[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 12 (Saturday, January 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S312-S315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ORDER FOR ADJOURNMENT

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 
following the remarks of Senator Warner, the Senate stand adjourned 
under the previous order.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Virginia is recognized.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, let me thank the Senator from Alaska for 
her comments and my dear friend from Virginia for his comments. I am 
going to somewhat echo what has already been said, but what I don't 
understand--and for those who are listening or viewing, the four of us 
and many others on both sides of the aisle have been working in good 
faith to try to say: How do we get out of this?
  The question I have is--I wonder if all of our colleagues have 
actually gone out and sat with Federal workers or folks who are 
affected. How could anyone sit with anyone who is affected by this 
self-imposed personal, financial, and economic disaster and not say: 
Let's not talk about money; let's get the government reopened. We can 
figure this out, but let's get this government reopened.
  I will recount some similar stories, and I appreciated the Alaska 
stories of the Coast Guard in Kodiak. In Virginia, we have a major 
Coast Guard facility down at Hampton Roads. But, as the Senator from 
Alaska has mentioned, it is not just Federal employees; it is 
contractors and private businesses and a host of other folks.
  The Presiding Officer is part of the group who has been trying to 
say: How do we get to yes? How do we get to reopen?
  Maybe we can renew our efforts and urge all of our colleagues. Many 
of them have gone home, but I hope they will sit down and have these 
kinds of sessions.
  I don't know how anybody can look at people who are out of work and 
without pay due to nothing they have done individually and not say that 
no matter who is winning the inside-the-beltway battle of the day, we 
owe it to them to get this government reopened.
  Madam President, I rise today out of deep frustration with the 
administration's treatment of Federal workers during this government 
shutdown. I will come back to this again, but I wish--I wish there were 
some indication that the President, the Vice President, or any of his 
top advisers would actually go out and do a listening session with 
Federal workers. That doesn't seem to be too much to ask. I want them 
to look those Coast Guard spouses or those TSA employees or those air 
traffic controllers in the eye and tell them why they are being held 
hostage on an issue that, frankly, has nothing to do with their work as 
public servants.
  We are now on day 29 of what I call the President's shutdown--the 
longest shutdown in U.S. history. In many ways, we are creating the 
legacy of this administration, a legacy that--the President claimed in 
mid-December that he was ``proud'' to have initiated the shutdown that 
is plunging so many Americans' lives into chaos.
  More than 800,000 Federal workers have missed a paycheck, and that 
number, I think the Senator from Alaska has alluded to and the Senator 
from Virginia has alluded to, is actually a fraction of the folks who 
are actually being affected. That doesn't count the countless 
contractors--I will come back to that in a moment--or the host of 
businesses, like the brewery in Kodiak. They are not Federal workers. 
They are absolutely being affected, and let's recognize that. Even when 
we are reopened and those Coast Guard workers are paid back, that 
brewery is never going to make back its lost revenue.
  The President has found time for an Oval Office address, he has found 
time for a trip to the border, and he has found time for a tit-for-tat 
with Speaker Pelosi, but what he has not found time for--or, for that 
matter, anybody else in the White House--is to sit down with the 
Federal workers who are being affected, and I believe that is a 
national disgrace.
  Again, I appreciate the Presiding Officer and your colleagues 
listening. I know you have made efforts, and you are continuing to work 
with other colleagues on both sides of the aisle to try to hopefully 
find some sense in this disaster, but the truth is, people's time is 
running out.
  Over the last couple weeks, Senator Kaine and I have heard from so 
many Virginia families who are shouldering the burden from this 
shutdown. I wanted to share some of the stories.
  The Senator from Alaska told a story about a 13-year-old who couldn't 
cash a Christmas check. At least for me--I can't speak for Senator 
Kaine--the most compelling story, heartbreaking story--and I am going 
to tell a number of them, but this is the one I have kept coming back 
to. Senator Kaine and I, with the press, had a series of Federal 
workers tell their stories. One of the Federal workers didn't want to 
come and do it on camera, but he came up and talked to Senator Kaine 
and me afterward. He was a relatively young guy, about 35. He was a 
veteran. He was an air traffic controller. He has now gone 4-plus weeks 
without a paycheck. His wife had served in the Air Force in an intel 
capacity and was suffering from pretty significant PTSD. Because he 
hadn't had a paycheck, he couldn't pay the $90 copayment for his wife 
to continue to see her psychiatrist and continue to pay for her drug 
treatment. Not unlike the story the Senator from Alaska told, he said 
he has his wife to take care of and their two kids, a 4- and 5-year-
old. The 4- and 5-year-old kids came to their parents and brought their 
piggy banks and said: Mom and dad, can we give you what we have in our 
piggy banks to help our family?

