[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S319-S325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACT OF 2019--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the continuing effects of 
the shutdown of part of the government on American workers and the 
American public.
  I want to begin by discussing the effect of the shutdown on the Coast 
Guard. Following that, I will talk about a visit that I actually just 
made to a restaurant at 7th and Pennsylvania Avenues that was opened 
for the

[[Page S320]]

purposes of offering free food to Federal employees and their families 
during the shutdown. Finally, I will address the proposal offered by 
the President on Saturday to reach an agreement on border security and 
immigration issues.
  To begin with, the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is a branch of the 
U.S. military with a proud history. There are 42,000 active members of 
the Coast Guard. There are 7,500 reservists, 8,500 civilian employees, 
and nearly 50,000 Coast Guard retirees. All are affected by the 
shutdown, most working without pay, and others, particularly civilians, 
are furloughed without pay. In addition, the shutdown jeopardizes 
payments to the 50,000 Coast Guard retirees.
  Virginia has a significant Coast Guard presence, especially in 
Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia. Virginians perform all of the 
missions that the Coast Guard is entrusted to perform--search and 
rescues, drug interdictions, military missions, and law enforcement. 
The Coast Guard Honor Guard, which covers funerals and ceremonial 
occasions all over the world, is based in Virginia, and so is the unit 
that provides IT support for Coast Guard functions, including cutters 
that are currently at sea, like the USS Bertholf, which deployed out of 
Alameda, CA, on Sunday.
  As the Presiding Officer knows--sometimes it is a little bit 
confusing not just to the public but even to the military--the Coast 
Guard is unique in the shutdown because they are a branch of the 
military, but they are budgeted through the Department of Homeland 
Security, not the Department of Defense.

  DOD was funded by the work that this Senate, the House, and the 
President did through appropriations bills that were signed earlier in 
the year. So every other branch of the military is currently funded; 
the DHS, however, is not funded. So the Coast Guard is the one military 
branch that is not being paid.
  This is creating some enormous--enormous--issues that my Coast Guard 
members in Virginia have been sharing with me. Just one, for example, 
is the USS Bertholf, which is the Coast Guard cutter that deployed 
Sunday out of Alameda, CA, on a military mission as part of PACOM in 
the Western Pacific. So the traditional going-away event, where 
everyone in the Coast Guard is deploying for multiple months, and their 
families are there, and they are saying good-bye to their families--but 
for the families who live in and around Alameda, it is not necessarily 
cheap. They are going to have to keep paying bills--rent and other 
things--while their Coasties, as they call themselves, are deployed. 
Yet they are not being paid. Even though this cutter will be involved 
in missions together with Navy ships where sailors are being paid, the 
Coasties are not being paid.
  You can imagine--and this has been described by my Coast Guard 
members in Virginia--that there are some sizable equity issues in this. 
The Coast Guard likes to recruit among those who want to volunteer to 
serve their country, and they have said that they have been able to 
recruit even-steven with the Marines and the Navy and the Army and the 
Air Force. They can recruit even-steven. They offer a lot of similar 
opportunities to serve and similar abilities to advance in rank, so 
they feel that in recruiting for IT professionals or others, they can 
do their very best. However, something like this really affects their 
ability to recruit.
  As is well known, in a shutdown, the DOD is likely to be funded. All 
of the other branches of the military will be funded, but the Coast 
Guard will not be. It affects recruitment significantly, and it affects 
retention.
  I have heard a number of stories from Coast Guard members in 
Virginia. Just this morning, someone who is a young coast guarder in 
their first 2 years said this; this is a direct quote:

       I skip dinners now so I can buy food for my dogs. I have 
     dogs. I care about my dogs. To buy dog food is important for 
     them, and so I will do breakfast and lunch, but I skip 
     dinners now to buy food for my dogs.

