[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S49-S61]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF THE I-75 COLLISION NEAR GAINESVILLE, FL
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to join my
colleague, Senator Cassidy, to talk about the unspeakable tragedy that
happened last Thursday near Gainesville, FL, when a large tractor-
trailer crashed into a car, crossed into oncoming traffic, and struck a
church van that was bound for Disney World.
I wish I understood why bad things happen to good people. There were
five kids--five youngsters--from Marksville, LA, who lost their lives
in that terrible collision. They were Joel Cloud and Jeremiah Warren,
both 14 years old; Cara Descant, aged 13; Brieanna Descant, aged 10;
and Cierra Bordelon, aged 9. These five youngsters were members of the
United Pentecostal Church in Marksville, LA. They were five beautiful
lives, full of potential, who were gone before their time. It is
heartbreaking, and there are, simply, no words.
I will say it again. I wish I understood why bad things happen to
good people. I can't imagine any greater suffering than a parent's
being asked to bury a child. The love of a child is not like the love
for a parent or a spouse or a sibling. That is deep love. Yet, as my
late father used to tell me, ``Son, you will never, ever understand
love until you have a child.'' I can't think of any greater suffering
than to ask a parent to bury his or her child.
I want to tell each of these kids' families, the United Pentecostal
Church in Marksville, the whole community in Marksville, and the
Avoyelles Parish that the entire State of Louisiana grieves with you
and that you are in our prayers.
The Marksville van was carrying some very precious cargo. In total,
there were 12 passengers: 3 women--one of whom is pregnant--and 9
children. There were survivors--thank you, Lord--but many of the
survivors were gravely injured, and I pray that they all have a swift
and full recovery.
I want to express my sympathies to the families of the two drivers
who died in that accident. I also thank the first responders who put
themselves at risk every day to try to save lives during these
catastrophes.
There are no words to describe this tragic accident. It happened far
too close to the holidays, but there is never a good time. I am going
to say it again. If I make it to Heaven, the first question I am going
to ask is, Why do bad things happen to good people? For now, I just
pray that these families will find the strength they need to go on and
that all the injured are healed quickly.
Thank you.
I 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. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Government Funding
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise, together with a number of
colleagues who will follow me tonight, to talk about the need to end
the Trump shutdown and to reopen the government of the greatest Nation
on Earth. I am glad to have so many colleagues here who each will share
the stories that have been experienced by folks living in our States
regarding a shutdown that has now gone on for 18 days and will soon
become the longest shutdown in the history of the U.S. Government.
The shutdown is unnecessary, the shutdown is embarrassing, and the
shutdown is painful. It is unnecessary. Why punish American workers?
Why punish American citizens? No patriotic leader in their right mind
would want to do that.
The thing that is so troubling about this shutdown is that the
overwhelming majority of people who are affected are not connected to
the dispute between Congress and the President over immigration reform
and border security. Why should that dispute lead to farmers not being
able to reach their extension agents? Why should that dispute lead to
small businesses not getting their small business loan applications
processed? Why should a dispute about immigration block the courts of
DC from issuing marriage licenses to people?
The President praying for, urging, and then being proud of a shutdown
is hurting all kinds of people who are completely unconnected with the
issue in dispute between Congress and the President. In that sense, it
is unnecessary.
Second, it is unnecessary because there are bills on the floor right
now that would solve this--bills that are bipartisan, bills that were
supported by the Presiding Officer and other Republican colleagues in
the Chamber just a few weeks ago. If we took action right now, we could
stop the punishment. We could end the pain--the gratuitous pain--that
is affecting American families and workers.
The shutdown is unnecessary. The shutdown is embarrassing. This is
the United States of America. This is the greatest Nation on Earth. The
fact that we are in an 18-day shutdown of critical components of our
government, where people are not getting paychecks and citizens are not
being served, is beneath what we should aspire to as Americans and
certainly as U.S. Senators.
Finally, before I yield to my colleague from New Hampshire, the
shutdown is painful. There are statistics about the numbers affected
during the shutdown. Others may get into the statistics; I just want to
share stories because Virginians are reaching out to Senator Warner and
me and sharing their stories with us.
Allen is a veteran and a Federal civil servant in Yorktown, VA. He
has been working without pay since the shutdown began. He wrote to our
office saying that his emergency savings are exhausted, he is behind on
his bills, and the situation will not get any better as long as his
Agency is unfunded. I will repeat that. Allen is a veteran who
voluntarily served the military, this country, and this is how this
President is treating him.
Joanna is from Woodbridge, VA. She wrote to me saying that she
doesn't know what she will do if she doesn't get paid by the end of the
month, as her family ``can't afford to miss a single paycheck.'' She
writes that ``even a slight decrease'' in her pay means her family
cannot afford their rent.
A family from Culpeper wrote to me wondering how they will feed their
children and pay their mortgage without being paid for their service to
our government. They say that if this shutdown goes on for a month or
more, they will have to worry about losing their home.
Michael and Chris, two Federal employees in Annandale, have three
kids, two in college. They are going to have to miss their kids'
tuition payments that are due for the semester this month. If the
shutdown continues, they are not sure whether they will be able to make
their mortgage payment.
James is a furloughed Federal employee from Fredericksburg. He says
he is the ``sole breadwinner'' for his family. He tells me a shutdown
that goes into months would spell financial ruin for his family and
others.
A Virginian from Haymarket wrote me and told me that her loved one is
a Federal employee who is working without pay. She had to postpone a
necessary medical procedure because their family could no longer cover
the costs of copays for testing and surgery.
Teresa is a Federal employee from Springfield. She is worried about
paying her mortgage, utilities, food and more, but most of all, she is
worried about the health of her son, Tommy. Tommy has a disability. She
writes: Because of his medical fragility, Tommy must have numerous
prescription medications; therefore, there are copays to pay. Missing a
single dose could land him in the ICU. President Trump needs to stop
holding Federal employees hostage. When I start missing paychecks,
Tommy is possibly jeopardized in his own life.
[[Page S50]]
Finally, John--a NASA contractor from Virginia--and his wife, who
also works for the same Agency, have lost 100 percent of their
household income since President Trump's shutdown started. Get this:
Their daughter, who lives at home, is a schoolteacher, and it is their
schoolteacher daughter who is helping pay for the parents' expenses
during this shutdown.
The shutdown is unnecessary. The shutdown is embarrassing. The
shutdown is painful. We need to end the Trump shutdown and reopen the
government.
With that, I yield the floor to my colleague from New Hampshire.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague
Senator Kaine and so many others who are here on the floor today to
talk about the hardship that has been created for so many Americans by
this government shutdown--a government shutdown that is wasteful,
unnecessary, and totally about politics.
Today is the 17th day since this partisan brinkmanship shut down 9
out of 15 Departments and dozens of government Agencies that we depend
on to protect our health and safety.
We could reopen the government's doors today if Senate Republicans
take up the bills that were passed by the House--bills that were
written and overwhelmingly approved by the Republican-controlled Senate
just a few weeks ago.
If there is bipartisan and bicameral agreement on the appropriations
bills, then why has the government shut down? Sadly, it is because the
President wants to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for an
ineffective and costly wall on the southern border--a wall which the
President promised Mexico would pay for and which is opposed by the
majority of Americans.
Meanwhile, the men and women who work in Agencies that protect the
American people and who protect our borders are either not working or
on the job but not getting paid. In total, more than 380,000 Federal
employees have been furloughed, and more than 450,000 are working
without pay.
This shutdown affects the entire country, including New Hampshire. It
is not just the thousands of Federal workers who are affected by the
shutdown; it is also harming millions of Americans who depend on
essential services provided by the affected Agencies, people like those
Senator Kaine described.
Last Friday, I had a chance to meet with farmers in New Hampshire who
are affected by the ongoing closure of the Department of Agriculture's
Farm Service Agency. They are not receiving the essential services and
loans they need to prepare for spring planting.
Many dairy farmers, who have been under extreme hardship anyway
because of the tariffs with China and falling dairy prices, talked
about the impact on them. Last year, New Hampshire dairy farmers lost
$1 million because of the tariffs, and our farmers tell me they are in
danger of losing several million more this coming year. So they can't
afford to have another hit.
The fact that this new dairy safety net program, which was passed in
the farm bill--and congratulations to Senator Stabenow, the ranking
member of the Agriculture Committee. She and Senator Roberts did a
great job providing help for the first time for so many dairy farmers.
Even though they are hurting because of the tariffs, those farmers
can't benefit from that right now because the program's implementation
has been delayed. They don't know how long they will be able to hold on
before they are able to get help.
Furloughs have also slowed work at the Office of National Drug
Control Policy and the programs it oversees that are integral to New
Hampshire's effort to fight the deadly opioid epidemic. Everybody who
is getting ready to speak has seen the effects in their States because
of the delays in these programs. Last year, New Hampshire had the
second highest rate of deaths due to opioid-related drug overdoses.
Continued delays from the Agency will pull the rug out from under our
first responders, who rely on ONDCP resources and critical Federal
opioid response efforts. Just as we are beginning to see some progress
in fighting the opioid epidemic because of the work of Congress, we are
seeing steps taken that move us backward.
Of course, there are the air traffic controllers. Last Friday, I
visited with New Hampshire's air traffic controllers to discuss how the
shutdown is affecting their operations and safety at our airports. I
have received 38 handwritten letters from New Hampshire air traffic
controllers who are opposed to the shutdown.
(Mr. DAINES assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Dear Senator Shaheen, My name is Dara and I have been an
air traffic controller with the FAA for close to 19 years. I
am writing this letter to express my concern about our
current government shutdown.
On Christmas Eve, my dear mother passed away. Ever since I
was a child I have been taking care of her since she was
permanently disabled from Multiple Sclerosis. The day before
Thanksgiving she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer and was
given 3-6 months to live. When she passed I was devastated! I
had to call people on Christmas Day to tell them the news.
That was so hard. I had to contact the funeral parlor down in
NJ (that's where we're from) to coordinate a burial. I had to
take 3 days off to make it work. But I still worked during
this difficult time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and
the 26th. I also ended up having to pay thousands of dollars
for her funeral.
Honestly, this government shutdown has been the last thing
on my mind. But now the realization of not being able to pay
my mortgage, credit cards from Christmastime, and now this
funeral is too much to bear.
Air traffic control is a very stressful profession, but I
am proud to be able to do it and work with such a group of
professionals who come to work and are dedicated to safety in
the National Airspace System. My colleagues and I deserve
better.