  This is the United States of America. These are two veterans. We say 
we honor their service. This is somebody who is still going to work and 
working overtime without pay to keep our air safe. This shouldn't be.
  A few days earlier, we met with other workers. A young father whom we 
met works with the Department of Justice. He brought his 7-week-old 
daughter to this session. He said when his daughter was born, he wanted 
to make sure he could get his daughter on his Federal insurance plan. 
That is his right. But the person who was supposed to submit the form 
to the insurance company had been furloughed. He went to the doctor and 
his infant daughter had an illness and had to get a prescription. He 
didn't have the money to pay for the prescription, and his daughter 
wasn't registered on his insurance company, not because of any fault he 
had made. He wasn't able to pay for the insurance. In this case, thank 
God, the insurance company actually worked with him, and they brought 
extra proof and went through other hoops, and he was able to get the 
medicine. How many other

[[Page S313]]

young families are going through that same stress right now?
  Eric, a Federal law enforcement agent and father of three, wrote me 
an email this week. He said missing a paycheck caused ``a tremendous 
amount of strain'' on his family. This is a law enforcement officer. 
Eric said he had some money saved up in a rainy day fund, but he 
continued to tell me, in terms of his rainy day fund:

       It's raining extremely hard right now. At some point, I am 
     going to have to make some tough decisions to ensure that my 
     family has a roof over its head and food on the table.

  Unfortunately, a lot of the employees Senator Kaine and I have been 
talking to don't have that rainy-day fund.
  One of the things I think we all knew, maybe intellectually--and we 
have all seen the statistics--is that half of Americans couldn't afford 
an unexpected $400 bill without going into financial ruin. We are 
seeing that play out right now--again, not because somebody has been 
mismanaging their funds, but because they expected if they worked for 
the United States of America and if they were willing to continue to do 
that work, they would get paid.
  We are now into this crisis 29 days, and if we think we have seen the 
stuff hit the fan so far, wait until this coming Thursday when families 
go through that second pay period where, adding insult to injury, they 
get a paycheck that says zero, or in the case of one air traffic 
controller, a penny, as you get into the new month when all their bills 
come due.
  Yesterday, I volunteered at a food bank in Arlington where Federal 
contractors and furloughed workers were coming because their families 
were running out of money. Some of these folks came up to me and said: 
I viewed myself always as middle class. I have been working for the 
Federal Government for double-digit years. They felt an enormous amount 
of shame to come to the food bank. You shouldn't feel shame to come to 
the food bank, but their appeal was to get the government reopened.
  The President, who has never worked for a paycheck in his life, says 
he can relate. He says he is sure that the Federal workers ``will make 
adjustments.'' This is the very same President who has not had the 
common decency to sit down with any Federal workers and listen to their 
stories.
  Here is what some of those adjustments look like.
  Lisa in Arlington wrote me an email that says:

       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.

