[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 6 (Friday, January 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S149-S159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACT OF 2019--Motion 
                               to Proceed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1, which the clerk 
will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the consideration of S. 1, a bill to 
     make improvements to certain defense and security assistance 
     provisions and to authorize the appropriation of funds to 
     Israel, to reauthorize the United States-Jordan Defense 
     Cooperation Act of 2015, and to halt the wholesale slaughter 
     of the Syrian people, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.


                 Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 109

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk 
that is due for a second reading.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the title of the bill for 
the second time.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 109) to prohibit taxpayer funded abortions.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the 
provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceedings.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection having been heard, the bill will be 
placed on the calendar.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the significance of 
today, January 11, the 21st day of the partial government shutdown.
  Today, we tie for the longest shutdown in the history of the U.S. 
Government. Tomorrow, we will set a record for the longest shutdown.
  Today is the first paycheck day where 800,000-plus Federal employees 
will not be paid. In fact, some have already started to get their 
paychecks because even when there is no pay, the process of producing 
the check and the stub continues. So people get paychecks, but there is 
a zero on the line, which is sort of like pouring salt in the wound or 
adding insult to injury. It is one thing not to be paid, but it is 
another thing to be working and then get the stub and have there be a 
zero there. People have already reported--some of our air traffic 
controllers and TSA professionals and others--that they are starting to 
receive those checks.
  January 11 is also a time when--I know what it is like in my family. 
My wife and I kind of load up on both the charitable contributions and 
buying gifts for our family in December, and then that credit card bill 
in January is the biggest one we pay all year. Families are receiving 
those.
  January tends to be among the coldest months of the year, and heating 
bills are the highest. We are going to have a cold snap and maybe a 
snowstorm in Washington this weekend, and those bills will be high.
  January 11 is a time when a lot of families sit around kitchen tables 
and write tuition checks for the spring semester for their kids.
  It is precisely the worst time to have a shutdown of this kind that 
affects more than 800,000 people and jeopardizes their livelihood.
  I stand on the floor today to repeat what I said Tuesday night when 
many of us stood here and said it is really time to end this shutdown. 
The House wants to end it. An increasing number of Senators want to end 
it by passing bills that are right here in the Senate, available for 
consideration, to reopen the government and to engage with the 
President in a meaningful, short-term, and prompt dialogue about border 
security and immigration reform.
  I wanted to share some of the stories that are flooding into my 
office. I will be back on the floor later because at 11 o'clock, 
Senator Warner and I will

[[Page S150]]

meet with Federal employees at a community center in Alexandria, and I 
will be bringing more stories back to the floor before we adjourn at 1 
o'clock today.
  Before I share stories, I do want to express appreciation to the 
majority leader, to the Republicans, and to the Democrats who joined 
together with us yesterday to pass an important bill, S. 24. It is not 
as good as getting a paycheck, but it is a bill to tell those who have 
lost paychecks or are losing paychecks during this time that when we 
reopen, they will be paid.
  We have done that in the past. Once we reopened, we figured out a way 
to do that. But I felt it was important that on the day people are not 
being paid, for them to at least get the signal from Congress, some 
certainty, something that they might be able to show to a landlord or 
to a bank saying: I am going to get paid.
  The Senate majority leader and minority leader worked at the end of 
the day to make sure that a UC to pass S. 24 was successful. It was, 
and at about 5 o'clock last night, we sent that bill to the House. My 
understanding is the House is taking up the bill this morning. I also 
applaud Senator McConnell for reaching out to the White House and 
speaking directly with the President about the bill. The President 
indicated he would sign it when the bill gets to him.
  Again, it is not as good as a paycheck, but it adds a little 
something on a tough day to tell people that they can rest assured that 
when we figure this out, they will be made whole. I do want to express 
my appreciation to all for working on that yesterday, but, again, that 
is not a cessation of the pain.
  I am going to read stories from Federal employees, but I do want to 
acknowledge that this is not about just 800,000 employees; it also 
affects millions of Americans.
  I told a story on the floor Tuesday night about just coincidentally 
two Saturdays ago going to four different units of the National Park 
System under the Department of the Interior and the National Forest 
System under the Department of Agriculture and being turned away by a 
gate closed and a sign saying: We are shut down.
  That I was turned away was of no moment, but I was interested to 
watch other families pull up in their vehicles on a Saturday, spending 
time with their kids. Time with the family is precious. You often don't 
get a lot of it. Sometimes driving with kids a long way to get to a 
national park or something--they are squabbling in the back seat, and 
you are really hoping to get there. Watching families pull up and 
looking at their faces as they saw that what they hoped to do that day 
they couldn't do because it was closed--that made an impression on me.
  People were trying to visit the museums here in Washington, and they 
couldn't.
  Citizens who are falling into hunger, who want to apply for food 
stamps--95 percent of the workforce that processes food stamp 
applications has been furloughed during this time.
  Air traffic controllers are working because they are essential, but 
it has to make you a little cranky to get a paycheck with a zero on it. 
I can't imagine a Federal employee I would less like to be cranky than 
an air traffic controller. I mean, this is very important stuff. You 
don't want an air traffic controller sitting in that tower thinking 
about anything other than air safety.
  If 5 percent of their brain is sort of mad at this shutdown and 20 
percent of their brain is focused on ``How am I going to pay the 
bills?''--air traffic controllers have shared that they need security 
clearances to do their jobs. Do you know that if your credit is 
impaired and you start to get hits on your credit report, that could 
endanger your security clearance? In some circumstances, it could lead 
to your security clearance being taken away. If you are under a court 
order to pay alimony or child support, and you can't, regardless of 
whether you have a good reason, and there is a court order forcing you 
to, that could lead to your losing your security clearance.
  You don't want an air traffic controller in the tower worrying about 
anything other than the safety of the passengers. If they are mad at 
the government for shutting down, and they are anxious about not 
getting a paycheck, and they are wondering about how long it will go on 
and what the consequences might be, that is not something that makes me 
feel comfortable.
  This is an issue about Federal workers, certainly, but it is also an 
issue about the effect on Americans who need all kinds of services.
  Like every office here, my office has been flooded with expressions 
of concern. They are saying: Senator, why can't you do something? What 
is going on? How long is this going to go on? And I don't have a good 
answer for them.
  Let me read some stories. I read seven or eight Tuesday night. These 
are stories that have come in since Tuesday.
  Shane from Alexandria wrote:

       I am a veteran and furloughed government employee working 
     for the Peace Corps. My wife is a disabled veteran, and we 
     live paycheck to paycheck. I lost my job during the housing 
     crisis, and we lost our home and then relocated to the DC 
     area for work. We have worked hard to build our lives back up 
     and again own a home. Now, that is all in jeopardy again! If 
     I don't get paid, we can't pay the mortgage, and we will lose 
     our home. I relocated my family from Florida for a secure job 
     here and to provide financial stability to my family. Now, 
     because of a dysfunctional government, I may have to find new 
     work again, but it may not be in time to save our home. 
     Please, Please, Please, do what you can to open the 
     government back up.

  Terry from Fairfax wrote:

       I am writing you, along with my two other elected 
     officials, seeking your help in bringing this government 
     shutdown to an immediate end. Today is day 19--

  This was sent to us on Wednesday--

     and counting, with no end in sight. The information put out 
     by the media saying the number of those affected by this 
     (partial) government shutdown is 800,000; I submit to you it 
     is much higher than that--especially in the Commonwealth of 
     Virginia.
       Currently, I work for the Department of Homeland Security, 
     the Transportation Security Administration at Washington 
     Dulles International Airport. I have the compliance 
     department at Washington Dulles, enforcing the Code of 
     Federal Regulations, and have 15 people working for me. We 
     make sure the nation's transportation system at Washington 
     Dulles is secure and safe and are exempt from furlough.
       Of the 15 people that work for me, most all live paycheck 
     to paycheck. As you can imagine, with the outlook of no 
     paycheck coming this Saturday, the morale is starting to go 
     down and Maslow's hierarchy of needs--

  I hope I am saying that right--

     is kicking in--that of self-preservation. Their focus is 
     switching from their work--keeping things secure and safe--to 
     their family and how they are going to provide for them 
     (survive).
       As for me, I served honorably in the United States Coast 
     Guard and retired after 26 years. I started working at 
     Washington Dulles when TSA first stood up and have been here 
     over 16 years. I am 63 years old. My Coast Guard retired 
     paycheck is my financial security, something to fall back on, 
     something I can plan on . . . up until now. I just learned 
     yesterday there won't be a retired paycheck for Coast Guard 
     retirees because of the shutdown. The financial security we 
     worked for is no longer there. This is a breach of trust 
     between the U.S. Government and every Coast Guard retiree, 
     and it's wrong!
       I have proudly served the American People for more than 42 
     years, and I have been through every government shutdown 
     since 1976. This particular one is getting old in a hurry, it 
     may be the worst, and it needs to stop. For my people at 
     work, my family at home, and my fellow Coast Guard retirees, 
     we need your help in ending this shutdown.

