[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 11 (Thursday, January 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S275-S277]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment. If the 
Congress does not get its act together by tomorrow, there will be a 
government shutdown. A government shutdown will be extraordinarily 
destructive to the people of our country, millions of whom depend upon 
government services. It will be destructive to millions of Federal 
employees who keep their families going with a paycheck from the 
government. It will be destructive to the U.S. Armed Forces, men and 
women who put their lives on the line to defend us. So it seems to me 
that we have to do everything we can to prevent a government shutdown.
  As everyone knows, we have a Republican Party that controls the U.S. 
Senate, a Republican Party that controls the U.S. House of 
Representatives, and a Republican who is in the White House, President 
Trump. We are now 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, and the 
Republican Party has yet to give us an annual budget.
  The U.S. Government is a $3 trillion operation. There is no business 
in this country of any size that can run week to week, month to month. 
We need an annual budget, and now the Republicans are coming back, 
asking for a fourth continuing resolution. You cannot run a government 
like that. It is unfair to the American people, unfair to the Armed 
Forces, unfair to all of us.
  Three and a half months have gone in the fiscal year; yet the 
Children's Health Insurance Program has not been reauthorized. This is 
a program that has existed for decades with bipartisan support. How can 
we not reauthorize the CHIP Program?
  Three and a half months of the fiscal year have come and gone, and we 
have not reauthorized the Community Health Center Program, which 
provides primary healthcare, dental care, mental health counseling, 
low-cost prescription drugs to 27 million Americans

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in every State in this country. If legislation were brought to the 
floor of the Senate today, the Blunt-Stabenow bill reauthorizing the 
community health centers, I suspect, would get 70, 75 votes; yet 
Republicans, after 3\1/2\ months, have not been able to reauthorize the 
CHIP Program or the Community Health Center Program.
  When we talk about the budget process, we are talking about three 
major issues; there are more, but there are three major issues. No. 1, 
will we continue to have parity in spending between defense spending 
and nondefense spending? Since 2011, in four different budgets, there 
has been a bipartisan agreement that for every dollar spent on defense 
is a dollar you will spend on the needs of a struggling middle class, 
millions of people who are struggling every day to keep their heads 
above water economically--a dollar here, a dollar there. That has been 
agreed upon on four separate occasions, but several weeks ago, the 
Republican leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and said: We 
want to do away with that parity. We want to be able to spend more on 
the military and less on the needs of working families.
  We have a middle class that is shrinking. We have people all over 
this country working two or three jobs. We have the highest rate of 
childhood poverty of almost any other major country on Earth. We have 
millions of elderly people who can't make it on $12,000 or $13,000 a 
year. We have a crisis sweeping the Nation, hitting my State of Vermont 
very hard. We have infrastructure that is crumbling. We cannot ignore 
the needs of the working families of this country and spend huge 
amounts of money only on the military.
  Some of the things we have to do as we come together, as we must, for 
a bipartisan agreement is, of course, reauthorize CHIP and, of course, 
reauthorize the Community Health Center Program. The Stabenow-Blunt 
bill has nine Republican cosponsors. Every Democrat will support it. We 
have the votes. Let's do it.
  We have to deal with the pension issue. One and a half million 
American workers are about to lose 50 to 60 percent of the pensions 
they were promised by the U.S. Government. That cannot be allowed to 
happen. We have to stand with those workers.
  I went to a meeting earlier today dealing with the Social Security 
Administration. The Social Security Administration provides a process--
the administrative arm makes sure that the elderly, disabled, and 
people who get Social Security benefits get those benefits in a timely 
manner. For years now, Republicans have underfunded that 
administration, and today there are simply not enough employees to do 
the work that has to be done. Amazingly enough, over at the House they 
are talking about massive cuts to the Social Security Administration on 
top of all the cuts they have already received.
  The Washington Post wrote an article a few weeks ago--unbelievable--
and what they said is that over the last year, if you can believe it, 
10,000 people with disabilities who had applied for Social Security 
benefits died while waiting for those claims to be processed. They were 
not processed in a timely manner because the Social Security 
Administration does not have the workers it needs and has been 
significantly underfunded. For the sake of the senior citizens of our 
country, for the sake of the disabled, any budget agreement when we 
have parity must supply sufficient amounts of money for the Social 
Security Administration so that they can do their work.