Please end the government shutdown immediately!
Dora (Bedford, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, As an Air Traffic Controller and
constituent, I want you to know how the partial government
shutdown is affecting me. For the last two weeks, air traffic
controllers have remained on the job, dedicated to the safety
of every flight. But we don't know when we will receive our
next paycheck. My colleagues and I have suffered the sudden
loss of our income due to the government shutdown. My husband
is a firefighter/EMT in Londonderry. We both have very
important and stressful jobs and take our responsibility for
public safety very seriously. We have a home, a mortgage and
are trying to start a family and the stress of not knowing
when I will receive my paycheck is a heavy burden to bear.
Many of my colleagues had to cancel vacation time over the
holidays and miss out on time with their family out of
concern that they would not be reimbursed for time off that
they worked hard to earn
It is not too much to ask to get paid for the time we are
required to show up and work our hardest five days a week.
Many air traffic facilities are already critically staffed
with many having scheduled 6 day work weeks. In our building,
we currently have 6 employees whose training is at a
standstill because their trainers are non-essential
contractors.
Senator Shaheen, I truly appreciate your time and beg you
to do all you can to end this shutdown immediately.
Sincerely,
Sarah (Deerfield, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, As an Air Traffic Controller, I want
to you to know how the government shutdown is affecting my
family and I. My husband and I are both Air Traffic
Controllers and are extremely proud of what we do. However,
not knowing when we will get paid puts a log of stress on us
in addition to an already stressful environment that we work
in. I myself am in training at A90 and this shutdown has the
possibility of delaying my final rating, which means a pay
raise. Bills do not stop and we are both out of a paycheck.
This puts a huge burden on my family and I. Please end the
government shutdown.
Sincerely,
Michelle (Pelham, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, Thank you so much for all the hard
work you are doing on my behalf to end this harmful
government shutdown.
It was a pleasure to meet with you yesterday and discuss my
concerns with the shutdown. As an Air Traffic Controller and
President of Boston TRACON NATCA, located in Merrimack, NH, I
was able to discuss with you firsthand how the shutdown is
harmful to my coworkers and the FAA as a whole.
Please keep up the fight to end the shutdown.
Sincerely,
Curt (Merrimack, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, I am writing to you today to share
with you the effect the government shutdown has had on my
family. I'm married to someone who is older and retired, so
his income is considerably less than
[[Page S51]]
mine. We have two small children and own a home in Merrimack,
NH. We not only have a mortgage to pay, but other bills for
heat and utilities and my car. This shutdown has been
extremely stressful, more than the others I have worked
through. The current administration has been so unpredictable
as well as volatile, it's an actual thought that this could
drag out for months and that non-essential friends and family
that are currently furloughed will not receive pay. This
shutdown is unfair to the dedicated and professional
government employees, not just myself and the other air
traffic controllers.
I am asking you to please end the shutdown. Please re-open
the government and allow us to work knowing we will earn our
paychecks again.
Sincerely,
Lisa (Merrimack, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, I am writing you today to share the
impact the government shutdown is having on me and more
importantly my family. First, I would like to tell you a
little about my wife and I. We were high school sweethearts
and have been married almost 15 years. While Kelly is not
perfect, she is perfect for me. Kelly struggles with and is
receiving treatment for anxiety and depression. Due to
childhood trauma, she struggles with uncertainty. In previous
shutdowns the not knowing causes stress and strife. Even the
anticipation of a possible shutdown raises her anxiety so I
have started to keep them to myself and not tell her until
the last possible moment to save her the anguish. It has been
over two weeks with no end in sight and this wreaking havoc
on our relationship.
Next I would like to tell you about my two daughters. My
oldest Kaley is 13, a bright honor roll student athlete.
Kaley has been having gastrointestinal issues for a few years
and just had her second endoscopy last month. Even with FEHB
coverage the procedures are not free. We have a follow up
with her G.I. tomorrow. I find myself hoping she won't need
major medical treatments as money is starting to get tight.
Next would be my other daughter Savanna. She is 10 and like
her mom suffers from anxiety. Like her mother, I have also
tried to shield her from this so she won't worry because no
10-year-old should have to. Unfortunately, the time where I
can protect her from this is drawing to a close as this week
I will have to inform her dance studio that I won't be able
to afford February's tuition. I know dance classes can seem
frivolous in the grand scheme of things, but they are her
outlet, her freedom, and her happiness. I hope and pray for
accommodation and understanding from a N.H. small business
owner to allow her to continue without payment. Another
Savanna story for you, she has sensory issues and through
therapy is finally learning how to voice them. About a week
before Christmas while tucking her into bed, I jokingly asked
her why she had 9, yes 9 blankets on her bed. Her response
was a big break through for us. ``Dad, I like the weight of
it. It helps me calm down.'' That Saturday we were finishing
up our Christmas shopping for mom and I took her into Yogibo
at the Pheasantland mall. They have weighted blankets and I
let her try it out. ``Oooh dad, this is nice.'' Well, those
N.H.-made blankets are $80. Normally, a purchase would have
been made that day. Unfortunately, that was the eve of the
shutdown, and Savanna is still waiting patiently for dad's
next check.
Lastly, how has this affected me? I put myself last as I
normally do with the girls. It pains me to watch them go
through this. Furthermore, I was faced with a thought that
would never have come up normally. Thursday night my 64-year-
old mother was rushed to the emergency room in Brockton, MA,
about an hour away from Nashua. For a brief fleeting moment I
actually thought about fuel for my truck. I had fuel and have
resources for more for now, but I need to keep driving to
work without pay. I did go down to check up on her and she
came home last night thankfully. I do despise the fact
however that the thought of not going even crossed my mind.
Starting next week I have to start looking for a second job
to offset some of the losses. I will have 16 years of
government service at 3 different air traffic facilities in
March.
I humbly request your assistance in ending the government
shutdown and returning some normality to our house hold.
Sincerely,
James (Nashua, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, First and foremost, I want to thank
you for taking the time to read my letter. During times of a
government shutdown, federal employees (either furloughed or
working without pay) feel like no one is actively listening
to their stories. With that in mind, thank you for hearing
what I have to say.
I am a single mother of three, and I thank God every day
for the job that I have. My career as an air traffic
controller has enabled me to take care of my children and
afford to give them opportunities that many families cannot
afford. I have two girls attending out of state colleges. One
is at Purdue University studying Airport management, the
other at University of South Carolina studying Political
Science. My son, 14, is in middle school and actively engaged
in sports.
Some days, when I feel the stress of bills pilling on, I
feel guilty because I have a great job, make a really good
salary, and have great benefits. However in the end, no
matter how much any of us make, we all have bills and
responsibilities. I work for the sole purpose of earning a
wage to support my family. This government shutdown has left
me worried. I called one of my creditors and they were not
sympathetic at all. I'm worried about using credit cards and
being charged a high interest rate and yet, life still
happens. Food needs to be put on the table, cars need to run,
and my daughter's rent at college still needs to be paid.
Unfortunately, everything goes on except my paycheck.
Holding federal employees paychecks ``hostage'' should
never be an option in the midst of Congressional funding
arguments. The ironic thing about it is that I am ``paying
the price'' and I am not even receiving a paycheck! I
understand that everyone has an opinion on border security. I
would hope that 100% of Congress (and the President) agree
that employees of the federal government should not be a pawn
in this matter.
I hope that you and your fellow members of Congress can
come to an agreement to let federal employees go back to
work, get paid, and feel safe knowing that their family needs
are being met.
Sincerely,
Sherri (Hollis, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, As an air traffic controller and a
constituent, I want you to know how the partial government
shutdown is affecting me and my colleagues.
The lack of paid leave means missing time with the family.
It means coming to work at a stressful job when you might not
feel at your best. It means not being able to plan time off
to get my car fixed or get that new furniture delivered
during the week.
The world of air traffic is constantly evolving. New and
revised rules and procedures are a constant. The lack of
support personnel means that eventually those changes could
be missed and safety compromised.
The lack of training in classrooms and simulators means an
already short-staffed controller workforce will continue to
shrink and controllers will not be able to progress in their
careers. Eventually the lack of pay may convince eligible
controllers to retire or make others decide to seek other
employment. The number of fully certified air traffic
controllers is now at a 30-year low.
Please end the shutdown immediately.
Sincerely,
Todd (Manchester, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, As an Air Traffic Controller and
constituent, I want you to know how the partial government
shutdown is affecting me.
In the past year my in-laws have moved in with my family.
My father-in-law lost his job and him and his wife were no
longer able to afford living on their own. The extra
financial burden with the combination of the government
shutdown is going to make it hard for me to meet my financial
obligations.
Please end the shutdown immediately!
Shane (Bedford, NH).
____
Dear Senator Shaheen, I appreciate your efforts for our
state and country. At this time I feel it is vital that you
understand the impact that Washington politics is having on
my family and friends. The inability for our elected
officials to find common ground and demonstrate leadership is
disheartening to say the least. It is time for our elected
officials to put politics aside and put people as their
priority. Our federal workforce has good men and women with a
strong desire to place the needs of this country first, yet
our elected officials are preventing this. Please end this
shutdown now and allow us to do our jobs.
Gerald (Brookline, NH).
____
Hon. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, I would like to first thank
you for reaching out and meeting with our NATCA legislative
leadership team yesterday. They do so much work, on their own
time, to help support all the air traffic controllers
throughout New England. As a constituent directly impacted by
this government shutdown, I would like you to stress to all
colleagues, Democrat or Republican, that this has and will
continue to put an undo stress upon me and my family. As an
air traffic controller, with one of the most stressful jobs
in the world, the last thing that I need is to worry about
when I'm going to receive my next check for work. I've been
performing at a professional and safe level that is expected
In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, and knowing that
it was almost certain it would happen, my federal coworkers
and I raised over $12,000 in donations in the Southern New
Hampshire area. This included 200 gifts and gift cards,
totaling over $18,000 to the Nashua Children's Home and
$4,020 donated to Family Promise of Greater Nashua at Anne
Marie House. We will continue to contribute to our
communities but please bring an end to this shutdown
immediately.
Thank you for your time,
Everett (Bedford, NH).
____
The Hon. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, As an air traffic
controller and constituent, I want you to know how the
partial government shutdown is affecting me. For the last two
weeks, air traffic controllers have remained on the job,
dedicated to the safety of every flight. But, we don't know
when we will receive our next paycheck. My colleagues and I
have suffered the sudden loss of our income due to the
government shutdown. It's going to be hard for me to meet all
of my financial obligations.
