the eastern shore,
they were hit by the hurricane, wiping out whole communities and
neighborhoods, some people owning family homes and farms that go back
generations.
Those very weather service people are furloughed. They are absolutely
furloughed. The weather service is calling them back, but they are
going to be working without pay.
Let me put a human face on what I am talking about. Yesterday I spoke
to Amy Fritz. She works at the weather service. She has two master's
degrees, one in meteorology and the other as a physical oceanographer.
Her job is to predict storm surges coming from the hurricane. Her work
helps to predict how walls of water will come ashore and knowing where
that is going to happen, what is going to happen, and how we can begin
to protect ourselves so that while we try to save property we can
definitely provide protection for lives.
Amy is the primary breadwinner in her family. She is now not getting
paid. She has $130,000 in student loans so she could get that great
education. And she wanted that great education because she thought: I
can serve America. I can be a good scientist and a great American.
Well, at the end of the day, I want the weather service open. At the
end of the day, I want Amy getting paid.
At the end of the day, I want the entire Federal Government open, not
just whatever agency emerges as part of their strategy. Every part of
the Federal Government somewhere is playing an essential part in the
lives of people in this country and to the communities which they
serve.
Last night there was something called the ``Sammie'' Awards. These
are awards given to Federal employees

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because of their outstanding service. They have either saved lives or
they have saved money. Well, let me tell you, there was one Federal
employee at the National Institutes of Standards. He has a new way of
being able to protect us against fires. Another Federal employee, who
has also been furloughed, has come up with how to save $1 billion.
Employee after employee.
I say to all the Federal employees who might be watching: At the end
of the day, I think you are important. At the end of the day, whatever
job you do, I want you to do it well. I want you to strive for
competence and excellence. But I want to do my job well. I extend my
hand to the other side of the aisle, as I have done repeatedly during
the year I have chaired this Committee on Appropriations. I have
negotiated, I have compromised, and I will continue to do the same,
because at the end of the day I want the Federal Government open doing
the job those people were trained to do and that we hired them to do. I
want the Federal employees to be able to be at their job, doing the
duty they signed up for. Every job has an important mission, whether
you are a meat inspector, a poultry inspector, or you work at the
weather service.
So we can continue to do this, where they send over to us one program
at a time. My gosh. Once again, we are wasting time. And where is
our standing in the world? At the end of the day, I want us to be
respected. I want us to be respected. What do they think about us
around the world? In hearing after hearing, there is a lot of hand-
wringing and chest-pounding over what we need to do about China, but
China isn't doing this to us. We are doing it to ourselves. There is no
foreign predator attacking our Federal Government, we are just
defunding it. That is what a shutdown is. We are not funding the
Federal Government.