  Garrett, a Virginian working as a contractor at NASA:

       I am a contractor for NASA, I am shut down, and I am not 
     very happy. This is having a negative financial effect on my 
     life. I am ok today, but soon in the very next few days when 
     I have exhausted my vacation, then take leave without pay, 
     then have to pay for overpriced health insurance; then I will 
     be in a big pinch. As a contractor we are not guaranteed to 
     be re-reimbursed for our leave. The last shutdown I lost a 
     paycheck I never got back, that was like a 2% pay cut. I 
     won't be able to take sick leave or vacation this year. 
     SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE, and I am relying on you to make it 
     happen. We all are. Just think of all the good government 
     employees that will be forced to leave the government because 
     it is such a negative place to work.

  Just a comment, government employees are being forced to leave the 
government.
  Today in Fairfax, the Fairfax public school system is having a hiring 
fair just for Federal employees. They need substitute teachers, they 
need bus drivers, and they need cafeteria workers. So they are doing 
the hiring fair to try

[[Page S151]]

to play upon the unhappiness of Federal employees who are out for the 
shutdown and don't think they are going to come back to work.
  Phil from Chesterfield:

       Through no fault of my own I am not being paid [my] bi-
     weekly salary . . . tomorrow. This will cause a significant 
     strain on my family, my church contributions, my shared 
     health care cost, my retirement contributions. Having a 
     college age student attend Virginia Commonwealth University, 
     with winter semester fees for tuition and room and board 
     totaling [thousands in] out of pocket expenses is extremely 
     frustrating. I really cannot [go a long time] without a 
     salary.
       Long term policy disagreements (among both parties of our 
     elected Senators) using federal government employees' 
     salaries as a token to rally off is not Democracy. This is 
     not fair to You . . . or a career professional like myself 
     who works for the United States Government.
       I ask you . . . to consider a CR which would fund our 
     government through a short-term solution until you and your 
     bi-partisan colleagues can fix a long-term problem. . . .
       Nonetheless, my family and I are out of funding Now! I ask 
     that you publicly announce [what you will do] and help lead 
     the bi-partisan CHANGE TO HELP Virginians.

  A family from Loudoun County--one, a 20-year government employee:

       I am scared not knowing when he will get paid. Our 2 young 
     children should be signing up for spring sports this week, 
     but we are cutting optional spending. We are eating out of 
     the pantry instead of going to the grocery store. Real people 
     are hurting, working and not being paid. It is 800,000 but 
     the broader fear and economic impact is tremendous.

  Opel from Hampton:

       My name is Opel and my husband Kenny is an inspector with 
     the FDA. As you know, he has been unable to go to work for 
     the past few weeks. I am writing to you to keep our story and 
     our situation at the forefront of your agenda. Please 
     continue to push for our Congressional leaders to get the 
     government open. It is very difficult to try to explain to 
     our 9 year old son why Daddy isn't going to work, why Mom and 
     Dad are having trouble paying our bills. This shutdown is 
     wrong and I feel that it's also wrong for federal employees 
     to not be able to go to work because a person some people 
     elected President wants an extreme form of ``security.'' 
     Please Sir, reopen the government. Many people's lives are at 
     stake.

  Daniel from Arlington:

       I am a furloughed employee in the Department of Commerce. 
     My income has stopped. I have become aware that I will soon 
     be responsible to make payments for my family's healthcare, 
     my life insurance, and other benefits that are normal 
     paycheck deductions. So now I have no income, plus unbudgeted 
     expenses.
       I have hard decisions now with regard to paying my rent, 
     paying for my family's healthcare, and paying for care for my 
     elderly parents. I have applied for unemployment assistance. 
     I am trying to find work to survive throughout the shutdown.
       I have 5 years of federal service, and I have experienced 
     furloughs before. Until now, I have not needed to take 
     resources away from the unemployment system. Until now, I 
     haven't had to compete in the job market to take a position 
     away from someone who has no job at all.
       I have personally shut down; I am using as little gasoline 
     as I can, I am only shopping for necessities. I'm cutting 
     back in every money-saving way I can. This is a disheartening 
     way to just try to survive.
       PLEASE support legislation that will return furloughed 
     Federal employees to paid work status.

  A final story, Joie from Warrenton:

       My husband is a highly experienced Ph.D. Economist with the 
     SEC. I am a disabled (thanks to cancer) Episcopal priest. We 
     are in free fall not knowing if my husband will have his job 
     again, and our health insurance we need for my [cancer]. We 
     need every penny he earns and no job could replace his 
     compensation. We spent most of our savings paying off my $40K 
     in cancer and cancer related bills last year. Still, we live 
     MODESTLY in a 1700 sq foot old farmhouse with no central air/
     heat, drive one 13 year old car and . . . [another old] used 
     Subaru. It's early Thursday morning 1/10 and I'm having a 
     panic attack wondering if I will lose my dogs if we get 
     evicted in case this runs a few months and we run out of 
     savings to pay our mortgage. We have no family support or 
     back up and a son with anxiety and ADHD issues for which we 
     spend thousands out of pocket because mental health services 
     for youth are either unavailable or do not accept insurance. 
     Please continue to pressure . . . [all your colleagues] to 
     bring opening the government to a vote. WORKING AMERICANS 
     need protection!

  This is just a sample of the letters we have received. When I come 
back from the session Senator Warner and I are doing in Alexandria, I 
will bring back more stories. I know that other offices are receiving 
these same kinds of inquiries. Even with a guarantee of backpay, for so 
many people who live paycheck to paycheck or who have modest savings, 
the timing of even missing one paycheck is very, very critical.
  The House has already taken action by a strong majority to reopen 
government. By my count, just based on what folks have said in this 
Chamber, there are at least 52 members of this Chamber who have already 
gone on record and said we should take up the House bill and vote to 
reopen government. My hope is that when people listen to stories like 
this about lost paychecks and the effect on families and when people in 
this body understand the magnitude of tomorrow's recordbreaking day, 
when we establish the longest shutdown in the history of the country, 
as our colleagues are back in their home States over the weekend 
chatting with folks, that number of Senators--52--who want to take up 
these bills and vote on them will increase and we can end this 
suffering that is so unnecessary.
  I will say this. I definitely get that there is an important 
controversy that needs resolution--talking about border security, 
talking about immigration reform. We have been talking about these 
issues since I got here. Regardless of your position on how we should 
solve them, I think everybody in the body knows--with no immigration 
reform done since 1986 and border security funding a perennial topic--
that there is an important issue to resolving this: How much should we 
spend for border security? What is the right way to spend the money? 
What is the right place to get the money? Can it be done by executive 
fiat, or must it be done via congressional appropriations? What are the 
immigration reforms that we need, having not done an immigration reform 
bill since 1986?
  When the President says these are important issues, he is not wrong. 
He is right. But as for the idea that even with an issue of importance 
on the table that we need to grapple with, people who are unconnected 
to that issue have to be victims, have to suffer as we are trying to 
resolve that issue, I just don't get it. As for some of those who are 
suffering, it is kind of even counter to the national emergency or 
crisis that the President is talking about.
  For example, the Coast Guard--as was indicated by one of my stories, 
from Terry--is one of the Agencies, because it is under the Department 
of Commerce, I believe, that is shuttered. They are not a DOD Agency. 
So they are not funded. There are 42,000, I believe, Coast Guard 
employees. Most are essential and are working without pay, but some are 
furloughed. If there is a crisis at the border--and as the President 
described that crisis, a significant portion of the crisis is illegal 
drugs coming across the border, and we need folks to interdict illegal 
drugs--why would we shutter the Coast Guard? The Coast Guard has many 
missions, but one of their important missions--and they work very well 
on this, in tandem with other Agencies in this country and in other 
countries--is the interdiction of illegal drugs. How does it make 
sense, if there is a crisis at the border dealing with drug 
importation, for the Coast Guard to be shuttered?
  So the President's statement that this is an issue that needs a 
resolution is correct, but punishing people who are unconnected to the 
issue or even punishing some of the very people whom we need to solve 
the issue is just the wrong approach. That is why I believe the right 
approach is the approach taken by the House--bringing up bills that 
were bipartisan bills, that were worked on and voted on either by 
Senate committees or on the Senate floor, and saying: Let's just do 
these. Let's reach an agreement for the nonaffected Agencies, the 
nonimmigration-related agencies, but between now and September 30 
reopen government. And let's provide short-term funding, a month or 3-
weeks of funding for the immigration and homeland security Agencies, 
and let's just make the whole next chunk of time in this body a 
discussion, a resolution, and a compromise that will enable us to meet 
some of what the President wants and some of what we want--and that is 
possible.
  I think sometimes the word that goes out from a shutdown or the word 
that goes out from some of the news stories, as well, is this: There is 
not going to be a compromise that is possible. The sides are dug in. We 
can't find an accord.
  I just want to remind the body--and the President knows this--that it 
was