Please end the shutdown immediately!
Andre (Derry, NH).
____
The Hon. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, I am currently working at
Boston TRACON for
[[Page S52]]
the FAA. For the past thirty years I have been providing air
traffic services for the United States. For the first nine
and half years I was serving the country in the Air Force
during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield.
I am a one income family that relies on my federal
paycheck. I have two children, one that is planning on going
to college in the upcoming year. That being said, I should be
financially planning to pay for her college, not my mortgage!
While the Congress is celebrating, high fiving each other,
I'm wondering, How will I meet my financial obligations.
Please help end this nonsense soon.
Sincerely,
Douglass (New Boston, NH).
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Air traffic controllers keep our airways safe, but, as
we all know, they are being asked to work long shifts without being
sure they are going to get paid for that work. One air traffic
controller I heard from was recently transferred to the Boston area,
which is covered in New Hampshire. She is the sole provider to her
mother. Now she is paying not only her mortgage but her mother's
mortgage.
In a letter she addressed to my office, she wrote:
As a sole source of income to my household, the foreseeable
future of this shutdown is detrimental. . . . [It has
created] a substantial burden on not just me but the
thousands of federal employees it's impacting.
Sadly, the shutdown also stands to affect the safety of air travel--
not because our air traffic controllers aren't on the job. They are on
the job. They are doing the work even though they are not getting paid.
But the fact is, men and women who provide administrative and
maintenance functions on the runway--those people who fix equipment
when it stops working, who are in the control tower and at airport
facilities--they will not be at work to support our air traffic
controllers. So when a runway or taxiway light goes dark, it is going
to go unrepaired. That jeopardizes the safety and the efficiency of
aviation operations.
Then there are the impacts to those Agencies that are funded by the
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. I understand this
particularly well as the ranking member on the CJS Subcommittee of
Appropriations. I know what a devastating effect this shutdown is
having on these Agencies.
More than 41,000 law enforcement agents of the Department of
Justice--including agents within the FBI, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, and the Bureau of Prisons--are working for IOUs. We are
hearing this directly in New Hampshire, where every staff member at the
Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, NH, which is in northern
New Hampshire, is excepted. That means they are required to report for
work, and they are not being paid.
I would like to read an excerpt from a letter I received from Chris
Allen. Chris is the president of the union at FCI Berlin, which
represents 180 staff members. He highlighted the kinds of choices staff
members are being forced to make. He said:
While some staff members can call and potentially have a
mortgage or a car payment excused if they are missing only
one source of income, even buying simple groceries or paying
for childcare becomes difficult for a family when all sources
of income have been stopped and you are required to continue
working.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have Chris's letter printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
American Federation of Government Employees Council of
Prison Locals, Local #2008,
Berlin, NH.
Dear Senator Shaheen: My name is Chris Allen and I am the
President of AFGE Local 2008. 1 represent 180 staff members
at the Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, NH. Today
I write to you with great concern for these federal
employees. As you are aware, these staff members are
currently being affected by the current lapse in funding for
the Justice Department. Every staff member employed at FCI
Berlin is considered ``excepted'' and are required to report
for work without being paid at this time. Next week, on
January 17, 2019, which would have been our next scheduled
pay day, we will be missing our first full pay check.
We are fortunate to have some banks willing to lend a
helping hand to employees during this difficult time.
However, it hasn't been a save all either. Staff members are
running into issues with banks asking for documentation that
they are truly furloughed and guaranteed to be paid when the
shutdown ends. With no firm date that the shutdown could be
resolved and no legislation in place to guarantee they will
be paid in the end, banks are giving staff a harder time
while they are applying for loans at a 0% interest rate. The
other fear is that the shutdown continues past one or two pay
periods. Many of the banks are only offering short term loans
equal to only one or two pay checks. If the shutdown
continues, banks are undecided on whether future low or no
interest loans will be continued for our staff.
We also have a number of families working at FCI Berlin
that have two incomes coming from the Justice Department.
While some staff members may have a significant other being
paid from outside the government, many of our families are
now missing two sources of income. While some staff members
can call and potentially have a mortgage or car payment
excused if they are missing only one source of income, even
buying simple groceries or paying for childcare becomes
difficult for a family when all sources of income have been
stopped and you are required to continuing working.
I ask you and your colleagues in Washington to please keep
the excepted staff of FCI Berlin in mind during this time of
shutdown so they can be paid for the professional work they
do day in and day out to keep our communities safe.
Sincerely,
Chris Allen,
President, AFGE Local 2008.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, because of the shutdown, the Department
of Commerce is not processing U.S. companies' requests to be excluded
from the President's steel and aluminum tariffs. That delay will cost
companies millions of dollars and will increase economic uncertainty.
The shutdown is also preventing the Department of Commerce from
assessing new anti-dumping and countervailing duties cases that help
ensure our companies are competing on a level playing field.
Finally, this shutdown, like all shutdowns, is going to put a lasting
burden on the economy. The 16-day shutdown in 2013 cost the government
$2.5 billion in pay and benefits, and it lowered fourth-quarter gross
domestic product for the country by about $3 billion in lost output.
The 2018 Trump shutdown has furloughed about 380,000 employees,
nearly half of the number furloughed in 2013. So it is fair to say that
the shutdown has already cost the government at least $1 billion, and
the number is growing every day. The toll this shutdown is taking on
the American people was completely avoidable. That is what is so
frustrating, and I know it is frustrating to everybody in this Chamber.
Last week, the House passed legislation to reopen the government that
is virtually identical to legislation that passed the Senate or was
reported by the Appropriations Committee with strong bipartisan
margins. In fact, here, as we remember, that continuing resolution to
allow us to keep negotiating passed by a voice vote.
I urge Senator McConnell to bring these bills to the floor. Let
President Trump decide to sign them or not sign them. He can make that
choice as President, but we are a separate branch of government, and it
is up to us to make the determination to end the shutdown immediately
and to do what is right for the American people. We need to ensure that
all government employees affected by the shutdown receive the pay they
deserve. I know there is legislation, led by Senators Cardin and
Collins, to do that. I urge Congress to take up and pass this critical
legislation as soon as possible.
One of the most fundamental constitutional duties of Congress is the
appropriations process--to supply annual funds for Federal programs
that support national defense, transportation, small businesses, food
assistance for low-income families, research and development, and so
much more. Right now, by refusing to allow legislation to reopen the
government, this Senate--this Congress--is failing, and millions of
Americans are suffering as a result.
I urge President Trump, Senator McConnell, and congressional
Republicans to reopen the government and allow Americans to get back to
work.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today out of deep frustration with
the Trump administration's treatment of Federal workers due to the
government shutdown.
It has been 17 days since more than 380,000 Federal workers were
furloughed and more than 450,000 began working without pay.
Once upon a time, we were told that Mexico would pay for the
President's border wall. Now the President is demanding taxpayers cough
up more than $5 billion, and he is holding our Federal workers hostage
until he gets it.
[[Page S53]]
At first the President tried to paint Federal workers and contractors
as political actors. Now he imagines that Federal workers are actually
cheering him on.
But rather than imagining what Federal workers are going through, I
encourage the President and my Republican colleagues to listen to the
firsthand accounts of how this shutdown is affecting the real families
caught up in it.
Here are some of the messages I have received from Virginians whose
families are experiencing significant financial hardship because of
this President's shutdown.
Rebecca in Chesapeake writes: ``. . . I just want my husband to be
able to go back to the work he loves and to have stability for my
family returned . . . The stress of not knowing how long this will last
is eating at both my husband and me.''
Rosemarie in Falls Church shared this: ``My husband was diagnosed
last week with advanced lung cancer and now on top of that stress, I
have to worry about not getting a paycheck . . .''
The President, who has never worked for a paycheck in his life, says
he can relate. He says he is sure Federal workers ``will make
adjustments.'' Here is what those ``adjustments'' actually look like.
Lisa in Arlington writes: ``I am forced to look for multiple part-
time jobs to make ends meet and my savings will soon run out. Creditors
and landlords have only so much patience with us.''
How disheartening it must be to dedicate your life to serving others,
only to find your own livelihood in jeopardy through no fault of your
own.
That is why I am doing everything I can to make sure Federal
employees receive back pay for any time spent furloughed or working
without pay.
That means low-wage Federal contractors, too. The other day, I
received a letter from a Federal contractor from Ashburn, who says the
shutdown has ``rocked the financial stability of my family.''
These folks who serve the Federal Government as custodians, cafeteria
workers, security guards, and in many other important roles should not
suffer because of this President's actions.
We also need to reverse the President's unilateral Federal pay
freeze--a slap in the face to hardworking Federal employees--announced
just a few days before Christmas.
The truth is, Federal workers are sick and tired of being treated
like bargaining chips by this administration.
Here is what Chad, furloughed NASA engineer from Suffolk, told me:
``I'm disappointed to once again find myself barred from doing the job
that I love. I find it offensive to be used as a political pawn and
find the recent executive order to freeze civil servant pay at 2018
levels, while on furlough no less, to be shockingly disrespectful and
wrong.''
Federal workers aren't in this business to get rich; they are public
servants who often forgo higher pay in the private sector to serve
their country.
Dishonoring this sacrifice with a shutdown, with a pay freeze, and
with the President's utter indifference to our Federal workers is a
national disgrace.
It is having a devastating effect on morale and the Federal
Government's ability to recruit and retain talent.
Here is how Joanna, a DHS employee from Woodbridge, put it: ``I love
my job, but being a pawn for those who have no compassion for me or
those I work beside is going to drive me and many, many others out of
public service.''
At a time when the share of Federal employees eligible for retirement
is expected to jump to 30 percent in 5 years, the last thing we should
be doing is actively undermining the competitiveness of the Federal
workforce.
In conclusion, I thank my friend, Senator Kaine, for bringing us
together this evening and for his partnership in fighting for
Virginia's Federal workers and contractors.
Thank you as well to my constituents Rebecca, Rosemarie, Lisa, Chad,
Joanna, and others for allowing me to share their stories.
I want to reassure them and every Virginian that I remain committed
to ending this unnecessary shutdown and making sure every worker
impacted by it is made whole.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire, as
well as the Senator from Virginia and my other colleagues who are
gathered here.