This is not the way the United States of America should be operating.
I know the calls I am getting from the over 100,000 Federal employees I
represent, and they want to be on their job. It is not only they want
to get paid, they actually want to work. And you know, they are
prohibited from taking anything home where they could be working. This
is terrible.
So at the end of the day, let us find a new way. At the end of the
day, let us find a new way to keep the government open. At the end of
the day, let us be proud of ourselves and let the Federal Government be
reopened.
I once again conclude my remarks by saying to the House of
Representatives: Please, take up the Senate's continuing funding
resolution that would reopen the Federal Government right away and get
us at the desk so that we could negotiate further fiscal compromises.
That is the way I would like to see the day end.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her
very emotional response and her great statement. I hope all of our
colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol
listen to what she just said to us. She represents a State that is
probably impacted as much, if not more, than any other State because of
the number of Federal employees who work at FDA and NIH and our other
Federal agencies. But she did not come to the floor and say: Open all
of the jobs in my State and make sure my State is taken care of. She
came to say: Open the Federal Government so every American in every
State in every part of our country is taken care of.
And she is right. I share her vision for the end of the day, not that
we take a few here and a few there--whatever one individual decides is
important here today--but that our entire country gets back to work.
And I really share her vision that Speaker Boehner simply take up the
bill that is at his desk. Allow it to pass. It has the votes. And at
the end of the day, we can be proud our country is back to work. So I
thank the Senator from Maryland for her very well-stated remarks.
I wanted to speak today about what is going on. Representative Marlin
Stutzman said something that I think sums up the House Republican
position perfectly. He said yesterday: We're not going to be
disrespected. We have to get something out of this, and I don't know
what that even is.
We have to get something out of this--the Republicans in the House. I
think that statement makes it very clear. First of all, House
Republicans have exactly one set of interests in their mind: Their own.
And secondly, they couldn't be more removed from the impacts of the
shutdown being felt across the country. Every day Speaker Boehner
refuses to reopen the government is another day of inconvenience and
stress and uncertainty for families and communities we all serve. And
because House Republicans clearly aren't getting the message yet, today
I want to describe some of what my constituents in Washington State--
over 2,000 miles away from here--are saying about the effects of a
shutdown.
The families I talk to in Washington State aren't interested in the
partisan, political strategizing that goes on in Washington, DC. They
have a lot more important issues on their minds right now. Every day
they are reading about how the government shutdown is affecting their
community. Many are feeling the impacts themselves.
There are about 50,000 Federal employees in Washington State.
Thousands are being sent home without pay. The shutdown is going to put
a serious burden on many of these workers' families, but the
consequences reach even further. This week, the Seattle Times spoke to
a deli owner, whose job happens to be in downtown Seattle. She gets
about 30 percent of her sales from Federal workers in the building that
is across the street from her.
Without their business now, they are all home. And without knowing
how long this shutdown is going to last, she is concerned about how she
is going to pay her rent and pay her employees. She says, ``I don't
think [Congress] is thinking of people like us.'' Well, it is hard to
disagree with that. The shutdown is affecting so many. In fact, it is
affecting other crucial parts of my home State of Washington. Our
national parks are closed--campers and hikers have been asked to leave.
And if the government doesn't open soon, participants in the Bering Sea
king crab fishery--about which my colleague from Alaska spoke earlier
this morning when I was on the floor--many of them are based in
Washington State, and they are going to face significant economic
losses. Why? Because NOAA employees are needed to process and issue
their quotas. They have all been furloughed. There is no one to do the
work they need to do their job.
I spoke to some of my constituents in the Washington State
construction industry. They told me their business is slow because of
all of the uncertainty about where our economy is going because of the
shutdown and because of the looming guidelines. And there is so much
more.
While our active duty military will continue to get paid, some of
those who have heroically served our country are being affected.
Furloughs in Washington State and across our country have forced our
veterans to stay home and lose pay. As the shutdown continues, veterans
are watching, and they are waiting, because if this government doesn't
open soon, VA benefits--which many of our veterans rely on just to make
ends meet--and support from the GI bill is going to stop.
Our veterans should not under any circumstances be burdened by
partisan games. But unfortunately, the longer this shutdown goes on,
the more they are having to sacrifice. And this shutdown is affecting
the dedicated civilian employees who support our military. We have as
many as 8,000 civilian employees at Joint Base Lewis-McChord who have
been impacted. Some are going to work without pay and some have been
sent home without pay, without any sense or idea of when they are going
to be able to return. And, by the way, many of those workers are
veterans--and many have already been victims of the gridlock and
brinkmanship here in our Nation's capital.
A Washington State news station spoke with Joint Base Lewis-McChord
employee Matthew Hines earlier this week, and he said his family
already lost $1,300 because of the sequestration furloughs this summer.
They are struggling to pay their bills and had to refinance their
mortgage. This week, Matthew and his family were left wondering whether
they would face more lost pay and more uncertainty.
The shutdown is creating uncertainty for struggling families as well
those who depend on nutrition assistance programs. The Spokesman-Review

[[Page S7190]]

in Spokane, WA, talked with Rosa Chavira, the mother of an 11-month-old
girl. Rosa gets support--because she needs it right now--from the
Women, Infants, and Children Program, WIC. It helps her to put food on
the table. We are now hearing that the Washington State Department of
Health is estimating that WIC funds would be threatened as early as
next month if this continues. So next month, just a few weeks away, if
we are still in a shutdown, Rosa might take her vouchers to the grocery
store and be unable to buy any food for her family. As Rosa told the
Spokesman-Review, that is a scary situation.
What I just talked about are a few of the examples we are seeing in
my home State of Washington, but I know that families and communities
across this country could tell a lot of similar stories. This is beyond
frustrating for me. It is beyond frustrating for my fellow Democrats
and many Republicans--including, by the way, at least 20 in the House
of Representatives, so far, who see absolutely no reason why this
shutdown has to continue. We may not agree on much, but there does seem
to be bipartisan agreement that the shutdown has to end. And once it
does, we should begin the negotiations that many of us, including
myself, have been calling for on the floor since March and work toward
a bipartisan agreement that ends the brinkmanship, ends the
manufactured crises that are so harmful to our workers and to the
economy.
I know Speaker Boehner and the tea party aren't on the same page as
the rest of us about that yet. But as we continue to hear from
thousands of Americans--from fishermen to small business owners to
struggling moms--who are being hurt as this shutdown occurs, I hope
they will at least stop standing in the way of those of us who are
ready to get to work.
I will close by quoting Kirsten Watts from Tacoma, WA. She works with
the Bonneville Power Administration in Seattle, and she told the
Seattle Times:

It's just sad that the government is playing games with
people's livelihoods.

Kirsten said that workers at her agency would still be coming in, but
she is worried about the others who will not be. She was thinking about
how this shutdown will impact others.
I think Speaker Boehner and the tea party--who, according to
Representative Stutzman, are laser-focused on what is in it for them--
could learn a lot from that approach.
So I say today to Speaker Boehner: Open the government. Let everybody
go back to work. Stop hurting our economy.
All that it requires is bringing the Senate-passed continuing
resolution up for a vote on the House floor so that the Democrats and
Republicans who want the government to reopen can pass it. Once the
government is open, we would be more than happy to sit down and work
out our longer-term budget agreement. But we are not going to do it
with our families, workers, and small businesses being held hostage.
This is not the time to talk about opening the government. It is time
to actually do it. The entire country is watching and wondering how we
got to this point. Let's do the right thing and show them we can work
together and fulfill the basic responsibilities we were elected to do.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, like many other Members who spoke on the
floor today, I too want to acknowledge the extraordinary work that is
done by the Capitol Police officers.
Every single day they work around here protecting the people who work
and visit here. Yesterday was another great example of the skill, the
professionalism, and the courage that they display on a daily basis in
a very quiet and humble way, and I wish to express--on my own behalf
and for the people that I represent--our appreciation for their
extraordinary work and the remarkable way in which they go about their
jobs and express how very grateful we all are for that.
I wish to talk about what is happening here in Washington, DC.
Unfortunately, we find ourselves on the 4th day of what is a completely
avoidable partial government shutdown. It is not like we didn't see
this coming. The fiscal year ends every year on September 30. So it
wasn't a deadline that we didn't know was coming. In fact, as I pointed
out before, the House of Representatives completed work on four
appropriation bills. Unfortunately, here in the Senate we didn't move
appropriation bills across the floor to comply with the Budget Control
Act. We didn't pass a single one this fiscal year.
Then recognizing the need to act at the end of the fiscal year as it
approached, the House passed and sent to the Senate a continuing
resolution on September 20--2 weeks ago. Instead of acting quickly to
bring us to a resolution to keep the government funded, Senate
leadership continued to stall, unwilling to negotiate.
The House has now sent us four comprehensive proposals to fund the
government and to provide fairness under the law when it comes to
ObamaCare. One of these proposals included a request for a conference
committee so we could get to work resolving our differences. It was a
very straightforward request. The other proposals that had been sent
over here--which had other elements in them dealing with ObamaCare, as
well as government funding--were rejected by the Senate. They were
tabled here. So this was a proposal that was very simple and
straightforward. All it asked was, let's have a conference. Let's sit
down and try to work out our differences.
Unfortunately, the Democratic majority here in the Senate insisted
that they will not negotiate. They tabled the motion--the request to go
to conference with the House of Representatives.
So far this week the House of Representatives has sent us five bills
to fund various parts of our government. I understand they are
continuing to work on additional bills today. These are bills that
would ensure that our veterans get paid and that children can continue
to have access to life-saving treatments.
Yesterday morning my Republican colleagues and I came to the floor
and requested that several of these commonsense bills that the House
has sent to us be agreed to by unanimous consent here in the Senate.
Specifically, I asked for a unanimous consent agreement for the Pay
Our Guard and Reserve Act. This bill would ensure that the men and
women who proudly serve in our National Guard and Reserve--those who
have bravely answered the call to protect and defend our country--
continue to train and to get paid for their service. Congress should
send a clear message to these men and women who stand ready to serve in
overseas conflicts or to respond to domestic disasters, that they will
not be impacted by the spending disagreements here in Washington.
Unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle objected to
these requests and, unbelievably, the President of the United States
has actually threatened to veto those very measures.
Congress has already passed by unanimous consent a bill to ensure
that active duty military personnel are paid during this lapse in
government funding. It is unclear to me why Senate Democrats wouldn't
pass similar measures to fund these important services. After all,
taking care of active duty military personnel is something that
everybody agreed to here by unanimous consent. That rarely happens
around here in the Senate. But Democrats and Republicans agreed that
this is a priority. We have to make sure the active men and women in
our military who defend this country on a daily basis get paid despite
the dysfunction here in Washington, DC. All the bill I offered
yesterday simply would have done is to apply that same treatment to our
Guard and Reserve.
In my State of South Dakota, we have about 4,300 members of the Army
and Air National Guard--a couple hundred of which are deployed right
now, and the remainder have training functions that they perform on a
regular basis. If we don't get this issue resolved, they are not going
to be able to meet those training requirements. As we all know, they
respond to domestic disasters, to emergencies that require their
assistance here at home, as well as on a regular basis are now being
deployed to meet the military requirements that we have in many of the