[[Page S152]]

just last February when 8 Democrats and 8 Republicans worked and 
introduced a bill that coupled borders security with protection for 
Dreamers. The President now is asking for $5.7 billion, essentially, in 
border security. The bill we had in February was $25 billion, over 10 
years--$25 billion--which was exactly to the penny what the President 
had asked for. It was $25 billion, borders done right. We wanted to 
exercise traditional congressional oversight in the then-two Republican 
House Congress over how the money would be spent, but the amount the 
President asked for wasn't the problem. It wasn't a problem at all--$25 
billion in exchange for something else that the President had asked 
for.
  He had said: We shouldn't protect Dreamers by Executive order; it 
should be done by Congress. There should be a statutory congressional 
fix.
  He is right about that. That is a better thing--to fix it via 
statute, rather than to rely on an Executive action that can change 
with the whim of each new Executive. He is right about that.
  We basically went to him with a proposal, 16 of us, and introduced 
the bill: $25 billion, Mr. President, that is what you asked for; 
protection for Dreamers, Mr. President, that is what you asked for.
  The response from the White House was not to say: ``I don't like that 
deal; let me give you a counter,'' or ``Could you add to it?''
  Within less than 24 hours, the White House put out a press release 
attacking those who put the bill together--even the Republicans--as 
proponents of open borders who wanted to end immigration enforcement as 
we know it. It was a press release from the DHS that read like it was 
somebody's campaign literature rather than the response that you would 
expect from a White House or a Cabinet-level official.
  But what that offer showed is that there is great willingness in this 
body to invest in border security. In fact, even after the President 
poured cold water on it, we put that bill on the floor for a vote. 
Forty-six out of 49 Democrats voted for it. Forty-six out of 49 
Democrats voted for $25 billion in border security, just like more than 
50 Democrats in 2013--and I was part of this, as well--voted for more 
than $40 billion in border security.
  So for folks at the White House wondering whether in a 3-week or 
monthlong intense discussion we could find a path forward on border 
security and immigration reform, the evidence is out there that, yes, 
we can. We can find that path forward, but we ought to open up 
government and let those unconnected with the dispute at least go back 
to work, at least go back to work and start getting paid. Then, in this 
body--which is a great deliberative body, with 100 people who are very 
savvy and smart and who could find a deal moving forward--we could find 
an answer to this that would enable the President to say he got 
significant investments in borders, and it would also enable those of 
us who have promoted commonsense immigration reforms to feel like there 
was something in there as well.
  With that, I am going to yield the floor. I am going to meet with 
Federal employees and then return to share some of their stories. My 
ask is a simple one: We need to reopen government. We need to lift the 
burden of this anxiety over people.
  The last thing I will say is, if this backpay bill passes and the 
President signs it--and we are going pay people, we are going to 
guarantee their pay--why wouldn't we want them to be serving? If they 
are going to be paid, wouldn't we want to have them serving Americans 
rather than not serving Americans during this time?
  With that I yield the floor.
  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.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, this shutdown is not a negotiation 
situation. This is a hostage situation.
  For the past 3 weeks, Donald Trump has held 800,000 Federal workers, 
tens of thousands of Federal contractors, and thousands of small 
businesses hostage to extort money for his vanity wall under the 
pretext of an emergency at our southern border. Today, hundreds of 
thousands of hard-working civil servants felt the pain of missing a 
paycheck because this amoral, hostage-taking President is continuing to 
throw a temper tantrum.
  Most of us live in the real world, where paychecks are needed to keep 
a roof over our heads and food on our table. Growing up, my mother was 
the sole breadwinner for three of us kids. It would have been 
unthinkable, disastrous, for our family to miss even one paycheck from 
her low-wage job.
  When the President says that he can relate to the hundreds of 
thousands of families going without a paycheck, who does he think he is 
kidding? Most people don't have daddies, as he did, to bail them out 
time and again by the millions.
  Enough said about a President who does not feel your or anybody 
else's pain--we can't look to him for leadership, moral or otherwise.
  One person who can enable the Congress to end the shutdown is 
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. All he has to do is to bring up the 
bills that the House sent us last week--the same bills that passed the 
Senate and last Congress to keep government open.
  No one needs to remind Senator McConnell that the Senate is part of a 
separate and coequal branch of government. The Senate can and should 
act without the President's consent--consent he is currently 
withholding unless he gets his vanity wall.
  Instead of standing up to Donald Trump, Senator McConnell is missing 
in action, and through his silence and inaction, Senator McConnell has 
endorsed another of Donald Trump's lies--that there is a crisis at the 
border so severe that it justifies taking 800,000 people hostage as 
leverage for a $5.6 billion downpayment--only a downpayment--for his 
vanity wall.
  Let me be clear. The only crisis is the one Donald Trump 
manufactured, and the only wall that is real is the one that is closing 
in on him.
  The weekend before Donald Trump shut down the government, I joined 
several of my colleagues on a visit to Texas, where I saw the real 
crisis at the border--the humanitarian catastrophe created by Donald 
Trump's disastrous immigration policy.
  At detention facilities in Dilley and Karnes--facilities that a top 
official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement Patrol, ICE, 
callously and dismissively described as ``summer camps''--I saw 
families locked away, some for months at a time, without proper access 
to legal, medical, or mental healthcare. Many of these families have 
access to legal services only out of the generosity, ingenuity, and 
hard work of volunteers and overstretched nonprofits.
  I also visited the massive detention camp for unaccompanied children 
at Tornillo. Tornillo started as a temporary camp for several hundred 
kids in June of 2018 after the Trump administration systematically 
separated kids from their parents under its zero tolerance policy.
  Tornillo has now ballooned to currently holding some 2,700 
unaccompanied children, and I note that there are now an estimated 
15,000 unaccompanied children in facilities throughout our country. 
Since June, the administration has already spent more than $144 million 
on the makeshift Tornillo detention camp, where food, water, and other 
basic items have to be trucked in regularly.
  I was disturbed to find that thousands of kids are being held in 
these soft-sided tents in the middle of the desert, shut off from the 
outside world and the local community. In fact, when concerned members 
of the local community came by to drop off gifts and items to show 
these kids that there were people who cared, the detention camp turned 
the community people away. When I said ``Why would you do that?'' it 
was explained to me that there were not enough items brought to give to 
every child--a pretty sad reason, in my view.
  Most troubling was that there was no good reason for the prolonged 
detention of children at this facility. We were told that between 800 
and 1,300 kids at Tornillo already have sponsors, such as parents or 
relatives, lined up to