  Another worker whom Senator Kaine and I met on Thursday broke down 
crying when she said how hard it was for her to send her infant child 
away up for a week to 10 days to stay with relatives because her mom, 
who had been taking care of that child, had to go up and deal with her 
own personal business, and she couldn't afford daycare. That is 
dispiriting and disheartening.
  The Presiding Officer has already pointed out the problem in terms of 
recruitment and retention. Those people who are actually trying to 
serve others now suddenly see their livelihoods in jeopardy through no 
fault of their own.
  The truth is that this shutdown is having a devastating effect--not 
only on the short-term morale but on the long-term morale of all our 
Federal workforce.
  The fact is, since we have already agreed to pay them when we reopen, 
why shouldn't we at least go ahead and, even if we are shut down, pay 
these Federal workers come Thursday so they don't have to incur 
additional pain and suffering? I commend so many of us, particularly my 
friend the Senator from Virginia, along with Senator Cardin, who led 
the effort so that we are giving Federal workers backpay when we 
reopen.

  Backpay alone doesn't make up for the hurt if you had to draw down 
from your IRA and have a tax penalty. It doesn't make you whole if you 
have taken an advance against your credit card and you have to pay 
those fees in paying those dollars back. It doesn't make you whole, as 
the Presiding Officer indicated, if you get dinged on your credit 
rating or if you are in the process of trying to get a security 
clearance and that security clearance is withheld because it appears 
you have bad credit, not because you did anything wrong but because the 
Congress and the President can't agree on how to pay you when you are 
still asked to do your job.
  The number of current Federal employees who are eligible for 
retirement is supposed to be about 30 percent over the next few years. 
How many of those Federal employees, whom we have trained and worked 
with and who bring enormous expertise, are not going to wait until they 
have to retire but actually say: I am going to get out of this job now.
  The last thing we need to do is further undermine the competitiveness 
of our Federal workforce.
  The Presiding Officer made this point and Senator Kaine has made this 
point that it is not just the Federal employees, but Federal 
contractors. I heard from one Federal contractor from Ashburn who says 
the shutdown has ``rocked the financial stability of my family.''
  You see folks in the Gallery. We probably have a few more tourists 
than we might normally have on a Saturday because the Smithsonian shut 
down. I heard from someone who is in leadership in the Smithsonian, 
begging me, saying those folks who work at the Smithsonian, on one 
level, may get reimbursed, but all the folks who pick up the trash, 
clean the bathrooms, and serve the cafeteria food are all contractors. 
They are not direct employees of the Federal workforce. So even when we 
reopen, even when the Federal workforce gets reimbursed, they are out.
  This is one of the things Senator Kaine and I have been working on, 
and I hope the Presiding Officer will look at this, and I hope some of 
our other colleagues who want to work toward a solution will work on 
this. It is complicated. In all the previous shutdowns, we never found 
a way to reimburse contractors. We have a piece of legislation that may 
not be perfect, but it says that for those workers who make less than 
$50,000, we ought to find a way to make sure they get reimbursed and, 
then, for those above, some small percentage. If not, these folks will 
never be made whole.
  Again, think about some of the tourists. Normally, there are a whole 
lot of food trucks surrounding the Smithsonian and elsewhere around 
downtown. We heard from a number of those folks as well. They can't 
continue because if the Smithsonians aren't open, the tourists aren't 
coming. If you have taken out a loan to buy a food truck to try to 
employ a few folks, once that business is shut down, once your loan is 
pulled, once you lose that truck--even when we come to a solution--they 
can't reopen.
  Again, I know it is unprecedented. We have not looked at Federal 
contractors in the past, but at least for the folks in low or moderate 
incomes who cannot make back the 29 days of pay--Lord knows that we 
listen to the President who says he doesn't mind if it is weeks, months 
or even years--I hope we find a way to somehow make them whole.
  We have also seen small businesses. In Virginia, we have 
disproportionately a lot of small contractor businesses. A small 
business owner and contractor in Arlington wrote me and said:

       My disabled-veteran-owned small business will have to shut 
     its door after serving the Federal Government for the last 2 
     decades. . . . I am going to have to put 72 families out of 
     work because our reserves aren't big enough to support the 
     payroll expenses of $35,000-$40,000 per day during this 
     political impasse.