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conflicts in which we are involved around the world.
So it strikes me as very strange that Democrats would refuse to act
or engage in a meaningful debate in order to find common ground on
issues like this and to get our government back up and running.
I think the people I represent in the State of South Dakota, like a
lot of other people across the country, expect their leaders to work
together to resolve their differences. The position of the Democratic
leadership is that they will not negotiate and simply work together.
That is not a position I believe is reasonable. We have heard it from
the President; we have heard it from the Democratic leaders here in the
Senate: We are not going to negotiate.
I think most Americans believe they sent us here to Washington, DC,
to work together, realizing there are differences--legitimate
differences--about how to solve problems and how to approach issues.
But they believe, on a very basic level, that the responsibility we
have as their elected officials is to sit down and to try to figure out
how to solve these problems.
To say that we will not negotiate as a starting position is a
completely unreasonable position to take, in the eyes, I believe, of
the American people.
The dysfunction and the gridlock that we have here in Washington, DC,
is simply unacceptable.
On Wednesday, the President invited congressional leaders to the
White House for what, unfortunately, turned out to be yet another photo
opportunity, a publicity stunt. The President waited until after the
11th hour, 2 days into a partial government shutdown, to even engage in
a face-to-face way with congressional leaders. It strikes me that when
you invite people to the table and in the same breath make explicit
that you are not willing to negotiate, that very little work is going
to get done for the American people.
I hope we would see better from our President and better from our
leaders in the Senate. It seems like the Democrats are very content to
take their ball and go home. Four days into a partial government
shutdown, they still refuse to negotiate.
We haven't experienced a government shutdown for nearly 20 years. I
pose to my friends on the other side of the aisle that the willingness
of leaders in both parties to negotiate in good faith during previous
negotiations is something from which we could take a lesson.
Going back to 1995 and 1996, former Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich, when he was talking about the shutdowns in that period, said:

Bill Clinton and I would talk, if not every day . . . we
would talk five days a week before the shutdown, after the
shutdowns.
We met face to face for 35 days in the White House trying
to hammer things out . . .

As we know, ending this unnecessary shutdown is not the only
challenge we are dealing with here in Washington. But when it comes to
the debt ceiling--which Treasury tells us will be reached in the next
few weeks--Democrats refuse to come to the table to enact responsible
spending reforms as part of that package. The American people disagree.
According to a recent Bloomberg poll, Americans by a 2-to-1 margin
disagree with President Barack Obama's contention that Congress should
raise the U.S. debt limit without conditions. The American people
understand that if we continue to borrow and borrow like there is no
tomorrow and pile that burden on the backs of our children and
grandchildren--they understand that if you are going to increase the
debt limit, if you are going to ask for a bigger credit card limit,
that you ought to be doing something about the debt. That is why, by a
2-to-1 margin, they believe that if you are going to raise the debt
limit, you ought to do something to address the underlying debt. In
fact, 61 percent of Americans, according to that poll, believe it is
right to require spending cuts when the debt ceiling is raised even if
it risks default.