[[Page S153]]

take them into homes. But the children continue to be detained because 
of the administration's policy of requiring all potential sponsors and 
all adults in the potential sponsor households to submit fingerprints, 
which would then be information shared with ICE, thus subjecting 
everyone to potential deportation. The chilling effect of this policy 
is obvious in the skyrocketing length of detention of these children as 
fingerprints are obtained and processed.
  Now the negative consequences of this policy have become apparent 
even to this administration, which instituted the policy to begin with, 
so the administration is now easing up on the fingerprinting of 
everyone in the household, but the damage has already been done.
  In 2016, the average length of stay for unaccompanied children in 
these facilities was 35 days. Today, the average has been reported to 
be at least 59 days and even up to 74 days. These are kids who need to 
recover from the trauma of coming to this country, not to be 
retraumatized with prolonged detention.
  The detention of unaccompanied children and families for longer and 
longer periods is the real humanitarian crisis facing our country at 
the southern border, and this crisis will not be fixed by Trump's 
vanity wall.
  As if holding 800,000 workers and their families hostage is not 
horrible enough, Donald Trump is now thinking of taking billions of 
dollars away from disaster victims to find a way to pay for his wall. 
This is callousness compounded.
  Sometimes I find myself totally at a loss for words as the President 
keeps coming up with all of these ways to basically get himself out of 
a corner that he has gotten himself into.
  I call on Senator McConnell to use the power he has to bring the 
House-passed bills to the floor--the bills that we in the Senate passed 
by voice vote last Congress to end this shutdown. Unnecessary pain 
grows by the day--800,000 workers go without pay; food safety is being 
compromised; our national parks go unopened or unprotected; air travel 
can turn into a nightmare as more and more of the TSA agents stay home. 
The list goes on as we wait for the President to come to his senses. We 
should live so long. Meanwhile, our country is waiting for Senator 
McConnell and our Republican colleagues to come to their senses.
  So, Leader McConnell, everyone knows you have the power to act. Bring 
these bills to the Senate floor. We can end this shutdown now.
  The Senate--if Senator McConnell will bring the bills to the floor--
will pass these bills because we already did so. End the unnecessary 
pain. We don't have the luxury of waiting around for the President to 
truly feel anybody's pain because he is incapable of feeling anybody's 
pain but his own.
  We can end this shutdown now. We can take action on the floor of the 
Senate. We can do the responsible thing in response to the pain that I 
know we are hearing from all of our constituents all across the 
country.
  What are we waiting for? End this shutdown now.
  I yield the floor.
  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. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, today marks the 21st day of the 
government shutdown, an unnecessary and shameful government shutdown. 
We are now tied with the longest shutdown in American history.
  A few weeks ago, the President of the United States, President Trump, 
said he would be ``proud'' to shut down the government if he didn't get 
his way. This is nothing to be proud of, and the harmful impacts of the 
shutdown are growing by the day, growing on people throughout this 
country who are being denied important government services, impacting 
every American.
  We just heard the other day from the Food and Drug Administration 
that they are no longer going to carry out some of their food safety 
inspections, putting at risk the American food supply for every 
American. We heard from the EPA that they are going to be suspending 
their monitoring of some toxic pollutants, also having a growing 
harmful impact every day on the country and putting the health of 
American citizens at risk. So that is nothing to be proud of, nor 
should any of us be proud of the fact that today marks the first full 
pay period in this shutdown where Federal employees are going to get no 
pay. These are civil servants who go to work, when they are allowed to, 
for the good of our country in all sorts of Agencies, providing 
fundamental services.
  Today--I know you can't read this document from there--they are 
getting pay stubs, and on the pay stubs in the place where their normal 
pay period salary should be, there are zeros--zeros.
  I just arrived on the Senate floor from a meeting that Senator 
Cardin, my fellow partner representing the State of Maryland, held in 
Howard County, MD. We met with 16 Federal employees, most of whom have 
been locked out of work and all of whom are not getting any paychecks. 
We wanted to bring them together to hear about the impact this shutdown 
was having on their lives and on their families.
  The first thing they wanted to talk about was that they wanted to get 
back to work to do the business of the American people. When they are 
out of work, so many Americans who rely on their efforts are denied the 
benefit of their work. So they emphasized the fact that their No. 1 
priority was to get back to work on behalf of the American people.
  We also wanted to hear from them directly about what the impact was 
on them as individuals and their families because they are now getting 
a big zero on their pay stubs.
  One of the people we heard from was Freda McDonald. She works at 
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. She has a 
chronic medical condition that requires her to get treatments every 
week. She said she has pretty good insurance to cover most of her 
health condition, but the insurance doesn't cover the cost of her 
medication fully, and she needs to get that on a weekly basis. Then, on 
a weekly basis, the copays amount to hundreds of dollars. So she is 
going to be squeezed right away on getting access to the medication to 
treat her medical condition because she got a pay stub with a big zero 
on it.
  We heard from Kerri Woodridge. He works at the Office of Personnel 
Management. A lot of Americans don't know what that Agency does, but 
they are the Agency that has to oversee Federal employees throughout 
the system. If they are not at work, the whole system begins to break 
down. The first thing he emphasized was the total waste of dollars to 
the American taxpayer in keeping them out of work because that just 
creates even more inefficiencies throughout the entire Federal 
Government when the Office of Personnel Management can't be on the job. 
He also talked about the fact that he is not going to be able to make 
his mortgage payments.
  There are a lot of Federal employees--thousands and thousands of 
Federal employees, GS-2s and GS-3s, who are literally one payment from 
not being able to make their bills. Now their pay is not coming in, but 
I can tell you their bills are still coming in. Their mortgage payments 
are coming in, their rent payments are coming in, their medical bills 
are coming in--all of those bills are coming in, even though their 
paycheck is not.
  Mr. Woodridge talked about the fact that with the upcoming mortgage 
payment, he didn't think he would be able to make it. He has electric 
bills. He spoke very passionately about his children because he has a 
son who has some special needs, and in order to make sure his son can 
perform well at school, the family has hired a tutor for that child, 
and he doesn't think he is going to be able to make the payments to the 
tutor in the coming weeks. He said: Well, the Agency said you should 
get a lawyer to protect you from the creditors who are coming after you 
when you can't pay your bills. Mr. Woodridge had a pretty simple 
question: If I can't afford to pay my bills, how can I afford to hire a 
lawyer to protect me from the people who are demanding I pay my bills 
on time?
  Eric Bryant, another Federal employee there, an Air Force vet, is 
someone who served his country in uniform