My trek each week to this desk starts in Illinois. It means that for
a number of years, I have gone through the airports of the Midwest--
primarily in Illinois and Missouri--more than most. In fact, I probably
know O'Hare Airport and every corner of it better than anyone who
doesn't work there on a regular basis, and I know the people who work
there, too, at all different levels.
Starting in 2001, we brought in TSA as a means of making certain that
we would be safe boarding airplanes, that people would not bring guns
or weapons or bombs onto planes. These men and women, of course, get on
our nerves once in a while as we have to open a valise or piece of
baggage and take off our shoes, and perhaps we forgot there was a water
bottle onboard. It is a little frustrating, and I know I have had that
feeling, but I often think to myself: They are doing their job, and
thank goodness they are. If it weren't for the men and women of TSA
carefully screening passengers every single day, we would not be as
safe, nor would our families be as safe, on these airplanes.
At 10 this morning, I went out to O'Hare. Instead of heading to the
gate to catch a plane, I had a press conference and brought four of
these TSA agents in to explain what has happened to them and what will
happen this coming weekend because, you see, this is showdown weekend
for these employees. President Trump's shutdown of the Federal
Government will mean that for the first time this coming weekend, these
employees of the Transportation Security Agency are not going to
receive a paycheck. They show up for work every day. They have to. They
are known as essential personnel, which means our government has
decided we can't really function as a nation without them. Yet our
government has decided--at least in the White House--that as important
as they may be, as essential as they may be, starting this weekend they
will work without pay.
I had not met them personally before, but I asked each of them to
explain, what is this going to mean to you and your family--not getting
a paycheck.
They really brought home to me what workers across America--not just
Federal employees but workers across America--face every payday. They
each said to me, with only one exception: Senator, we live paycheck to
paycheck. If we don't receive our paychecks, we have to make some basic
decisions.
One young woman, who had worked for 16 years for TSA, said to me: I
live 39 miles away from O'Hare, roundtrip 78 miles every single day,
and I make it because I need this job, and I need gasoline for my car
to get here. It costs me a lot of money each and every day and every
week. I don't know what I am going to do without the paycheck.
Another one talked about the fact that they are dealing with expenses
we all face--whether it is mortgage or rent--and what it will mean to
them if they can't make their mortgage payment. Well, if you don't make
your mortgage payment on time, and time passes, it affects your credit
rating. It could affect the interest rate you pay on your mortgage or
whether you even have a mortgage when it is all over. So, for these
people, it is a critical element.
One woman brought up something, which I am sure many working families
know instantly. She said: Senator, if I can't get my paycheck, I can't
pay the daycare center that takes care of my kids while I come to work
here every day. That is the reality of life for working families.
So why in the world has President Donald Trump decided that in order
to make his case to the American people, he is going to penalize these
workers, many of whom are essential to America's security and safety?
Why did he do this?
I would have to say, with all due respect to President Donald Trump:
Pick on somebody your own size. Stop picking on people living paycheck
to paycheck who are trying to serve this Nation in important ways.
[[Page S54]]
What we hear from the President: I just have to do it because I have
to have my wall.
We remember the wall. You couldn't miss it in his campaign. He talked
about it incessantly, the sea to shining sea concrete wall that was
going to protect America and be paid for by the Mexicans. Remember
that? Well, here we are. We have given the President money over the
last 2 years in his Presidency to construct fences and barriers where
they are needed--not his almighty wall, 2,000 miles long--but we have
asked him to justify each year how he is going to spend this money,
taxpayers' dollars, and whether it really is worthwhile.
The President has decided he is impatient. He can't wait any longer.
He has to have huge sums of money, maybe even $5 billion, dramatically
increasing spending on barriers at the border, and he has to have it
now, and the only way to make his point is to shut down the government.
I was at a meeting last week when the President said: Make no
mistake, I am not talking about shutting down this government for a few
days. I am prepared--and he repeated it afterward in front of the
cameras. Donald Trump said: I am prepared to shut down this government
for months, even years.
Now, this President is making history. No President in the history of
this country has ever shut down his own government. We have elected men
to lead and manage this government, and we understand that their
responsibility is to keep the lights on and make sure taxpayer dollars
are well spent, but this President doesn't understand that to be his
responsibility, and a lot of innocent people are suffering.
Yesterday, I was at the Department of Agriculture research lab in
Peoria, IL. It turns out it is the largest one, with 200 researchers
there. You think to yourself, they are doing important research when it
comes to agriculture. It turns out this lab has some amazing history
behind it.
It was during World War II at this lab where they discovered
penicillin. It was at the Peoria ag lab where they came up with
penicillin that we could use for our troops who were being wounded in
World War II, saving countless lives in the process. They are pretty
proud of that legacy, and they should be.
Do you know what they are working on now? The Peoria ag lab is
working on something called tunicamycin. I had never heard of it, and I
am a liberal arts lawyer so I don't understand a lot about it, but here
is what it gets down to: This element, which occurs naturally in
nature, can boost the healing power of antibiotics that have been
spent--they no longer have an effect on people--but if tunicamycin is
added, they can once again be effective and save lives. Peoria may have
done it again: first penicillin, now tunicamycin. Well, the lights have
been turned off at the Department of Agriculture research laboratory in
Peoria. They have been turned off because of President Trump's
shutdown.
I met with one of the research team. She has worked there for 15
years, she has a degree in chemistry, and she is doing her best to do
her job, but she is not going to get paid this weekend. I asked her
what she was going to do as a result of it. She said: I hoped I might
be able to apply for unemployment compensation, but, Senator, the
records I need to produce for unemployment compensation are in that
laboratory building, and I can't get in there. They have shut me out.
She can't even apply for unemployment compensation so her family can
get by until the shutdown is over. Why did we do this to her? Why does
this President want to impose this kind of shutdown and hardship on
people who are doing worthy work--at taxpayers' expense, for sure, but
for the taxpayers of America? Whether it is TSA agents or it is people
at the ag lab, these are good people who are dedicated to this
government and have given their life and their life's work to this
government. They deserve better treatment than this.
Let me close by saying a word about the border. The President says it
is all about walls. Well, it turns out there are things he hasn't
shared with the American people, and he is not likely to do it when he
makes his presentation this evening.
Take a look here at the apprehensions at the border. These are the
apprehensions being made by Federal agencies and people trying to cross
the border illegally. Notice something? You may have noticed, in the
year 2000, there were 1.6 million apprehensions. Then take a look at
the year 2018. The apprehensions are down to slightly under 400,000. So
from 1.6 million to slightly under 400,000.
We are going to be told we are facing a security crisis at the
border, and it turns out that we have fewer people seeking to cross the
border illegally now than we have in 45 years, and the apprehensions of
those people have gone down dramatically from 1.6 million to slightly
under 400,000, and we have already dramatically increased the number of
people in Border Patrol.
Meanwhile, let me add something that the President doesn't talk about
because it doesn't fit into his wall scenario. We are facing the worst
drug epidemic in the history of the United States of America. It is
opioids, heroin, and fentanyl, and fentanyl has now been identified by
the CDC as the deadliest narcotic on the streets of America.
Where is the fentanyl coming from? I can tell you where a large part
of it is coming from, from China through Mexico. Oh, they must be
putting it in backpacks and jumping over the border. No, 80 percent of
the fentanyl seized by CBP in 2018 was coming through ports of entry,
places where vehicles and railroad cars go through now. So 80 percent
of this deadly fentanyl seized by CBP was coming through ports of
entry. What are we doing to stop it? Let me tell you, we are not doing
enough. Ninety-eight percent of the railroad cars that come into the
United States are scanned, a basic x ray, to find out what is inside
that car. Is it something that wasn't disclosed? When it comes to cars
and trucks coming into this country, 18 percent are being scanned,
fewer than one out of five of the cars and trucks coming into this
country. Ever wonder how the fentanyl is coming into this country and
killing people in every town across the State of Illinois and across
America? It is coming in through ports of entry.
If the President would stop preaching about his almighty wall and
take a look at real border security, he would be doing what is
necessary to stop this fentanyl and these drugs coming into this
country--and we are not doing enough.
I am for border security. Make it smart. I am not worried about a
President keeping a campaign promise that didn't make sense from the
start. I am worried about keeping this border safe for our families
across the entire Nation. Tonight, let's make sure the people who work
that border and work at TSA and work for the Federal Government get
back to work this week. That is priority No. 1.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am very proud to join with my
colleagues tonight. I thank the Senator from Virginia, the Senator from
New Hampshire, and other colleagues who are here to speak out and talk
about common sense and what is happening and what we believe should be
happening for the American people.
In Michigan, we are building a new bridge, and Canada is paying for
it. That is the truth. Canada is paying for a bridge in Michigan. Here
in Washington, President Trump is demanding walls that he is expecting
American taxpayers to pay for--walls that the majority of experts and
the majority of people do not believe will be effective in keeping us
safe. Meanwhile, in Michigan hundreds of Customs and Border Patrol
officers, who keep us safe every day, are working without pay, and that
is wrong.
The President says we need more security. I support strong border
security, as my colleagues do--strong, effective border security. I
also support economic security for hard-working Michigan families.
Some Federal employees in Michigan, as other colleagues have spoken
about, are wondering how they are going to support their families, pay
their mortgages, and keep the heat on without the paychecks they are
supposed to receive on Friday.
[[Page S55]]
President Trump is talking about a humanitarian crisis. Here is a
humanitarian crisis: 38 million people who depend on food assistance--
the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program--to keep food on their
tables now have to worry that it might suddenly be gone. Most of those
Americans are senior citizens, people with disabilities, and children.
This shutdown fight should not be about politics, but it is. It should
be about people. What is happening here is about people, and the
American people are losing.
One issue we should be able to agree on is the border. We all support
border security. I can't say that enough, and my colleagues say that as
well. I certainly know the importance of border security, as a Member
from a border State--in fact, the State with the most active crossings
at the northern border. The professionals on our northern border keep
us safe every day, and they know what they need to do their jobs. They
will say: It is more resources, more staff, more people. Above all,
they need more technology. What they don't need is a 1st-century
solution to a 21st-century problem. Building a wall on our border is a
little like providing the U.S. Army swords and shields and expecting
them to defend our Nation today.
Unfortunately, this administration is more focused on the merits of
concrete versus steel than actually protecting the American people in a
real and effective way. If our border is a national emergency right
now, then, why hasn't the President spent the hundreds of millions of
dollars that we have already given him in the last year's budget. We
have already allocated dollars for border security--the majority of
which has not been spent.