I do not believe we ought to have a default, but I believe a
negotiation on the debt limit makes sense if we are serious about doing
something about the debt. Every time in the past when we have had major
budget deals--when we go back to the Gramm-Rudman deal in 1985 or the
1990 budget agreement or the 1993 budget agreement or the 1997 budget
agreement or the one more recently, in 2011, the Budget Control Act, it
was always done around and in association with an increase in the debt
limit. There is a clear precedent, clear history, when we are facing an
increase in the debt limit, of having a serious substantive debate in
this country about how to address the debt. In many cases, those led to
some of the few times in our Nation's history when we have actually
gotten budget agreements that did something to reduce spending.
It might come as a surprise to some of my colleagues here also that
inasmuch as many of us do not like the sequester that came out of the
Budget Control Act of 2011----
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). The time of the Senator has
expired.
Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, what came out of that was now, for the
first time since the 1950s, literally since the Korean war, government
spending has gone down for 2 consecutive years.
It can be done. It can be done when reasonable people are willing to
sit down and negotiate, but that requires the engagement of the Chief
Executive, of the President of the United States, and it requires the
good will of the people here in the Senate. It does not entail taking a
position that ``we will not negotiate.'' That is not a position. What
we need is an opportunity where we can sit down together and focus on
these big challenges we have. In the meantime, we continue to have
opportunities to vote to fund veterans programs, to vote to fund our
National Guard and Reserve, to fund the National Institutes of Health--
important priorities many of my colleagues on the other side have
talked about.
We have bills coming over from the House of Representatives. We could
do like we did with the military pay act--pick them up and pass them by
unanimous consent so we do not have to worry about any of these issues
not being addressed and important programs and projects not being
funded. That is all it takes. I hope that can happen.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, we are here today with our government
doors shuttered because of a failure to understand basic civics.
Frankly, this ``my way or the highway'' brinkmanship has been building
so long here in Washington that I would not be surprised if the
American people say ``a pox on both your houses, Republican and
Democratic.''
Why are we in this fix? How did we get here? Sometimes when you are
lost in the woods, it helps to retrace your footsteps so you can find
the way back out. We are here because some of our colleagues have
forgotten their middle school civics lesson. They have forgotten the
``I'm Just a Bill'' episode of ``Schoolhouse Rock'' that some of the
folks in the seventies and eighties remember that reminds us all that
to pass a bill or repeal a bill, you have to meet certain tests. You
need a majority of the House of Representatives. You need a majority in
the Senate. If someone is going to filibuster, you need 60 votes. And
you need the signature and the support of the President.
We are here because my colleagues who want to repeal the Affordable
Care Act do not have a majority of the Senate. They certainly do not
control the White House despite waging an entire election over the
health care law. Since they cannot repeal the health care law the way
we all learned about in middle school, they decided to try something
new. They have taken the government hostage. They have said: If you do
not give us what we want, we are going to close down the Federal
Government.
Can you imagine what it would look like if Democrats employed this
kind of reckless and irresponsible tactic? What if we said: Unless you
raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, we are not going to pass a
spending bill. Remember in 2009 when our party tried to pass a cap-and-
trade bill? We did not have the votes to overcome the filibuster in the
Senate, so I guess the lesson here is that we should have refused

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to fund the government until Republicans relented and passed a cap-and-
trade bill. Can you imagine. That is not how our democracy works, it is
not what our Founders envisioned, and it is not compromise. It is
extortion.
It is our job to pass a spending bill every year. We can fight about
how big that bill is. We can fight about how small that bill is going
to be. But constitutional duty is not optional. Some are saying there
needs to be further compromise on the spending bill, but it is clear
that sometimes the Republican House does not know when to declare a
victory. They actually got the spending levels they asked for. In the
interests of keeping the government open, the Senate accepted House
spending levels, sequester levels, in our funding resolution. I do not
like those spending levels. Most Democrats do not support those
spending levels. But we are not willing to risk the entire economy or
well-being of our constituents just to get our way.
The bottom line is this: It is time to reopen the government--no
strings attached, no policy riders, and no more hostage-taking, just a
clean funding bill that stops hurting our public servants, our
communities, and our economy, a clean funding resolution that keeps the
lights on while we negotiate over a long-term budget. The Senate had
the votes to pass such a bill, and we did. The House also has the votes
to pass a clean funding bill, but Speaker Boehner will not bring it to
the floor. He will not put it up for a vote because the most extreme
Members of his caucus want to play hostage politics instead.
It is time to end this. It is time to drop the hostage politics and
simply pass the one plan that has the votes to pass both Chambers--a
clean funding bill.
Speaker Boehner, let them vote. Let your Members vote their
conscience on a clean funding resolution. It is your duty, Mr. Speaker.
Just let them vote. That is all we ask.
I yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

____________________