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before serving his country in a civilian capacity for our Federal 
Government. Thirty percent of our Federal employees are veterans. They 
served their country in the military, and now they are serving their 
country in a different way as civil servants in the Federal Government. 
He said that he had called the electric company to let them know that 
because he wasn't getting paid, he wasn't sure if he would be able to 
pay his electric bill on time. Could they take it easy on him? The 
electric company said: We want our money. Sorry, go find the money to 
pay the bill on time.
  I don't know if they threatened to turn the lights off or not, but 
people aren't going to be able to pay their mortgages or rents or 
electric bills or other bills.
  There was another Federal employee who took a moment out of work. He 
is actually not furloughed. He is working because he is part of the 
Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and he has been deemed 
essential for the public safety. But he came there to let us know that 
when his colleagues, many of them in the analytics part of Federal law 
enforcement--the folks who collect DNA, the folks who are tracking 
suspects, people who are tracking fugitives--when that whole part of 
Federal law enforcement is furloughed and can't do their job, that puts 
those who are on the job and in the line of duty at greater risk. He 
said that it puts their lives at greater risk.
  Of course, to the extent that we are compromising and weakening 
Federal law enforcement in general, we are also putting the public at 
greater and unnecessary risk every day.
  We heard similar accounts from other Federal employees who were 
there. We also heard from a small Federal contractor. I am sure that 
all of us are hearing not just from Federal employees but so many small 
businesses that provide services to the Federal Government in places 
around the country, and in many cases, they are in danger of going 
belly-up.
  In order to deal with the shutdown and the fact that they may not get 
paid as a small business by the Federal Government for their services, 
they also are laying off their employees. Many of these are low-wage 
employees or median-wage employees. Think about contractors who provide 
food services to different government agencies or janitorial services. 
Those employees are also living paycheck to paycheck. They have been 
told not to come into work. We heard from one that is a nonprofit 
called Senior Service America that actually helps put seniors to work 
in jobs around the country. Just a few days ago, this particular 
Federal contractor in Maryland furloughed--laid off--176 of their 
employees. These aren't Federal employees being laid off.
  In addition to that, these are Federal contractor employees who work 
for small businesses that contract with the Federal Government. The 
negative impacts of this are mushrooming by the day, harming families, 
harming communities, and harming all of the others that also require 
the economic activity from either Federal employees or small business 
contractors who help at their restaurants, and that is on top of what I 
talked about earlier, which is the negative impact of the denial of 
important services and health protections for the entire American 
public.
  A lot of the concerns expressed this morning by Federal employees 
also include the long-term impact. If you don't make a mortgage payment 
on time, that is going to hurt your credit rating. In some cases, for 
Federal employees who work for National Security Agencies, their 
ability to keep their security clearance is tied to their credit 
rating. When you start having your credit rating downgraded, it is 
going to mean, No. 1, you don't get credit, can't pay your bills, and 
it also means, in some cases, that you risk your entire livelihood, at 
least in those Federal Government jobs that require good credit 
ratings.
  None of this is anything that the President of the United States or 
anybody should be proud of. I do want to say a word with respect to the 
contract employees. Yesterday, Senator Cardin, Senator Smith, Senator 
Brown, Senator Kaine, and many Senators--about 30 Senators--wrote to 
the Office of Management and Budget, wrote to the Trump administration, 
and asked them to use their contract authority to hold harmless those 
Federal service contract employees who are being locked out of work 
through no fault of their own.
  I was pleased that just yesterday in this body, on a unanimous basis 
or by unanimous consent, we passed legislation that would ensure that 
Federal employees were made whole at the end of the day because they 
should not be the ones who are punished for a shutdown they had nothing 
to do with.
  Senator Cardin and I and others proposed legislation to ensure that 
innocent Federal employees should not be the victims of a political 
fight they had nothing to do with. I am hopeful that later today, the 
House of Representatives will pass that legislation and the President 
will sign it. That, of course, would remove a big cloud of uncertainty 
that hangs over the head of Federal employees who are either working 
without pay or furloughed and locked out without pay.
  It, of course, doesn't deal with the fact that while Federal 
employees are denied a paycheck, they are not going to be able to make 
their payments on time on mortgages and rent, and they will have a 
snowballing, harmful effect from loss of credit rating. There is other 
legislation that has been introduced by Senator Schatz and I and others 
to make sure that Federal employees aren't hurt because of their credit 
impact or by people collecting bills, just as we protect servicemen and 
women who are deployed overseas to make sure people can't come after 
them when they are not here and not able to pay their bills. I hope we 
will pass that legislation.
  All of this just goes to show that while Federal employees and the 
small business service contractors and a growing number of communities 
that depend on that economic livelihood are being hit by the day, the 
big losers are also, of course, the American people, both because of 
the lack of health protections and services and because, at the end of 
the day, taxpayers want to make sure they are getting services for 
their tax dollars.
  What are we accomplishing with a government shutdown? I must say that 
when the President of the United States says he can ``relate'' to what 
is happening, it is pretty clear he can't, right?
  I don't know if my colleagues saw the Coast Guard statement the other 
day on how you are supposed to help make do during the government 
shutdown. Here is a recommendation that they provide. This is step 4 to 
supplement your income. They suggest that finding supplemental income 
during your furlough period might be challenging, but here are a few 
ideas for adding income:

       Have a garage sale--clean out your attic, basement and 
     closets at the same time.
       Sell unwanted larger ticket items through the newspaper or 
     online.

  Give me a break. When the President of the United States says he can 
relate, I want to see the President of the United States hold a garage 
sale. This is somebody who goes from Trump Tower to Mar-a-Lago and back 
to the White House. He can't relate to these fellow Americans, Federal 
civil servants who, when they miss a paycheck, can't pay their 
mortgage.
  This is why, just yesterday, Senator Cardin and I asked unanimous 
consent for the Senate to act immediately on two bills that came over 
from the House to reopen the government because, yes, this is the 
shutdown that President Trump said that he would be proud to have if he 
didn't get his way. He is certainly the initiator; he is certainly the 
protagonist of the shutdown. But every day that goes by when this 
Senate doesn't do what it can that is within its power to end the 
shutdown, the Senate is an accomplice in President Trump's shutdown. If 
we have it within our power to do our job as a separate branch of 
government, then we should do it. It is not an excuse not to act 
because the President doesn't like what we propose. Under article I of 
the Constitution, we are a separate, independent, and coequal branch of 
government.
  Last Thursday, as their very first order of business, the House of 
Representatives passed two bills. The first bill was H.J. Res. 1. I 
have a copy of it right here in my hand. What this bill does is reopen 
the Department of Homeland Security at current funding levels through 
February 8, to give us all an opportunity to debate the best

[[Page S155]]

and most effective way to provide border security in our country. The 
dispute here is not about whether we need border security; of course, 
we need secure borders. We don't want open borders. We need secure 
borders.
  The question is, What is the most effective and smart way to 
accomplish that? The Presiding Officer is an expert on this. I respect 
the input he has provided to this body and others. We need a 
multilayered approach. But the purpose of H.J. Res. 1 was to say: OK, 
we have some differences over the best way to do that, but let's not 
shut down the Department of Homeland Security while we debate that. 
Let's keep it open at least until February 8 at current funding levels 
and work that out. That is what the House sent to the Senate.
  Guess what. With respect to the Department of Homeland Security, it 
is identical--word for word--to what this Senate passed just before 
Christmas. We passed it on a voice vote--a big, overwhelming bipartisan 
vote. That vote was to keep the Department of Homeland Security and 
other Departments open until February 8.
  What is the justification for not having a vote in the Senate on the 
same thing that we passed by voice vote just a few weeks ago? The 
answer we get is: Well, the President of the United States doesn't 
agree with it.
  Well, that is too bad. We are a separate branch of government. If the 
President wants to veto that, let him veto it. Then it comes back here. 
Under the Constitution, we would have a veto override vote. But we 
shouldn't be contracting out our responsibilities under the 
Constitution to the President. Yet the Republican leader, the majority 
leader, objected to letting us vote again on the same measure that we 
voted on just before Christmas.
  Senator Cardin then offered the other unanimous consent request 
yesterday. That was to pass legislation to open up the other eight of 
the nine Federal Departments that are closed--Departments that have 
nothing to do with Homeland Security, nothing to do with border 
security.
  This legislation was also passed by the House of Representatives on 
its opening day a week ago Thursday. Here is the kicker. The House 
didn't take the numbers that the House of Representatives was proposing 
in the appropriations bills for these Departments; it took the funding 
levels the Senate had proposed on a bipartisan basis, and the Senate 
did that on a bipartisan basis in two ways.
  First of all, the full Senate voted overwhelmingly--certainly, by a 
veto-proof margin--to fund eight of those Federal Departments through 
the remainder of this fiscal year--so through September 30--at levels 
we agreed to, first, on the Senate Appropriations Committee and then by 
an overwhelming vote on the Senate floor. The other measures in the 
bill the House passed were measures the Senate Appropriations 
Committee, on a bipartisan basis, overwhelmingly supported.
  The House said to the Senate: We are going to send you a bunch of 
bills to open up the government at levels the Senate has already agreed 
to, in a bipartisan way, one way or another.
  Yet the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, on behalf of the 
caucus, said: No, we are not going to allow a vote to reopen eight of 
those nine Departments because the President doesn't want it, because 
the President wants to hold all of those Departments that have nothing 
to do with homeland security hostage until he gets his wall--a 2,000-
mile-long wall.
  The irony, of course--and the Presiding Officer knows this--is that 
the President's own budget for this year was $1.6 billion. That was the 
President's budget for this year.
  I am happy to sit down--and I know all of our colleagues are--to work 
out the best way to provide border security. As part of an overall 
approach, we had barriers along parts of our border long before 
President Trump was in office, but we don't want to be wasting taxpayer 
dollars. As I said, even the President's budget for this year was not 
requesting what the President says he now needs.
  Let's be straight with the American people. It is not just $5.7 
billion--or whatever it is--to build a wall. You are talking about a 
2,000-mile-long wall, so you are talking about $30 billion. What the 
President wants to do is to come back every year and shut down the 
government until he gets his next installment on a 2,000-mile-long wall 
that the experts tell us is not the smartest way to provide border 
security and is certainly not the most cost-effective way.
  Let us remember that the President said this was something Mexico was 
going to have to pay for, not the American taxpayer. I saw him on TV 
yesterday, when he was down at the border and was trying to explain 
away that campaign promise: Oh, I didn't really mean Mexico was going 
to pay for it directly; it was going to be indirectly.
  That is just not happening. We know Mexico is not paying for this 
wall like the President said. That is why, as its first order of 
business, it is important for the Senate to pass the legislation that 
is before us that we have already supported on a bipartisan basis. 
Literally, we have the keys today, if we want to, to pass the bills 
that would reopen the government and send them to the President. If he 
doesn't want to sign them, at least we will have done our work as the 
Senate. We would then face the question of overriding the President's 
veto to reopen the government.
  This is where we are now. As I said, as each day goes by, we have 
Americans who are being denied more and more services. In addition to 
the ones I have already mentioned, I have spoken to a lot of small 
businesses that rely on the Small Business Administration for their 
small loans in order to get up and running, and I have spoken to a lot 
of folks in farm country who really rely on farm service credit and 
farm center services. They are being squeezed very badly.
  This is impacting people throughout the country as 80 percent of 
Federal employees actually live and work outside of the national 
capital area, and 80 percent of them are folks like the folks along the 
border. There are TSA officials who are all over the country at 
airports, and all of them are being asked to go to work every day 
without pay. They are getting zeros on their pay stubs like the other 
hundreds of thousands of Federal employees.
  It seems to me this is the time for us to act. That is why I have 
joined with so many of my colleagues to say to the Republican leader, 
to the majority leader: Let's do our job under the Constitution. Yes, 
we know what the President's position is, but what is our position? Why 
are we unwilling to vote on two bills that are before us that reflect 
the position this Senate has taken on a bipartisan basis already? How 
can we justify to our constituents and to the people around the country 
that we are unwilling to take a vote on measures that we know have 
overwhelming support in the U.S. Senate because we want to somehow 
reinforce the President in his own political fight?
  I am very hopeful that as the days go by, the Republican leader will 
decide to make sure this body--the U.S. Senate--does its job as a 
separate branch of government and will take up the bills that will 
reopen the Federal Government, put people back to work for the American 
people, make sure Federal employees who are working get paid and that 
those who have been furloughed will have a chance to go back to work on 
behalf of the American people.
  We have it within our power to do it today. We have it within our 
power to do it any day now. I hope we will do our part to end this 
shameful shutdown. By tomorrow, it will be the longest shutdown in 
American history. The President of the United States may say he is 
proud of it, but I hope not a single Senator in this body--Republican 
or Democratic--will be proud to be here on the day in history when we 
will have broken the record for the longest government shutdown. In my 
view, that is a dereliction of duty, and it is certainly a dereliction 
of duty for us not to do our part and use the power we have to take a 
vote on the bills that are at the desk in the U.S. Senate to reopen the 
government for the American people.
  I see my friend, the Senator from Maine, is now on the floor. I thank 
him for his leadership in this battle.
  Let's do the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I first want to make a single declarative 
sentence:

[[Page S156]]

There is no one in this body who is for open borders.
  One of the most troublesome aspects of this debate that has been 
framed, particularly by this administration, is that you are either for 
the wall or for open borders. That is not true. In 2013, two-thirds of 
us voted for a very strong border security provision as part of the 
comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed this body--as I say, 
by two-thirds. It was never taken up in the House. Had it been taken up 
in the House, it likely would have passed; the President would have 
signed it; and a lot of these issues would have been behind us.
  All of us--everyone here on both sides of the aisle--support border 
security. What we support is cost-effective, sensible border security, 
not border security that really doesn't fit the nature of the problem 
we face and that so far, anyway, is undefined in terms of location, 
design, cost, and all of the other characteristics of any major 
construction project that is submitted to this Congress for its 
approval.
  Again, one of the problems with this whole discussion is what does 
the President mean when he says ``wall''? Is it 30 feet high? Is it 20 
feet high? Is it steel? Is it concrete? This has evolved over time. The 
biggest question is where and how long. Is he talking about a wall that 
extends from the Gulf of Mexico to Southern California, to the Pacific 
Ocean? That is about 2,000 miles. Is that what he is talking about? If 
so, we should know that. Then we can debate it as it relates to other 
potential options for securing the border along that distance.
  It also should be noted that there already is a wall, by anybody's 
definition, along portions of that border. I have seen it. I have been 
to McAllen, TX, where the President was yesterday, and I have seen the 
wall--a wall. Yet the questions are, How big is it? Where is it going 
to go? How is it going to be designed and paid for?
  One of the reasons the wall is really not the right solution for the 
current problems of immigration starts with the fact that about 50 
percent of the illegal immigrants--of the undocumented immigrants--in 
this country today are here on overstayed legal visas. A wall has 
nothing to do with these people. These are people who came in through 
airports and all other ports of entry all over the country into the 
United States, and 50 percent are here on overstayed visas. The wall 
has zero effect on that issue.
  The other principal issue we are facing at the wall--and this has 
also been confused in the news coverage of the caravans and in the fear 
that has been spread--is that the vast majority of the people who come 
to the border today are not looking to sneak across; they are looking 
for a port of entry at which to give themselves up as asylum seekers. 
They are not illegal immigrants; they are availing themselves of 
American law. Once they get to this country, with their having credible 
fears of prosecution or of persecution or of danger in their home 
countries, they have a right to have it be determined whether they are 
legitimate asylum seekers.
  That is who we are dealing with. That is who all of those people are. 
When you see the pictures of the caravans, they are not headed for a 
blank place in the Arizona desert. They want to go. They want to be 
captured. They want to be taken into custody. Then they can have their 
asylum claims adjudicated. The wall has nothing to do with them. The 
wall is a response to a problem that is decades old but that has 
grossly, drastically diminished over the last 10 or 15 years. For the 
problem of people literally sneaking across the border--entering the 
country illegally--all of the data is that the number is down. It is 
down about 85 percent from the number of people who entered the country 
illegally in 2007, over the past 10 or 11 years.
  By the way, all of the data can be found in a fascinating document 
that was produced in September of 2017, about a year ago, by the Trump 
administration's Department of Homeland Security. I can't remember the 
exact title, but it is something like the ``Status of Illegal 
Immigration at the Southern Border.'' It is a long report that is full 
of graphs. I like graphs, but I don't need to hold them up because all 
of the graphs have a downward slope in terms of illegal entries, of the 
people who get away, of the number of people who come in who are 
recidivists, who have been here before. They are all down. So to argue 
that we are somehow in a crisis today, when all of the indicators are 
moving in the right direction, is really hard to reconcile with the 
reality.
  The issue I am trying to illustrate is that the wall is the wrong 
solution to the current problem. It may have been a rational solution 
in 1985 or even in 2005 or in 2006, when the Congress passed a major 
fence law and did increase border security substantially, but we are 
dealing with a different set of problems today that the wall--a wall--
whatever it is--doesn't address.
  I said at the beginning that nobody here is against border security 
and that there may be places where a wall is part of that. Yet one of 
the secondary problems we have is, we have never been told what this 
thing--the wall--is. How long will it be? How big will it be? How much 
will it cost? Is it going to be on private land or Federal land? We 
don't have a plan for what it is that is actually being proposed that 
the government is being held hostage over.
  We don't know what the President wants. To say ``I want a wall'' 
doesn't tell you much. Is it 2,000 miles long or 100 miles long? Is it 
20 feet high, is it a fence, is it a 30-foot high concrete wall or 
something with steel slats, which seems to be the design of the day?
  We don't really know what it is. If the mayor of Bangor, ME, went to 
the city council and said ``I want to build a new school, but I am not 
going to tell you how many students are going to be in it; I am not 
going to tell you where we are going to build it, and I am not going to 
tell you what it is going to cost; just give me a blank check to build 
that school,'' the city counsel of Bangor would laugh Her Honor out of 
the hall. It wouldn't even think about doing something like that. No 
city in America would do something like that. Yet that is what we are 
being asked to do here today.
  We are essentially being asked for a blank check--well, it is a check 
for $5.7 billion, but that is a downpayment. The real estimate is for 
what they think the President wants, which is more in the $20- to $25-
billion amount.
  That gets me to my final point before I talk about the impact of this 
in Maine. Let's say that we could settle this, this week. We could 
negotiate with the White House--which is not easy to do because their 
position changes day to day--and say: OK, it is going to be 100 miles 
of wall; this will be the size; this will be the design; this is the 
agreed-upon cost. Let's say we could do that. If we do that in the 
context of the government being shut down, we are inviting this to 
happen again.
  Next year, we will just have more budgets. We have a debt ceiling 
debate coming that is very important for the future of the country, for 
the economics of the country, for the soundness of our economy. We have 
budgets coming next September. If this works, if this shutdown that has 
been initiated by the President works as a tactic to get a portion of 
his wall, he will do it next time. That is why the age-old principle 
is, you don't negotiate with hostage-takers. Why? Because if you do, 
the next time, they will do it again. Then this will become a normal 
and routine tactic between this President and, perhaps, future 
Presidents and the Congress that puts us in a position of being 
totally--where we have to choose between a government shutdown and the 
pet project of whatever and whoever that President is. That is a very 
dangerous path for us as a deliberative body, particularly as a coequal 
branch of the U.S. Government.
  I have talked in sort of global terms, but this is hurting Main 
Street America. We have heard today and we have heard on the news and 
we hear all the time about the effects on the furloughed Federal 
workers, which are very real. Today is the day that they don't get 
their check. Here is the problem: You can shut down and stop people's 
checks from coming, but you can't stop their bills from coming--their 
mortgage payment, their childcare payment, their automobile insurance, 
their homeowners insurance, their heating bill, their medication, their 
food. All of that has to be paid for.
  We can say: Well, we know they will make adjustments. That is a 
pretty