We all agree that border security is a high priority, and we should
also be able to agree that workers--people working--deserve to be paid,
and they should be able to take care of their families.
I have heard from Michigan workers who can't pay their bills and are
desperately seeking temporary jobs--families who have been left without
health insurance, businesses that contract with the Federal Government,
that know that even if Federal workers get paid back at the end of
this, they will not. There are also thousands of small businesses that
depend on spending by Federal employees to remain open--the dry
cleaner, the neighborhood store, the local restaurant.
This shutdown is also hurting American agriculture. My colleagues
have talked about the fact that at the end of last year, just a few
weeks ago, we passed a strong bipartisan farm bill to help farmers
struggling with low prices, with growing trade concerns, and
unpredictable weather, to say the least.
During these difficult times, our farmers desperately need the
predictability and confidence of a 5-year farm bill. That is what
Senator Roberts and I spoke about every day on the floor of the Senate:
We need to put in place a
5-year farm bill with predictability for farmers in rural communities
and families. However, the President has undermined the certainty that
the farm bill provided by continuing this shutdown at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
Every day the USDA is shut down is another day the improvements we
made in the 2018 farm bill are delayed. Local farm service offices all
across Michigan are closed. Farmers can't apply for the loans they
need, as they look to next year. We have dairy farmers in very
desperate situations. We dramatically increased support for them in the
farm bill--a new dairy program--and they need it now. They needed it
yesterday. They needed it last week.
Important crop reports have been halted that farmers need to make
decisions about upcoming planting seasons: What is the market? What are
the prices? And there are all kinds of technical information they need
to plan to move forward. Frankly, the USDA World Development Office is
the economic development arm for every small town in every rural
community in Michigan. Our rural homeowners cannot receive the housing
loans they need to finance their homes and pay their mortgages. There
are so many other ways things have stopped.
We can't forget about our families on food assistance. Thirty-eight
million people are able to put food on their table thanks to the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. While we should
certainly do everything we can to ensure that food assistance is
available in the near term--and I appreciate the Department working on
that--our families deserve long-term certainty, especially considering
that nearly 70 percent of those on SNAP are seniors, children, and
people with disabilities. It is unconscionable to risk letting those
most in need go hungry because of the politics of a government
shutdown.
Beyond SNAP, school meals, support for WIC--a very important program
for women, infants, and children--and food for seniors are all at risk
if this continues to go on. Due to the shutdown, local food banks are
no longer receiving funds to distribute and to store food. There are
very real consequences going on. We could go through every single
Department to speak about what is happening to real people and what
will happen if this does not get resolved.
We can disagree about a lot of things. We should be able to agree,
though, that people keeping us safe every day should be paid; that
Federal workers should be able to pay their bills and take care of
their families; that children, seniors, and people with disabilities
shouldn't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from
because of a government shutdown.
It is time for the President to end this. It is very easy. The House
and the Senate now have both passed the appropriations bills on a
bipartisan vote. At the end of last year, we passed it in the Senate.
It was just passed last week in the House. We can repass those bills.
They should go to the President's desk, and this shutdown should end.
He should sign the bipartisan appropriations bills and put the American
people first.
We can and will continue to debate what border security looks like
and how we can be most effective, doing what we all want to see get
done. It is time to stop the shutdown and for the President to sign the
appropriations bills that are bipartisan and make sure the American
people know he is on their side when it comes to what is happening in
the country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, we are now in the third week of
President Trump's government shutdown. This is yet another
manufactured, unnecessary, and irresponsible crisis from this
President. This one comes at a steep, steep cost for very real people.
A government shutdown ripples throughout the entire economy. It shakes
consumer confidence. It impacts hard-working families.
In my home State of New Mexico, almost 6,000 Federal workers have
been furloughed or are working without pay, many of whom were already
living paycheck to paycheck before this President's shutdown.
Carol from Tijeras wrote to me: ``I feel I am being held Hostage by
my government which I have always felt it was an honor to work for.''
Carol is worried about how she and her coworkers are going to pay
their mortgages and their car payments if this shutdown continues.
Kathy from Los Lunas wrote to me: ``I am a federal employee and I am
dismayed that the president is holding us hostage. . . . He needs to
quit toying with our lives and all of the public that we support and
serve and end this shutdown.''
It is hard to say it any better than that. The shutdown's impacts hit
far more than our Federal employees. Hundreds of thousands of New
Mexicans rely on the Federal agencies that President Trump refuses to
reopen.
During President Trump's shutdown, our public lands have had to lock
their gates or leave parks and facilities unstaffed. The impacts of
reduced visitation, the challenges for furloughed public land workers,
and the costs of repairing the damage accrued during the shutdown will
hurt communities across our State and many others.
In this era of increasingly extreme and catastrophic wildfires, I am
particularly worried about the impact that a prolonged shutdown will
have on our national forests.
Nicholas, a wildland firefighter fighter from Las Cruces wrote to me
that he and his coworkers have been furloughed. He says: ``If this
shutdown is
[[Page S56]]
not resolved, it will impact my ability to provide for my family.''
Nicholas deserves to be able to support his family. Our communities
can't afford to wait for Nicholas and his coworkers to do their
essential work that keeps our forests healthy and prevents more
destructive wildfires.
Our State's farmers and rural communities are also facing increased
uncertainty. That is because President Trump's shutdown has shuttered
the Department of Agriculture, which funds agricultural loans and many
economic development programs in rural communities.
If the shutdown continues into next month, as President Trump seems
entirely willing to allow, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program--sometimes referred to as food stamps--will run out of funding.
That would mean that millions of Americans--including more than half a
million in New Mexico alone--would be left struggling to put food on
the table.
Over the weekend, KOB, one of our local television stations in
Albuquerque, talked to New Mexicans who would be impacted by a lapse in
food stamps funding. One man named Steven said:
All of us who use food stamps rely on it. That's how we
eat, that's how we get our nutrition.
He said that if he can't receive his support for food next month, he
might have to take out a loan and go into debt.
New Mexico is also home to many Tribal nations, which are
disproportionately impacted by a lapse in Federal funding and are now
under distress to meet very basic needs in their communities. That
includes things like law enforcement, education, housing, and
transportation.
Let me tell you one example I heard from the Mescalero Apache Tribe
in southern New Mexico. Mescalero's lands span more than 700 square
miles. Because of President Trump's shutdown, the Tribe's federally
funded police force has been furloughed. Just think about what that
means for someone who needs help, someone who needs to report a crime,
or someone who needs medical attention.
I need to remind us that this shutdown comes right after Congress
failed in December to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Now,
without this law and without funding, Tribes are especially strained in
addressing an epidemic of sexual violence that has been so acutely felt
in their communities.
Mescalero has seen every single one of its Bureau of Indian Affairs
social workers and victims specialists furloughed. That is extremely
dangerous for women and children who are victims of abuse. These are
real people's lives being unnecessarily damaged by President Trump all
because he will not stop holding our government hostage.
Perhaps most telling about President Trump's shutdown is the impact
it is having on our Federal workers responsible for keeping our Nation
safe along our southern border. As a border State, New Mexico is more
familiar than President Trump with responsible and smart border
security policies. In fact, our State is the proud home of the Federal
Law Enforcement Training Center, one of the primary training centers
for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers. Because of President
Trump's shutdown, the workers at FLETC and all of the officers working
at our ports of entry and agents along our border are either furloughed
or working without pay. How can it possibly be the best way to keep our
Nation's border region safe and secure?
The President has said he would be proud to shut down our government,
and, well, I have to say there is nothing--nothing--to be proud of
about any of this. The President can--the President must--put an end to
this shutdown.
Look, the way out of this is pretty straightforward. The votes are
not there in either the House or the Senate to make Americans pay the
bill for President Trump's wasteful border wall.
Signing a bipartisan government funding bill to reopen the government
is the only responsible way forward. The only thing he is doing by
refusing to back down is hurting Americans like the families I
represent in New Mexico, like the people who work along our southern
border. They expect and deserve so much better than this
irresponsible--this preventable--shutdown.
President Trump has all the power to end this madness right now. I
will say this one last time. Mr. President, if you are listening,
listen to the American people. Listen to the people who work for you
and me and this entire Nation whom you are you hurting. Do the right
thing and end this now.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I will.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, prior to Senator Markey, I wanted to ask
Senator Heinrich this: If I heard correctly, you indicated that half a
million New Mexicans are currently participating in the SNAP program.
Mr. HEINRICH. That is correct.
Mr. KAINE. What is the total population of New Mexico?
Mr. HEINRICH. A little over 2 million people.
Mr. KAINE. So nearly one-quarter of the State is participating in the
Food Stamp Program that is jeopardized by this shutdown.
To the Senator from New Mexico, are you aware that 95 percent of the
employees of the Agency that administers SNAP have been sent home and
furloughed? Are you aware of that?
Mr. HEINRICH. I was aware of that.
Mr. KAINE. That is causing problems not only for your half a million
but for any new family who falls into hunger and needs to apply for
SNAP every day.
Mr. HEINRICH. Thank you.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from
Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia and I
thank the Senator from New Hampshire for their great leadership on this
issue.
Just talking about SNAP very briefly, 50 percent of all children in
the United States, at some point in their lives, are going to be on
SNAP, are going to need some help to eat so they can avoid hunger--50
percent of all children. So we are playing games with the program that
is central to the lives of millions of families across this country,
and we are playing out this entire drama in an all-too-familiar scene.
For the third time in just 2 years of the Trump Presidency, we are
once more in the midst of a government shutdown. It is important to
remember how we got here.
In December, the Senate majority leader brought to the floor a
temporary funding bill to keep the Federal Government open. It passed
this Chamber unanimously. Everyone--all 100 Senators at the time--
agreed that, at the very least, it was important to keep the government
open while we debate the issue of border security and immigration
reform.
So why on Earth is the government shut down? Well, simply because
President Trump has decided to hold the government hostage because he
didn't get funding for a costly, ineffective wall. Shutting down the
government over billions of dollars for a wall is like canceling the
World Series because your team didn't make it.
At nearly 3 weeks into the Trump shutdown, we can track and see the
devastating effects of the President's hostage-taking. Some 800,000
Federal employees are going without pay, and the longer this goes on,
the more their worries mount. Mortgages, student loan payments, car
payments, heating bills, food on the table--President Trump may operate
from crisis to crisis, but countless American families are living
paycheck to paycheck.