  It doesn't take a lot of math to figure out that if you are closed 
roughly 30 days, you are talking about over a million dollars in 
payroll that this veteran-owned small business can't meet. When they 
reopen, there is no guarantee that this business comes back.
  It is not just the small businesses that actually serve the 
government. It is the brewery in Kodiak. It is the restaurants around 
the battlefields in Richmond, near Senator Kaine's home. It is some of 
the campgrounds that surround the Shenandoah National Park in our 
Commonwealth. I think there may be a number of our colleagues who maybe 
don't have the same concentration that Alaska or Virginia or Maine has. 
If they think this problem hasn't gotten to them and isn't spreading 
like the plague, it will come to their States as well.

[[Page S314]]

  Why do we have to put all of these families and our economy through 
this kind of turmoil?
  Senator Kaine and I have worked really hard recently. Those of us who 
live in the national capital area know the Metro is an important way we 
commute. The Metro has had its share of problems the last couple of 
years. Actually, in a good-news story, Virginia, DC, and Maryland came 
together and ponied up more resources so Metro could make some of the 
improvements--safety improvements and operating improvements--trying to 
improve quality of service for our Federal workforce and for tourists 
in our Nation's Capital. Every day--every weekday--that the Federal 
Government is shut down, Metro loses $400,000 in lost fares per day. 
Metro can't get a break. Where is that money going to rematerialize 
from? I am not sure we are going to appropriate millions of additional 
dollars.
  We have had debates before, but if there has ever been one that the 
American public has a right to be frustrated with in terms of the 
shutdown--historically, the longest shutdown ever--it is this one. The 
President says he wants money for a border wall--a border wall that he 
promised the American people was going to be paid for by Mexico, a 
border wall for which he says that before he will reopen government, 
give him $5 billion. I think it is up to almost $5.9 billion. There are 
some arguments that now it is up to $7 billion or $8 billion.
  The truth is--and let me be clear--if the President and his White 
House allies are listening, this Senator is willing to look at any 
reasonable investment in additional border security, but it ought to be 
done in a way in which we are not holding these hundreds of thousands 
of families and--literally, indirectly--millions of Americans hostage. 
Rule No. 101 of hostage taking is you don't not negotiate with the 
hostage taker. You don't reward a bully. As I think some of my 
colleagues on the other side have at least acknowledged privately, if 
we allow this tactic to work today, it will be reused in April when we 
have the debt ceiling, and it will be reused at the end of the fiscal 
year when the next year's appropriations are due.
  Again, I hope the people of good will will also try to see if we can 
commit to putting enough of a poison pill in place so that this tactic 
can never, ever be used again by any Congress or any President without 
inflicting some damage, frankly, on the legislative branch and on the 
office of the White House. That is part of the remarkable thing. Our 
offices--and I say this to the good folks who work for us in Congress--
are not feeling any of the pain. The White House staff is not feeling 
any of the pain.
  I do wonder, as the President starts to selectively decide based on 
one's ability to lobby and promote, who is going to come back and what 
will get reopened. Frankly, I am more than a little disappointed, while 
it is important that mortgages get processed, that he has decided to 
bring back certain folks to process mortgages and certain folks in the 
Department of Agriculture to process farmers' loans and that they have, 
suddenly, mysteriously, found some money in the State Department to 
reopen part of the State Department. I would love to see that same 
priority for the folks who process food stamps. I wonder what kind of 
Federal buildings we will go into where the toilets haven't been 
cleaned and the trash hasn't been taken out and the food services 
haven't been provided.
  I say to the White House that we will negotiate, that we will work 
through this process. Some of us have even said--and I know the Chair 
has been part of this effort--that we will put it through regular 
order. We will consider his proposal in a reasonable way, but let's do 
it with the government open and with people getting paid.
  I thank my friend Senator Kaine from Virginia. I know and 
acknowledge, as somebody who actually lives only 20 minutes away in 
Virginia, that it is a little bit easier for me than being a Senator 
from Alaska or a Senator from a host of other places around the 
country, but I think it is proper and right that we are here today, and 
I will be back this coming week to continue to raise this point. When 