[[Page S157]]

hard path to put people on. That is a heartless path. These people are 
being used as pawns, as hostages, in a policy debate that has nothing 
to do with them.
  One of the easiest solutions would be for us to pass the six bills 
that the House has passed and that we passed, which funds 90 percent of 
the government. Why should the Department of Agriculture be caught in 
the crossfire of a debate over a wall in Texas? Why should park rangers 
be caught in that? Why should the Coast Guard be caught in that?
  This is having a real effect. Aside from those Federal workers, of 
whom there are about 1,000 in Maine on furlough right now, there are 
all the contractors that serve these government Agencies. We passed a 
bill last night that is going to ensure that the furloughed Federal 
employees will eventually be paid. That doesn't say anything about what 
they are going to have to do about penalties on late mortgages and 
those kinds of things that they can't pay now. But there is no help for 
the contractors that are going to lose total income during this period, 
and some of them will be threatened with going out of business.
  It is not just the 800,000 workers nationwide; it is thousands and 
thousands--tens of thousands--of people who depend on those Agencies 
for the work that they do, that they provide to the Federal Government.
  Let's talk about effects in hometown, Main Street America--in places 
all over Maine. In Portland, for example--I will chuckle because it 
sounds like ``Oh, this is no big deal''--one of our most growing 
industries in Maine is beer. We have over 1,000 people employed in the 
craft brewing industry. It has been a growth industry. Yet many of the 
brewers are being stymied because they can't ship their beer across 
State lines without approval of their labels from the Food and Drug 
Administration. That is held up.
  We have a merger or an expansion of a brewery in Southern Maine that 
is held up because they can't get their permission from the tax and 
trade bureau, from the ATF. These are the kinds of things--the services 
that should be provided--that aren't occurring. The Portland Press 
Herald reported on the breweries.
  The Portland Press Herald also reported on a developer who has a 
project to develop a real estate project in Maine and can't get an SBA 
loan. The SBA is shut down. That is going to hold up the project and 
could even cause the deal to fall through.
  The Bangor Daily News reports that a family is stuck in the middle; 
they have moved out of their house, anticipating a closing on a new 
house with an Agriculture Department loan guarantee that is now stuck, 
stranded. There is no action, nobody to answer the phone. They are 
living out of boxes. They are caught in the middle.
  These aren't Federal employees. These are good Maine people who 
relied upon the daily activities of the Federal Government occurring, 
which ought to be just simple common sense. Yet they are caught without 
a place to live.

  The Ellsworth American newspaper in Ellsworth, ME, an award-winning 
weekly newspaper, reports about a smokehouse that does smoked salmon. 
They were getting ready to reopen and hire people. They got people on 
staff, and, all of a sudden, they are dead-stopped because the Food and 
Drug Administration can't act to approve their licenses.
  You can say: OK, this little smokehouse can survive. The family will 
find a place to live, but if you multiply these examples by thousands 
and millions, you are talking about a really substantial effect on real 
people's lives, and there is no excuse for it.
  If this were over some major life-or-death policy issue, it would be 
somewhat understandable, but this is an eminently negotiable problem. 
It is not a crisis but a problem. I don't argue that it is not a 
problem and that the southern border doesn't need to be secure--again, 
that is where I started--but the question is, How do you do it right? 
How do you do it in a way that makes sense to the American taxpayer?
  There may be places where we need a wall, but the wall is $200 
million a mile. There may be ways to do it for a fraction of that and 
provide equal security. There also are ways--for example, with better 
screening devices at the ports of entry--to deal with drugs.
  By the way, all of the data from the DEA, the current 
administration's Drug Enforcement Agency, is that the principal source 
of drugs coming across the southern border is at ports of entry, hidden 
in cars, hidden in trucks, not over, through, and around some place in 
the middle of the desert. That is where the drugs are coming through. 
That is where we ought to be concentrating. That is where we ought to 
be putting the technology--more dogs, more technology that can detect 
this type of thing, not building a wall that doesn't address the 
current problem. It is a solution, but it is going after the wrong 
problem.
  These are real-life impacts. It doesn't need to be this way. If this 
were a project being proposed by the military--a new BOQ at Fort 
Benning--it would come to this Congress. It would go to the 
authorization committee. The plans would go to the Appropriations 
Committee. We would review it, question the sponsors, determine if it 
were an appropriate expenditure of public funds, and either approve it 
or deny it or suggest some alteration. This wall has never gone through 
that process. We are basically abdicating to the administration a major 
decision, particularly about public expenditure, without meeting our 
responsibilities.
  One really simple way to get out of this would be for us to vote by 
two-thirds to pass the budget that we voted on 98 to 2 several weeks 
ago. It has $1.6 billion in it for border security, by the way. We 
could pass that and then sit down and talk with the administration 
about just what it is that they want and what is reasonable and how do 
we do it in a sensible way, and then we can get this thing done.
  What worries me is the posture that the Senate is in today is adding 
a provision that isn't in the Constitution. The Constitution says that 
the President can veto a bill. What we are saying here, now, through 
our inability or unwillingness to bring a bill to the floor is that the 
President can stop a bill simply by saying he doesn't like it. That is 
not what the Constitution says. It doesn't say that the President has 
the right to stop a bill he doesn't like. It says that he has to veto 
it. If he is going to veto it, fine. Then we can discuss it, debate it, 
and determine whether that is an appropriate veto. But by avoiding the 
responsibility of considering this legislation, we are essentially 
handing the President a massive power that I don't believe Presidents 
should have.
  This is an important issue. It is one that should be considered. It 
is one that should be debated. I would like to see the administration 
given the opportunity to make its case for the specifics, not the case 
generally about criminals or drugs--many of those claims have been 
refuted--but a specific case: Here is what we want to do; here is the 
effect of it; here is what it will cost; and here is why this is the 
best solution, as opposed to other solutions, like a fence or more 
Border Patrol agents or more technology or drones or sensors or 
whatever. We are not being given that opportunity.
  I am perfectly willing to debate that in good faith. I don't dismiss 
out of hand that a wall may make sense in certain areas, but I am not 
prepared to give this administration a blank check for some 
construction project when I don't know what it is they want to build.
  I am also very reluctant to concede anything in the context of a 
hostage situation where the U.S. Government is being held hostage 
because of a project that the President wants to build. If we do this, 
this will become the go-to tactic for this administration and probably 
for future administrations. We will have established a precedent that 
will haunt this institution for years to come. That is one of the 
reasons I think it is just imperative that we not cave in to this kind 
of attempted intimidation and express our good-faith willingness to 
look at, work on, and try to establish the right role for all parts of 
border security, not put all of our chips in one area that I believe 
will be both ineffective--not cost-effective--and damaging to our other 
efforts to actually secure the border and protect the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have listened to some of the remarks