I have heard from many of the individuals and families who are part
of the approximately 7,800 Federal workers across Massachusetts, and
they are rightfully anxious about how they will make ends meet. Twenty-
two percent of Federal employees in Massachusetts are veterans--22
percent. So how does Donald Trump repay thousands of individuals who
have served and sacrificed for their country? By not paying them.
Let's be clear about who these workers are. They are janitors,
cafeteria workers, secretaries, security guards. WORK, Incorporated, is
the largest employer of individuals with disabilities in New England
under the Federal AbilityOne Program. It employs hundreds of
individuals with significant disabilities who work across Federal
facilities in the region, but because of the Trump shutdown, they
aren't going to work. If they are not working, they are not being paid,
and they are not
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providing the critical services which are needed for families in New
England and across the whole country.
We have gone from Mexico paying for the border wall to Americans
going without pay. That is how absurd the President is being in terms
of who ultimately winds up paying the price for his campaign promises.
What is more, the Trump shutdown reaches beyond workers and empty
paychecks.
The shutdown of the Environmental Protection Agency means almost all
of the 516 employees in EPA region 1, which includes New England, have
been furloughed. That has halted cleanup of rivers and other
brownfields all across our region. It endangers the water, the air, all
of the work that is done to protect the 13 million people who live in
New England.
It means the Federal investigation into the deadly September 13
natural gas explosions and fires in Merrimack Valley is suspended and
residents are left waiting for answers. The Trump shutdown is shutting
down justice for the residents of Lawrence and Andover and North
Andover because that investigation is now suspended.
We are heading for absolute catastrophe if the shutdown stretches on
much longer as millions of vulnerable, low-income Americans relying on
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program--or SNAP--may have had
their benefits cut severely. That is going to put 764,000 of the
poorest Massachusetts residents at risk of hunger.
President Trump may think it is OK to furlough workers, but he can't
furlough hunger, he can't furlough dirty drinking water, he can't
furlough pipeline accidents. We need an open government to prevent
these things from happening.
In just a few hours, we will hear from the President. He will go on
TV tonight and present a fear and hate-ridden case about a manufactured
national security emergency at our border.
The irony is, the longer President Trump extends this government
shutdown, the more insecure and unsafe American families become because
Federal workers aren't there to protect them against the things that
they work every day to ensure that each and every family in our country
are spared from--the pain that otherwise would be inflicted.
So the Department of Homeland Security is one of the agencies the
President has shut down. An outsized number of Transportation Security
Agency screeners and agents who screen and apprehend dangerous suspects
at airports are calling in sick rather than work without pay. Some have
even quit.
Sadly, our own American President is the architect of this crisis.
The truth is, there are more Americans today going without their
paycheck than immigrants who illegally crossed the southern border in
the past 2 years.
Trump has completely manufactured this emergency, but there is an
impending one if this Trump shutdown continues and Americans are left
without government services. So let's end this.
To my Republican colleagues, let's pass the bipartisan legislation to
reopen the government. You supported it before; support it again. Raise
your voices. Let's put people back to work, and let's provide certainty
for the American public.
Once again, I thank Senator Kaine and Senator Shaheen for their
leadership in organizing this very important colloquy.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in
calling for an end to this senseless government shutdown. I, too, want
to thank my friend and colleague from New Hampshire as well as my
friend from Virginia for their leadership in bringing us together
tonight to speak about the need to move forward and end this shutdown.
All across our country, Americans are feeling the impact of this
shutdown, and government services people rely on have been put to a
halt.
In New Hampshire, our farmers were relieved last month at the passage
of the farm bill. Now, thanks to the shutdown, they are again facing
uncertainty that they may not receive the financial assistance they
need to help them operate.
Our craft breweries, which contribute to our economy, are unable to
move forward with new projects because the brewers can't get the
projects approved through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
At the White Mountain National Forest, some visitors' services are
closed, and at this amazingly beautiful national resource, trash is
piling up.
Additionally, the shutdown is creating safety concerns with regard to
air travel. The Airline Pilots Association International recently wrote
to the President to say that the shutdown is ``adversely affecting the
safety, security and efficiency of our national airspace system.''
We know this shutdown is impacting our Federal workforce. These are
law enforcement officers, border security agents, members of our Coast
Guard, workers from our National Park Service, TSA agents, and so many
other people who dedicate their lives to serving their fellow citizens,
but because of the shutdown, many workers are scrambling to make ends
meet.
President Trump has said these workers can simply ``make
adjustments'' to stay financially secure, but in making such a claim,
the President grossly ignores the reality that hard-working Americans
face. What an out-of-touch statement.
One missed paycheck can be the difference between people being able
to put food on the table or not, of making their monthly mortgage
payments, of affording their medications.
If, as the President suggests, the shutdown drags on for months or
even years, those hardships to our families and our economy will grow
as paychecks continue to be delayed.
It doesn't have to be this way. Last week, the House of
Representatives passed bills that have received substantial support
from Members of both parties in the Senate and would reopen the
government immediately. Those included robust funding for border
security, funding to support commonsense improvements, including better
technology that border agents say they need. Unfortunately, the
President is more focused on campaign slogans than on strengthening
border security based on the facts on the ground. As a result, the
President has created a crisis for families across the country,
including for the border protection agents and law enforcement officers
whose duty it is to protect us.
The fact is that we can keep our country safe while also reopening
our government. That is why Leader McConnell must bring the bipartisan
bills that have passed the House to the Senate floor and the President
must sign them into law.
In the meantime, I am focused on ensuring that our Federal workforce
gets the pay that they deserve and that they have earned. That is why I
have joined with a bipartisan group of colleagues on legislation to
ensure that any government employee furloughed as a result of this
shutdown or any future ones will be paid retroactively as soon as
appropriations are restored. I cosponsored legislation that would fund
Coast Guard operations during lapses in appropriations--including pay--
for members of the Coast Guard.
Mr. President, it is time for these games to end. We need to keep
providing the government services that Americans rely on, and the
people who provide these services deserve stability not only for their
own sake but for that of the people and country they serve. More
broadly, the American people deserve to know our government can operate
effectively without these constant games and irresponsible tactics from
the President.
Let's move on from this shutdown. Let's reopen our government.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
First, I want to thank my colleague from Virginia, Mr. Kaine, for
bringing us together this evening on the floor of the Senate to talk
about the urgent need to end the government shutdown because of the
mounting toll it is taking on the American public and on Federal
employees who are going without paychecks at this very moment.
This is a shutdown that President Trump said he would be ``proud'' to
put in place, but I think, if he begins to look around and see the
consequences,
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he has to ask himself what he means by being proud.
Just yesterday, I had a roundtable discussion with many Federal
workers in my State of Maryland. I wish President Trump had been there
at the roundtable to hear what these public servants had to say. Maybe
if he had listened, he would know that a government shutdown is nothing
anybody should be proud of. I want to share some of the stories my
constituents shared with me yesterday, and I hope President Trump is
listening to all of us here this evening.
Tyra was one of the people who came yesterday. She works for the
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. She has to keep
reporting to work every day, but she is not getting a paycheck. Tyra
talked about the challenges of juggling the cost of medicine, food, and
gas for her daily commute to a job where she is not getting paid right
now. She told me yesterday: ``I am trying to figure out how to get my
child lunch.'' That is what the shutdown means for Tyra.
I heard the President say the other day: ``I can relate, and I am
sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make
adjustments. They always do.'' That is the President of the United
States saying he can relate to these hard-working Federal employees who
are now going without a paycheck. Someone needs to tell the President
that in the United States of America, 40 percent of our fellow citizens
lack the $400 in their bank account that would be needed for an
emergency. So when you are talking about skipping a pay period, you are
talking about thousands of families who are not going to be able to
make ends meet. Mr. Trump can hang out at Trump Tower, and he can fly
down to Mar-a-Lago, but it is pretty clear that one thing he cannot do
is relate to the people who are going without a paycheck right now but
who have bills they have to pay.
Another individual who joined us yesterday was Trish. Trish is an
aerospace engineer at NASA. Trish is trying to buy a home, but the
shutdown is throwing a wrench in those plans because her mortgage
company, not surprisingly, says that they need current pay stubs from
her in order to close on her purchase. What can she tell them? She
doesn't have any current pay stubs coming in, so she may not be able to
get that mortgage.
Mary works at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. She
told us about the important work CFTC does to safeguard the financial
system against financial wrongdoing and fraud. She explained that
because of this shutdown, the CFTC cannot pursue legal cases against
bad actors who were defrauding American consumers and that they have
had to ask the courts to suspend those cases.
So I guess the shutdown is good for those who are trying to take
advantage of our fellow citizens through various financial schemes. It
certainly is not fair to those who are working hard and playing by the
rules and who want to do the public's business, like our Federal
employees.
Mary said that because of the shutdown, she has had to make some
difficult decisions in her own household. Mary's mother was recently
widowed, and the shutdown is hurting her ability to help her mother
make do during this tough time.
Before I had this forum with a number of Federal employees who have
been shut out of work, I visited Prince George's Community College in
Maryland. It is a great community college. The president of that
community college is Dr. Dukes. As I was going to meet Dr. Dukes, I met
a mom on the elevator. The mom had been there to talk about her
daughter who is enrolled there. It turned out that her mother is a
Federal employee who has been shut out of the Department of Commerce.
Then I talked to Dr. Dukes, and the president of this great community
college told me that she has been getting phone calls all week from
parents who have students enrolled at Prince George's Community College
who are on a monthly installment payment plan, and they are calling the
president of this community college and saying: What are we going to be
able to do? We are not going to be able to make our next payment on our
child's community college tuition bill.
Just today, I got a number of letters from air traffic controllers in
Maryland. They, like thousands of other Federal employees, are working
every day right now, but they are not getting paid for it.
Tension is mounting, frustration is mounting for the air traffic
controllers, a lot of Federal law enforcement officers, and the people
at the border, our border security. So, Mr. President, you don't know
how to relate to these fellow Americans who are struggling because of
your shutdown.
In the Senate, our failure to take up the bills that have already
passed the House and are sitting right here in the Senate to reopen the
Federal Government is making this Senate complicit in this Trump
shutdown. Every day that goes by where we don't make our first order of
business ending the shutdown makes the Senate an accomplice in the
Trump shutdown. The House made it its first order of business to say:
Let's reopen government. They passed two bills. Both bills have
overwhelming support for their components here in the Senate.