we heard from some Federal workers that Congress was taking a break for 
another 10 days when they were supposed to reach another pay period but 
that they were going to make it goose eggs and when they have the 
beginning of February looming when their rents and mortgages and 
tuition bills will be due, I thought it was appropriate. I thank him 
for forcing us to be back here to continue to raise these issues.
  The last point I want to make is that I think we owe a huge debt to 
our Federal workers--the TSA, the air traffic controllers, the Coast 
Guard, and, for that matter, the folks who process food stamps and the 
lady we saw who was supposed to investigate chemical spills who is 
desperate to get to Houston where there was a spill 10 days ago, but 
they still haven't been able to investigate. Without pay, whether you 
are furloughed or, in many cases, are being asked to work overtime 
without pay, they are still showing up. They are still being asked to 
commute to work--some from a distance--as has been mentioned by the 
Presiding Officer. If you put a bill on a credit card that has your 
name on it, your credit rating is at risk. Whether you are a prison 
guard and have to commute an hour and a half in your car and may not 
have money for gas, you are still finding a way to show up for work.
  As somebody who worked longer in the private sector than I have in 
the public sector, I wonder how many folks who work in the private 
sector--if you work for Facebook or Google or if you work for Ford or 
Northrop Grumman--would continue to show up week after week after week 
without pay or how many folks in the private sector would show up and 
work overtime without pay and still perform.
  In a moment in which I was looking straight at the press pool that 
was with me yesterday at the Arlington food bank, I asked all of the 
press folks--when the cameras were off--how many of them would show up 
tomorrow if they had gone 4 or 5 weeks--with no end in sight--without 
any payment. The press was supposed to cover this, but there was not a 
single reporter or camera person who didn't at least acknowledge to 
me--and I wish we had had it all on tape--that, no, they wouldn't be 
showing up to their jobs.
  For those of us who are policymakers or who are, candidly, visitors 
in the gallery, sometimes it is easy--and there have been politicians 
who have made careers out of this--to trash Federal employees. I think 
it is wrong. I think it is disgraceful. I think now, more than ever, we 
owe them a debt of gratitude. I know there are at least reports of 
people at airports and others who have said thank you or who have tried 
to slip somebody food or something else. The remarkable thing is, 
because of our rules that in conventional times are appropriate, we 
can't even, in many cases, give additional compensation to these 
Federal workers, but we can give them a personal thanks.
  My hope would be, in going forward, for a commitment from folks on 
both sides of the aisle to think twice before we come to the floor of 
this Senate and berate and degrade Federal workers. I would hope, on a 
going-forward basis, when we get the government reopened, we could find 
a bipartisan way to actually make sure that what this Senate passed in 
terms of a relatively meager 1.9-percent Federal pay raise increase for 
this year would override this administration's spiteful Executive order 
that tries to take away that pay raise. If not--maybe not next week but 
the next time this happens--I don't know if those TSA workers will show 
up. I don't know if those air traffic controllers will keep working. I 
don't know if those Coast Guard employees will still sign up for 
service in places as remote as Kodiak, AK.
  We have it within our power to end this. If the President of the 
United States will not end this, we have a bill that is at the desk 
that 96 of us agreed to in mid-December when there was not this crisis. 
Now, when we hear these stories--when we hear of this pain--if the 
President will not act, then the Senate must act and put that 
legislation on the President's desk. Let him choose to not, simply, 
postulate but to then make a decision as to whether he will sign or 
veto it.
  I thank the Presiding Officer. I know that she and others will be 
back. Part of the burden on the majority is of showing up to that 
presiding space. We, as the Virginia Senators, disproportionately had 
that opportunity during

[[Page S315]]

these kinds of circumstances. Regarding her stories, the Senator from 
Virginia's stories, the Senator from Maine's stories, and our other 
colleagues' as well, I hope that the White House is listening and that 
we can find that common agreement to get this government reopened and 
demonstrate to the workers, the contractors, and the folks who depend 
upon the Federal Government that we value their service and that never 
ever again will they have to be put through this kind of tragedy.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________