[[Page S158]]

from my colleague from Maine. I appreciate so much of what he has said, 
the reminder to us all to be acting in good faith here.
  I would like to just take a few moments this morning to say: Count me 
in. Count me in to be operating in good faith. Count me in as one of 
the many in this body and the many around this country who want to 
ensure that we have strong borders in this Nation, that we have true 
and meaningful border security, whether it is at our southern border or 
whether it is at our northern borders, whether it is our borders on 
land or whether it is our borders on sea.
  Count me in as one who is prepared to deal with the difficulties, the 
true humanitarian issues that we are seeing on the southern border 
today with an influx of children and families, those who are seeking 
asylum, those who are frustrated with our system. Count me in as one of 
those who want to address these issues. But also count me in as one who 
says that shutting down the government is not governing. Nobody is 
winning in this.
  I have been reading all the accounts that are out there in terms of 
whether people think this is on the President, whether this is on the 
Democrats, whether this is on the House. Do you know who it is on? It 
is on the backs of all of us, of the men and women who are the Federal 
workers, who work hard, who get up every day and do the jobs we have 
tasked them to do, some of whom are furloughed, some of whom are 
working without pay, but all of whom are worried about where we are.
  We are now in the longest shutdown we have seen. I think it is either 
today or tomorrow that we will pass that benchmark. It is not just 
Federal workers who are being impacted; it is those of us who rely on 
the services of those who work in our Agencies.
  I come from a State, as does my colleague from Maine, where fisheries 
are a significant issue for us. NOAA and some of these other Agencies 
have a great deal to do with the economic health and well-being of our 
State right now. This is our big crabbing season. This is the time of 
year where there are a lot of folks out there on the water who need to 
be able to provide for their families--their livelihood. You think it 
is all about looking for the crab at the bottom of the Bering Sea. 
Well, in order to do that, you not only have to have certain permits, 
you have to have the ability to unload your load at the dock with 
certified scales.
  Not necessarily in the crab fisheries, but in other fisheries, you 
have to have observers on your boats. One of the things we are learning 
is that the observers need to be checked out after their trip. They 
have to be checked out before they can move to another vessel. You have 
kind of a ripple effect that is going on out there. So if you are a cod 
fisherman or a crab fisherman and you are thinking: The government 
shutdown doesn't mean anything to me--it doesn't until it does. Our 
reality is that there is impact, and I understand that it impacts us in 
many different ways.
  Every morning, I check in with the folks who are answering my phones 
here in Washington, DC, along with staff back in Alaska, and I ask, 
what are we hearing from folks back home?
  I will tell you, I have a lot of people saying: Lisa, you have to 
stand with the President. You have to stand strong on this because we 
need to have border security.
  Then I have an equal number who are saying: Please, please do 
something to help reopen this government. We expect it of you. We need 
it from you. We are begging you to make things work. Fix it back there.
  I think about where we are right here and right now. There have been 
some suggestions out there that we don't know how long this is going to 
take, but we just have to hunker down, and you are just going to have 
to figure out how you can make ends meet.
  We have some great credit unions in the State of Alaska that have put 
out notices that say: If you are concerned about how you are going to 
make that mortgage, make that car payment, pay your landlord, come to 
us and talk to us. I so appreciate that, but I also know that many 
times, that is limited in its application.
  This suggestion that I have heard by some that, well, you can just go 
out there and get a second job--I come from a State where we have the 
highest unemployment rate in the country right now, or maybe we are now 
second from the bottom, but there are communities where there aren't a 
lot of options.
  Our Coast Guard base in Kodiak is the pride and joy of the Coast 
Guard. We have a lot of coasties who serve us in Alaska--about 2,500, 
and that is significant for us. But in the community of Kodiak, if a 
military spouse or a Coast Guard spouse says ``I have to find a job 
because my husband isn't getting paid, and we are not quite sure when 
it is going to come,'' in Kodiak, it is pretty tough to find a 
temporary job.
  One of the things we have learned is that, you have a situation, OK--
the Coast Guard is required to show up, and we so appreciate that. We 
so appreciate the work of the Coast Guard. They are out there in the 
Bering Sea right now. They are helping those who are dealing with some 
pretty extreme conditions. Every day, they put their lives on the line 
for us. So the fact that they are not protected at this point in time 
causes me great concern and anxiety and stress, as it does them as 
well. But think about it. You have a situation where non-exempt 
employees are those who are providing childcare at the childcare 
center. So you are still going to work and not getting paid, but now 
your childcare center is not open.
  Think about these real-life applications, and then think about the 
very easy answer: Well, go out and find something to tide you through. 
So I asked my team back here--I said: Wait a minute, you could go out 
and you could drive Uber. Well, if you are a Federal employee, you can 
have secondary employment, but in order to ensure that there is no 
conflict with your Federal job, you have to get permission to do so. So 
if you are in the middle of a shutdown and if your Department is shut 
down, where do you go to get permission to get that secondary job? 
Where do you go to ask for permission and say: I want to drive Uber for 
the next however many weeks until the government opens. There is nobody 
there to give the approval.

  It seems like this, where we can say back here in the Halls of 
Congress: Just hang tough. Just be strong. Just talk to your landlord. 
We are all going to get through this together.
  We want border security. I want border security. I think the 
President's request for a comprehensive view of how we address this is 
not something that is so unreasonable. Let's figure that out. Let's 
walk through it.
  I was part of a group this week who was suggesting, let's take the 
proposal that the Acting OMB Director sent to the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee, and let's treat that as a request for 
supplemental appropriations. Let's have that hearing. But in order to 
do this, we have to get our colleagues on the other side to sit down 
and go through this process with us. So maybe we can get a short-term 
reprieve. Let's do a short-term CR to allow us to process this. But 
let's not keep the government shut down while we do this. We can figure 
out these things.
  Everyone is talking about leverage--it is all political leverage. 
Well, tell that to the people who are really worried right now.
  We had a pretty tough earthquake on November 30 that a lot of folks 
are still digging out of. They are writing checks to contractors 
because they need to make sure they are going to have a boiler to get 
through a cold winter or make sure the foundation in the home they want 
to get back into--that they are going to get back into it sooner than 
later. But what do you do if you are not sure if that paycheck, which 
was supposed to come today, is coming today or coming 2 weeks from now, 
and you have written the check to the contractor? There is a lot of 
anxiety out there.
  I hear from a lot of these folks who are dealing with unexpected 
household expenditures after that earthquake. I shouldn't say it is 
just after that earthquake; we just had another one yesterday, 4.7. 
This is the fourth earthquake we have had since the first of this year, 
January 1, that has exceeded 4.0. So we had the big one, and then we 
have had thousands afterwards. So we are still dealing with a lot of 
this stuff. When people hear that the requests for FEMA assistance or 
for small business assistance may be delayed because the government is 
not open--think about

[[Page S159]]

how we are compounding their stress, their anxiety.
  I have been part of groups who have talked to the Vice President, 
have talked to his negotiating team. I myself have raised these issues 
with the President. I want to be part of the solution, and I want to be 
part of the solution sooner rather than later because we owe it to the 
people of this country to function, and when the government is shut 
down, partial or otherwise, we are not functioning.
  Let's stop talking about who has leverage and who doesn't have 
leverage and when that is going to tip to advantage the other side. 
Let's do what we need to do when it comes to ensuring the security of 
our Nation and our borders. Let's navigate those issues. But let's not 
hold hostage good men and women who are working hard to keep us safe 
every day through the basic functions of government.
  I am one who has signed on I think to most of the bills that are out 
there that would help alleviate some of what individuals and their 
families are seeing, whether it is the Pay Our Coast Guard Act, the End 
Government Shutdowns Act, the Pay Excepted Personnel Act. But those are 
simply bandaids, and quite honestly, they are probably nothing more 
than messages right now.
  What I am hearing from folks is, keep us secure, protect our borders, 
deal with humanitarian issues, but allow our government to function. Go 
to work, stop arguing about who is winning, and let's get the 
government open.

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