I have the first bill they passed right here in my hand. H.J. Res. 1
says to open the Department of Homeland Security at current funding
levels through February 8 while we negotiate the best way to provide
border security. This is on the Senate calendar. We can vote on this
tonight. Of course, the irony here is that this Senate, just before the
Christmas break, voted on exactly this measure. We voted on a
bipartisan basis to open the Homeland Security Department at current
levels through February 8 while we negotiate. We have already done it.
So why are we not taking up this bill this evening?
The other bill that passed the Senate I have right here in my hand.
It is also on the Senate calendar. This bill that passed the House on
their opening day would open eight of the nine Departments that are
closed. The first bill would open the Department of Homeland Security,
while we negotiate, until February 8. The other bill opens eight of the
nine other Federal Departments that have been closed.
Here is the kicker: The House did not adopt the House appropriations
levels. The House looked at what the Senate had passed on a bipartisan
basis either here on the Senate floor or in the Senate Appropriations
Committee, and they took the Senate funding levels to open those eight
Departments through the entire fiscal year, through September 30.
Mr. President, we all have a very simple question: Why is the
majority leader and why are our Republican colleagues not bringing up
those House bills that are sitting right here in the Senate? We have
already supported those bills on a bipartisan basis. We can pass these
bills to reopen the government tonight, and there is no excuse for not
doing it.
I am going to close by sharing the comments of one of the other
individuals who joined me yesterday at that gathering. His name is Otis
Johnson. He works here at the National Gallery of Art. His message to
President Trump: ``Mr. President, if you really can relate to how the
Federal employee is feeling, you need to go ahead and open the
government back up so our people who want to work can get back to work
and handle America's business.''
I wish President Trump was listening to Otis and all the other hard-
working Federal employees I met with yesterday. If he talked to them,
he would hear their stories, and he would know they are suffering, as
are the American people who every day are losing access to important
services.
I want to again thank my colleague from Virginia, Mr. Kaine, and my
other colleagues.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to join my
colleagues in voicing my sincere hope that the President will end this
senseless shutdown.
The American people are tired of our country being held hostage and
our economy threatened. There are real consequences. I see it all the
time. Of course my State, unlike Mr. Van Hollen's State of Maryland and
the State of Virginia, may not have as high a percentage of Federal
workers, but for every worker who has been hit by this, it is the same
story.
At our airport just this weekend, I talked to countless TSA officers.
They
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said: We will continue to do our job, but now we are not going to get
paid. You think about these people on the frontline who are doing the
work for our country, who are keeping us safe, and who are not getting
paid because of this senseless shutdown. You hear about the garbage
piling up in our national parks. You hear about people having trouble
paying their rent or mortgage. You hear about the fears about airport
security lines. Everyday Americans are affected by this as well.
Other consequences of this shutdown are less visible but deeply
painful for those affected. There are entrepreneurs who want to take
their companies public but can't get approval by the SEC. You have
rural home buyers who can't get their mortgages backed by the
Agriculture Department. Farmers can't access critical loans or
information about how the Department will implement the new farm bill.
We were so proud to pass the new farm bill in this Chamber on a
bipartisan basis--something the President took credit for--and now we
can't even implement it and help our farmers as they approach growing
season in the spring. They don't even know what is going to happen with
the new provisions of this farm bill, especially the dairy farmers of
Minnesota, who have been hit so hard by low prices and by the trade war
that we are in.
While this trade war is going on, we are also going to not be able to
help them and to deny the help that vulnerable Americans need. Funding
for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps put food
on the table for 38 million Americans, would be severely reduced or cut
off all together. The Department of Housing and Urban Development
payments that maintain housing for 3 million Americans could be in
jeopardy.
It is time to put aside the political games, and it is time to get in
the real game--and that is the lives of American people--and to stop
this shutdown. It means reopening our entire government so we can work
on the issues that matter.
This is a time in our country when we should not be governing from
crisis. We should be governing from opportunity. After the downturn,
the economy had stabilized, and we should be working with the rest of
the world. We should be selling our goods to market and building the
infrastructure in this country. We should be doing something about
prescription drug prices. We should be training our workers for the
jobs that are available today and the jobs that will be available
tomorrow.
There are simple proposals out there. There is the Senate and the
House of Representatives legislation that passed through this body
unanimously--not a single Senator opposed it--yet the President
suddenly changed course and, once again, insisted that he needs over $5
billion immediately. The new House has now passed legislation to fund
all shuttered agencies other than the Department of Homeland Security
through the end of the fiscal year. That includes the Treasury
Department, the Agriculture Department, the Interior Department--
government agencies that provide critical services. These
noncontroversial bills were originally drafted and approved by the
Senate Appropriations Committee run by the Republican Party. None of
this makes sense to me at all. The measures that were passed by the
House are sensible, and they are ones that have been supported in the
past by Republicans in this Chamber.
Shutdowns are not good for the economy. I lived through the 2013
shutdown. That was estimated to cost our economy over $20 billion. The
President's own economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, has estimated that
this shutdown will shrink our economy by 0.1 percent every 2 weeks.
Maybe that doesn't sound like much. Do you know how much it really is?
It is roughly $10 billion every single week. That is real money for
real Americans. So stop the games.
Shutting down the government should not be a negotiating tactic. If
President Trump were to agree to sign the bills that the House has now
passed and every Member of the Senate supported last month, we would
end this shutdown. Instead, critical services and our economy are being
threatened with poison pill partisanship.
To my colleagues in the Senate, I say this: Let's get this done. We
owe it to the people whom we were elected to serve. We owe it to the
country. As one former Congresswoman once said, America should be as
good as its promise. This is a promise we made to them when we were
elected--to do the best for them and to serve our country. Let's get it
done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise tonight to talk about the
government shutdown. I thank my colleague from Minnesota for her
remarks. I remember the 2013 shutdown that she talked about. The reason
I remember that is that while this place was shut down by the Senator
from Texas, my State was under water from some of the worst floods we
had ever seen, and there were people at every level of government--the
local level, county government, the State level--coming together to
work with FEMA, coming together to work with religious organizations,
coming together to work with ordinary people to literally dig
themselves out of the mud and the rocks that were the consequence of
floods we had never seen before. I had to stand there almost like a
fool explaining that the Federal Government was shut down for politics,
and here we are again.
For 10 years, I have come to this floor and said over and over that
this place had become the land of flickering lights. The standard of
success was only whether we kept the lights on for one more day or one
more week. The standard of success had nothing to do with whether we
invested in the next generation of Americans and had nothing to do with
what America's place in the world was, and tonight, 18 days later, we
are shut down.
Just like in Minnesota and just like in New Hampshire, people in
Colorado are suffering as a result of this. This shutdown is inflicting
real harm on people who are Federal workers who can't pay their
mortgage, can't take care of their kids, can't hire a plumber.
We heard today that the EPA is only getting paid half of their
paycheck. You can't pay only half your mortgage. You can't go to the
grocery store and pay only half your bill. We have farmers and ranchers
all over the State of Colorado who can't get operating loans from the
FSA to buy seed or fertilizer.
We have had FEMA meetings canceled and critical projects delayed that
are vital to our rebuilding after the 2013 flood, the last time there
was a long shutdown like this. After a terrible fire year in Colorado,
the Forest Service can't move forward with new projects or reduce
wildfire risks in our communities.
Rocky Mountain National Park is closed. Why do people from Estes Park
have to bear the burden of the stupidity of this place--the inability
to govern like every other entity in America governs, where you could
never shut down your local government and you could never shut down
your school district? But for some reason, you can do it over politics.
In this case, why? It is over a mnemonic device that the Trump campaign
supplied to candidate Trump--the wall--and two things that weren't
true: one, that Mexico would pay for the wall. If he had fulfilled that
promise, we wouldn't be here because there wouldn't be a need for $5
billion because the Mexicans would pay for this wall. That is what he
said over and over. It was objectively not true, just as it is not true
that what is needed is the wall that he has proposed.
We had a bill here in 2013 that 68 Senators voted for. That bill had
$46 billion of border security in it, 350 miles of fencing on the
southern border, internal security, and fixed our visa system--far more
effective than the ineffective wall that the President is trying to
build now for $5 billion. He can't even spend the money that has
already been appropriated, and now he has shut the government down for
$5 billion to keep a campaign promise that is not true. It wasn't true
then, and it is not true now.
This is ridiculous. Last week, China marked the New Year by landing a
spacecraft on the dark side of the Moon. That has never happened before
in human history. Here in the United States, while they were
accomplishing that, we had a government shutdown. Close observers might
say--and they would be right--that NASA--which, by the way, is closed--
marked New Year's
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Day by successfully flying the New Horizons probe past an object 4
billion miles away. We should celebrate that achievement, but let's
also remember that mission was 18 years in the making because people
planned for the future. An American craft is literally on the outer
edge of human discovery, and last week we were shut down while the
Chinese landed their craft on the other side of the Moon. Because of
the fecklessness of people in this body, we can't even put an astronaut
into space now. We have to call up the Russians and ask them to put us
on a rocket to take us up there. Do you think our parents and
grandparents would have stood for that?
There was a unanimous vote in this Chamber, and it passed in the
other Chamber. We should reopen the government. This is doing too much
damage to the country, and the President should understand that part of
his job of being President is keeping the government open, not cheering
it when it is closed.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. JONES. Mr. President, first of all, let me say how much I
appreciate my colleagues on the floor--particularly, Senator Bennet's
comments--and the passion that everyone has shown for the people in
this country and why we are here for the people that we represent,
whether they voted for us or not. That is not the issue. We are here to
represent all the people, and I really appreciate those incredible
words from my colleagues and, particularly, the passion shown by
Senator Bennet.
I am rising today to give my voice to the thousands of Alabamians who
are also suffering as a result of this government shutdown. It is not
just the folks who are employed but those who are affected by this
shutdown by whatever means necessary.
There are people who are not employed by the government who are also
affected. In the midst of all the political posturing that we have
seen, the costly government shutdown has hurt over 5,100 Alabama
workers, their families, and the people who rely on them to do their
job. Thousands more are contractors who will not get backpay. Unlike
the Federal workers, who traditionally get backpay, these contractors
who are not working now because there is no work to be had with the
Federal Government will not get backpay from their employers.
Our Coast Guard employees, who aren't paid through the Department of
Defense budget that passed last year, don't know whether their paycheck
will come or not. By the way, it is the Coast Guard who is interdicting
so much of the illegal drugs that are attempting to come into this
country. It is not the southern border. It is the Coast Guard, which we
are putting at risk, that is doing the best job of interdicting the
illegal drugs that are attempting to come into this country.