  Every Veterans Day, every Member of this body talks about how much 
they love veterans. The Veterans' Administration today has 30,000 
vacancies, which means that our veterans are not getting the quality 
and timely care that they must be able to receive. We have to start 
filling those vacancies. Any budget agreement must include increased 
funding for the VA.
  In my State of Vermont and all over this country, there are millions 
of young people who went to college, went to graduate school, and have 
left school deeply in debt. Because of high interest rates, some of 
those people now owe more money today after paying off, year after 
year, their debts than they did when they took out the debt. We have to 
address the debt crisis facing some 40 million Americans.
  In Vermont and all over this country, if you are a working person, 
what do you do if you have a 3-year-old or a 2-year-old? Well, you look 
for decent, quality childcare. But all over this country it is 
extremely difficult to find that quality childcare. Any serious budget 
agreement we reach must include increased funding for childcare so that 
working people in this country know, when they leave their kid at a 
center, that child will receive quality care at a cost that is 
affordable. Every dollar we invest in early childhood education is a 
dollar very, very well spent.
  All over this country, in this, the wealthiest Nation in the history 
of the world, we have infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems, 
waste water plants--which is crumbling. In many parts of rural America, 
including the State of Vermont, we do not have high-quality, affordable 
broadband or cell phone service. How do you maintain a community, how 
do you bring business into a community, how do kids do their homework 
if you don't have decent broadband or cell phone service? We have to 
invest in rural America and make certain that every community in this 
country has broadband and the kind of infrastructure that it needs in 
order to prosper.
  One of the tragedies taking place in this country today is resulting, 
unbelievably, in a lowered life expectancy rate here in the United 
States of America. Our life expectancy rate is actually in decline, and 
one of the reasons for that is the tragic opioid and heroin epidemic, 
which claimed some 60,000 lives last year. We cannot ignore that 
problem. We have to invest in prevention. We have to invest in 
treatment. We have to help States all over this country and the 
families who are struggling with this issue.
  My point is, we need parity, not for some abstract, inside-the-
beltway reason; we need parity in spending because we need more in this 
country than just a strong military. We need a strong middle class. We 
need a strong working class. We cannot turn our backs on tens of 
millions of people who are struggling.
  The second issue that we have to deal with here in the Congress is 
the issue of DACA and the need for clean Dreamers legislation. In 
September, President Trump initiated a very serious crisis. What he did 
is rescind President Obama's Executive order providing legal status 
through DACA to 800,000 young people. These are young people who were 
raised in the United States of America. These are young people who 
today are working. They are in school; they are in the military. This 
is the only home they have ever known. This is the only country that 
any of them or many of them can even remember. The idea of simply doing 
away with the legal status that they have, subjecting them to 
deportation, subjecting them to being taken away from the only country 
they have ever known and loved is literally beyond comprehension and 
unspeakable.
  In September, when Trump initiated this process by rescinding Obama's 
Executive order on DACA, he said to the Congress, the Republican 
leadership in the House and Senate: You fix it. Get legislation.
  Well, there are people right now--Senator Durbin, Senator Graham, and 
others--who are working on legislation, which doesn't go as far as I 
would like it to go, but they are working on serious legislation in the 
House. The vast majority of Democrats and many Republicans understand 
that we cannot turn our backs on these young people. That is not just 
what we feel here in the House and in the Senate; it is what the 
American people want. Poll after poll shows that 70, 75, 80 percent of 
the American people say: Provide these 800,000 young people with legal 
status. Provide them with a path toward citizenship. Very few people 
think that we should turn our backs on these young people, let DACA 
expire, and subject them to deportation. Let us do what the American 
people want us to do, and let us pass a strong Dreamers Act.
  Last but not least, we had some terrible hurricanes some months ago. 
They brought a lot of disaster to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and the 
Virgin Islands. Months have gone by, and we have yet to pass the kind 
of disaster relief that communities in those States and territories 
desperately need.
  We cannot continue to kick the can down the road. We cannot continue 
to

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run a $3 trillion government on a month-by-month basis. It is unfair to 
everybody. We have to sit down and negotiate a serious budget 
agreement. And what Republicans must understand is that, yes, they have 
a 51-to-49 majority here in the Senate, but you need 60 votes to pass 
this type of legislation. You need 60 votes, and that means you cannot 
do it alone. You cannot give the Democratic caucus a fait accompli and 
expect Democrats to say: Oh, yes, sir, we are going to follow you. This 
requires bipartisan discussion on the parity issue and domestic 
spending and bipartisan discussion on DACA.
  We have a strong majority of Members of the Senate who support a 
Dreamers piece of legislation and a path toward citizenship. We have a 
strong majority of the American people and a strong majority of Members 
of the Senate who want disaster relief. This should not be a difficult 
problem. The American people want a resolution, and they want it done 
in a bipartisan way. Let's do it. Let's not kick the can down the road. 
Republicans must understand that they must negotiate in a bipartisan 
way.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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