These folks pay the price of this shutdown while this political drama
that we have seen in Washington, DC, drags on and on--on cable TV, on
Twitter, and on other social media platforms. These folks are hard-
working Alabamians who keep our airports safe. They protect our
communities. They monitor our prisons.
We have three Federal prisons in Alabama. Three of the workers in the
Aliceville prison were on CNN today talking about the effects on them
and their community in Aliceville, AL. These are people who support our
national defense, like folks in Redstone Arsenal and at all of the
military bases in our State. They support the aerospace programs in our
State. These are the folks who are getting hurt. Many of these people
are veterans who have gone on to serve their country a second time by
working in Federal service.
Most of these folks support strong border security. I venture to
guess that all of them support strong border security. Some will
support the wall, as the President has described it, but they don't
agree with--they don't support--shutting down the Government of the
United States of America in a way to just get that wall or that border
security done. They do not support that at the expense of their
communities and their families.
Over the past 18 days or so since this shutdown, I have heard from
any number of my constituents. They call the office here in Washington,
and they call the offices in Huntsville, in Mobile, in Birmingham, and
in Montgomery. They talk about how they are hurting already because of
the shutdown.
One constituent who wrote to me is a small business owner in North
Alabama, near Huntsville, whose 30-plus employees have provided very
important, continuous support for NASA programs for the past 7 years.
As their work gets delayed or stopped altogether, these folks don't
know whether they are going to have jobs. If their work stops, those
employees are going to need jobs, and they are going to start looking
for other jobs. In the economy that we have now, in which unemployment
is low, people are looking for workers, and they are going to find
those jobs. So his business may get shut down.
There is a military spouse who also works for the Federal Government
whose husband is deployed to Afghanistan right now. She also wrote to
me and urged an end to this shutdown. She said that while she supports
the wall, she doesn't believe that Federal employees should be used as
bargaining chips just to get it done. She said that a lapse in funding
would be devastating for her job and that her family needs the
paychecks to cover these bills. This is a family that is already living
under stress with its having a husband and father in Afghanistan. This
family doesn't need the extra stress.
On behalf of her family of four in Smiths Station, AL, another mother
wrote to me about her family's lapse in healthcare coverage since the
shutdown because the employees at a Federal health insurance agency,
GEHA, have been furloughed. Her family's change in coverage was never
fully processed by the end of the year. So it lapsed and was canceled
as of December 31. The family members are now facing important medical
decisions--appointments, prescriptions, refills in the next few weeks--
but don't know if they are going to have the insurance to cover it.
The administration announced today that the deadline for farmers to
receive their subsidies, because of the administration's trade
policies, will be extended, which all sounds really great. It sounds
all good and well. We are going to extend it. We are going to put a
bandaid on this for our farmers. These farmers have been hit hard by
the trade war that this administration has started, which I have talked
about on the floor of the Senate on any number of occasions and around
my State.
To ease that pain, a few months ago the administration decided to
allocate $12 billion as almost a bailout. Now, these farmers really
don't want these handouts. They want their markets. Yet, to ease their
pain, to its credit, the administration came up with $12 billion to
ease that pain. Less than half of that amount--roughly, about $5.2
billion in payments--was made before the Department of Agriculture's
local offices were closed. While extending that deadline sounds very
good and is, simply, putting a bandaid over the wound, the fact is that
until we get this government open, farmers who did not get their
payments in before this shutdown are going to have a problem.
Another problem with the shutdown is that they can't depend on the
Federal Government any more than they can depend on the weather. These
farmers are at risk every season, every year, of things that are out of
their control. What they don't need is a government that they cannot
depend on, and that is what we have right now. They are out of luck at
a time at which they need it the most, as they are starting to plan for
their spring planting and summer planting--their loans, their crops,
buying the seed--as Senator Bennet talked about a few moments ago.
There is one constituent who wrote me a really heartbreaking letter
about the impact of losing her SNAP benefits after January 31 if the
shutdown continues. She is living on a razor's edge financially and
depends on Social Security disability benefits and SNAP dollars to
survive. It is not a lot of money on a monthly basis. It is such a
small amount of money that folks in this body and folks in the House
and, certainly, the folks in the administration wouldn't think twice
about it. It is probably less than they spend at Starbucks every
morning, but, for her, it is an incredibly important part of her life,
and we have to make sure that we do everything not to let her down.
[[Page S61]]
I did see, just before I came over here, that the administration has
said that we are going to extend it. We are going to make sure that
SNAP benefits are paid in February. Again, that is great and sounds
wonderful, but it is a bandaid. Sooner or later, if we don't end up
doing something about this shutdown, that bandaid is going to be ripped
off, and these folks are going to be left in the cold once again.
We need to remember--and I think this gets lost sometimes in the talk
about this shutdown--that this is not just about the paychecks and the
direct benefits that people in this country receive from the Federal
Government. It also affects all of those people in our communities who
serve those who work for the government--those who take in their
grocery money and take in their utility money and take in their gas
money. It is going to affect those people. It is going to affect car
dealers, and it is going to affect local businesses. It is just like
the folks at the prison in Aliceville said today, which is that sooner
or later, if they don't have money to spend around Aliceville, it is
going to affect that community. This touches so many people in this
country that we need not lose sight of that.
The letters and calls and voice mails are pouring in every day as
this shutdown continues. More and more Americans face the increasing
consequences of the impasse that we see here in Washington, DC. There
is, simply put, no excuse for it. We can and must do better. We can and
must find the common ground that so many of us talk about. Every day,
over and over, we talk about finding common ground, but we have to
practice what we preach in terms of finding that common ground.
This past year, I talked to a number of my constituents back home who
had gone through a number of issues. I talked to a lot of people who
asked me to support the wall. They stopped me over the holidays, and I
would always stop and talk to them. They were always very respectful,
unlike with some things that happen in our political discourse today.
These people were always very respectful, and we had nice
conversations. When I asked them what they were talking about, they
said that I needed to vote for a wall.
They said: We just need border security, Senator. We need border
security.
This gave me the opportunity to say: I completely agree.
Unfortunately, the so-called ``wall'' that we keep hearing about,
primarily on Twitter, has really become just a metaphor to support a
secure border. To oppose it is to oppose a secure border. That makes no
sense. What is getting lost in this debate is that every Member of this
body wants secure borders. Every Member of this body and every Member
of the House wants border security measures that will keep our
communities safe. We might have disagreements about the best way to
make sure our borders are secure, and we might have disagreements on
what border security will look like, but it doesn't mean that we want
open borders as I keep hearing from the administration. That is a
preposterous statement.
In fact, in the last Congress, we had one of the President's nominees
before us for the head of ICE. He used to work on the border. He was
there. He controlled it. He was the head of border security.
I asked him in the hearing: Have you ever heard one politician--have
you ever heard anybody in Washington, DC--say that he is for open
borders?
He said: No, sir, not at all.
We have to get away from that political posturing so that we can find
the common ground that is necessary to move this forward. The fact of
the matter is that we have found common ground. We have found that
common ground right here in this body.
Last February, in the midst of bipartisan talks on more comprehensive
immigration reform, a number of senior administration officials came to
the Senate and briefed Members on the situation at the border. They
outlined how an infusion of money in the context of a larger piece of
legislation could improve security and conditions for asylum seekers
and on the border. In the wake of that presentation--if I recall
correctly, they proposed a $25 billion price tag for border security--
Republicans and Democrats alike, which was a majority of the U.S.
Senate, voted to include that $25 billion in border security funding
over the next decade. That was a bipartisan effort.
Over the course of the last spring and early summer, the U.S. Senate
Appropriations Committee--led by my colleague from Alabama, Senator
Shelby, and by Senator Leahy, the ranking member--passed a bipartisan
Homeland Security funding bill by a vote of 25 to 5. It did that in
June of this year. It included $1.6 billion in border security funding,
which was on top of the $1.3 billion, I think, that was funded last
year. What has started this whole process today is the administration's
demand of a blank check of $5.6 billion for a wall as the price to
reopen the government. That is, simply, not how our government should
work.
Now, candidly and in all fairness, in recent days, we have gone from
an argument that was just, simply, about dollars and cents on both
sides of the aisle--5.6 versus 1.6 or 1.3--to where we have now seen
the administration begin to slowly roll out how it would actually spend
that money. There was no plan in the beginning. It was just ``send us
$5.6 billion.'' We are learning about that plan via Twitter and on the
TV talk shows, not the way this body is used to getting information
from the administration--through a budget process or through some
proposal about which you can ask questions and can vet.
If the administration is serious about border security--and it should
be serious about border security, just like the Senate of the United
States and the House of Representatives of the United States should be
serious about border security--we should reopen the rest of the
government. Officials should also come back to the Hill, like they did
in February, and brief Members of both parties in Congress about what
is needed and of exactly the new border security money and how it will
be spent.
This week, the House has been voting on a series--or will be voting
on a series--of funding bills that the Senate has already passed, many
by a vote of 92 to 6. Think about that. As I travel around the State, I
tell people all the time what I saw last year--my first year--which is
that there is so much more bipartisanship in this body that you don't
see just by watching C-SPAN and listening to dueling press conferences.
There is a lot of it that goes on, and we passed those bills by 92 to
6.
These bills will ensure that the Federal employees and contractors
can go back to work and can get paid, that food assistance and housing
vouchers can go forward, that vital research can be done, that our
parks and museums can reopen, that our airports are safe, and that our
prisons are monitored. Instead of handing political appointees a 10-
percent raise, it will ensure that we will pay the Coast Guard, whose
members continue to serve throughout this shutdown without knowing if
their next paychecks are going to come.
I am literally sad to say--and I really hope people will take this
into account, especially the folks who have been here for a long time--
that in my first year here, my first year in the Senate, this is the
third government shutdown that we have seen. We should be embarrassed
about that, and the administration should be embarrassed about that. At
every opportunity, I have voted to keep the government open. I can't
say that I would do it every time, because it will depend on the
circumstances, but, thus far, I have done all I can to keep this
government open.
The American people are frustrated and disheartened by the
dysfunction and empty rhetoric that they hear out of this town, but we
have to remember that the Senate of the United States has done its job
and done so in a deliberative and bipartisan way. No one on either side
of the political aisle should lose sight of that.
We came together and found common ground, and we should insist that
the President of the United States not only acknowledge that but honor
that, get this government up and running, and let's sit down to
continue to discuss the plans for the border security that we all know
is necessary and we would like.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
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