  I had two Coast Guard members tell me about challenges with paying 
rent--one in the private sector and two, interesting enough, are living 
on military bases. Let me describe each.
  Northern Virginia is not a cheap place to live. There is a Coast 
Guard member in Northern Virginia, and when the shutdown started and he 
was not being paid, he went to his landlord and said: Landlord, can you 
give me an extension? I am serving my country in the Coast Guard.
  The landlord, a regional firm that has many apartments, came back and 
said, in an effort that kind of sounded friendly: Listen, we will let 
you pay half of the month's rent on the 15th and half at the end 
instead of one big rent check a month. We will do that, but you have to 
agree to rewrite your lease to allow us to evict you after 15 days 
rather than after 30 days.
  He said: Look, I am a young guy. I don't know that much, but I have a 
grandfather in the real estate business. I showed him this proposal, 
and he said ``Hold on a second. It would probably be better if you keep 
your current lease and try to even borrow money from family than to 
sign an amendment of your lease allowing you to be evicted after 15 
days.''
  I think the Presiding Officer and I would say: What kind of landlord 
would do this? What kind of landlord would take somebody serving their 
country and try to accelerate the ability to evict them because of the 
shutdown? That is, in fact, happening, and it is not a small landlord 
either.
  That one surprised me, but I will say there was another one that 
surprised me more. Two of the Coast Guard members I had visited with in 
Northern Virginia live on military bases. One lives in Quantico in 
military housing, and one lives in Fort Belvoir, the Army base in 
Fairfax County, in military housing. So you would think that this 
landlord would be a more understanding landlord than maybe a private 
sector landlord, but when the shutdown happened, in each instance, they 
went to their landlord and said: Hey, we are being shut down. We are 
not being paid.
  The response was: What do you mean you are not being paid? The 
Marines are being paid. The Army is being paid. You are living on a 
military base, and everybody is being paid. What do you mean you are 
not being paid? You have to pay your rent.
  The military, which is in charge of military housing on these bases, 
was not aware that because the Coast Guard comes up through DHS, they 
are not being paid. So they are having trouble with their landlords, 
even though their landlords are part of the military and should 
understand this.
  That same challenge is affecting one of the servicemembers whose 
child is in a child development center on the base at Quantico. Not 
being able to pay--you would think that a military child development 
center might understand, but, in fact, that is not the case.
  Other Coast Guard members have told me about an additional challenge. 
The Coast Guard relies on civilians, just as all of our other military 
branches rely on civilians, and the civilians are hit very hard by the 
furlough.
  At one facility in Virginia, civilians are in charge of maintaining 
more than 40 buildings that are old and need some TLC. Boilers that 
need work in January and other physical infrastructure that has needs--
that work is done by private contractors who are furloughed, so that 
work, which is critical to their being able to operate the 
installations, is hard to get done.
  The IT functions of the Coast Guard take advantage of the civilian 
expertise of people in Northern Virginia too. One Coast Guard member 
described a job offer they extended to somebody to come work for the 
Coast Guard. They made the job offer just a day or two before the 
shutdown happened, so now they can't hire the individual.
  They are trying to convince the individual: Please, hang on; don't 
take another job. IT jobs are plentiful in Northern Virginia, but don't 
take another job. Wait for us.
  Well, wait for how long?
  I don't know for how long.
  They are worried that they are going to lose a critical employee.
  One of the Coast Guard individuals I talked to basically put it this 
way: ``It is embarrassing. It is psychologically embarrassing. We 
signed up to help others, not beg for charity at food banks or 
restaurants for Federal employees''--and just talked about how hard it 
is.
  In a way, we should all be willing to ask for help. We all need help 
in our

[[Page S321]]

lives. But somebody who has signed up and their goal is to help 
others--they were just being candid in saying that it is really hard to 
go ask others for help, for food.
  When the Coast Guard can't do missions or when they can't do some of 
the other functions they are supposed to do--the Honor Guard can't go 
to funerals at Arlington or other occasions--then those jobs fall 
heavier on the other services. So they talk about not just the 
degradation of their own work but the fact that others have to pull 
extra weight for them.
  Here is what a Coast Guard employee said to me: I am paid as an 
officer to motivate and to lead. That is what officers do, we try to 
motivate and to lead. I shouldn't have to stand before a group of 
Coasties and offer a class on how to file unemployment insurance.
  Yet that is something that he is now being told that he has to do.
  So many of the Coast Guard members mention what other Federal 
employees say--almost a cliche line that I am hearing from everybody: I 
guess I will figure it out for myself, but I worry about my shipmates. 
I guess I will figure it out for myself, but I worry about someone 
else. So many of the Federal employees are struck.
  Finally, a general question: Why would anyone sign up if they knew 
they would be treated this way?
  Some of the Coast Guard members authorized me to use their names and 
let me tell a few of their stories with their first names attached 
before I move into talking about my visit to the pop-up restaurant just 
seven blocks from here.
  Katherine from Fairfax County:

       I am directly affected by this senseless government 
     shutdown. I retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2006. Since 
     the U.S. Coast Guard is an organization of the Department of 
     Homeland Security, all U.S. Coast Guard personnel (active 
     duty, civilian employees, reservists, and retirees) are being 
     inflicted with undue financial hardship and stress. Today, I 
     went to my local [credit union] branch office to enroll in a 
     0% APR Government Shutdown Assistance Program. Admittedly, I 
     was embarrassed and saddened to have to take this action to 
     maintain some sense of personal financial health and 
     security. My heart goes out to my brothers and sisters of the 
     [U.S. Coast Guard] that are currently on active duty, working 
     without pay, and supporting a family. This is our reality 
     today.

  Lisa from Ashburn:

       My husband works for the Coast Guard and is required to 
     work without pay. We suffered a house flood during Hurricane 
     Matthew that wiped out our savings and have a daughter in 
     college. Not sure how we can manage if we miss more than one 
     paycheck, as we also assist my mother, who has had a stroke. 
     Praying that this is over sooner than later.

  Sue from Loudoun County:

       My Coast Guard son and his family live in Kodiak, Alaska, 
     and are not getting paid.

  Senator Murkowski gave a speech about Kodiak and the Coast Guard 
presence in Kodiak on the floor on Saturday.

       Risking his life as a rescue pilot with no pay is 
     unpatriotic as well as dangerous for the country. These men 
     and women work for us, to protect our country. They should be 
     paid and not told to have a yard sale to make due.

  Mary from Williamsburg:

       My husband has worked tirelessly as a member of the all-
     volunteer Coast Guard Auxiliary. He teaches Safe Boating 
     classes and has used his boat as a vessel to assist in search 
     and rescue in Sector Hampton Roads. Now with the shutdown, he 
     cannot do any of the boat safety activities to help the Coast 
     Guard keep our waters safe. It is ridiculous to shut down the 
     federal government--but it is dangerous to have curbed the 
     lifesaving activities of the Coast Guard and their invaluable 
     volunteer auxiliarists!

  He cannot volunteer. He cannot volunteer because of the shutdown.
  Trinity from Suffolk:

       My father works on the US Coast Guard base in Portsmouth, 
     VA. Even though my father hasn't gotten a paycheck, Hampton 
     University still wants the payments for my tuition. Just 
     because his paychecks have stopped doesn't mean our bills 
     have.

  Gary from Chesapeake:

       My son is a Chief in the Coast Guard. For the past 19 
     years, he went to sea to protect our coastline, enforce our 
     laws, and rescue those in need. Over the years he missed 
     countless holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries with family 
     and friends. Now, there's no respect for his sacrifices and 
     service.

  Finally, Samantha from Herndon:

       My husband is a civilian employee of the Coast Guard. We 
     are having to pull money from savings and significantly 
     change our spending habits just to make sure we can make it 
     through the month. We worry about paying our mortgage and 
     keeping the heat and lights on. A wall will not help border 
     security, and everyday working people are paying the price 
     for a pointless standoff over it.

  These are just a few of the stories I have heard from Guard members. 
There are many, many more.
  I want to talk about a visit that I just paid, and I would encourage 
everyone in Congress to do this--in the Senate. We are here this week. 
There is a pop-up restaurant at Seventh and Pennsylvania--just seven 
blocks from here--that was opened by an organization called Chefs for 
Feds. Chefs for Feds is an organization started by Jose Andres to deal 
with emergencies. They went to Puerto Rico and served millions of meals 
to people affected by hurricanes there. They have done similar work in 
California to deal with the communities affected by wildfires and in 
Indonesia to deal with communities affected by earthquakes and 
tsunamis. This is an NGO that focuses on helping people in the midst of 
disasters.
  Now they have opened a restaurant at Seventh and Pennsylvania. This 
is the first manmade disaster in which they are trying to figure out a 
way to help. The restaurant opened last Tuesday. Any Federal employee 
or family member can come. Six to eight thousand people have come every 
day. It is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Today, they expanded services. 
They have also opened, broadly, a coat closet, a food bank, a place 
where moms can go to get diapers, which aren't cheap, feminine 
products, which aren't cheap, and basic pharmaceutical things that 
aren't cheap. So it is a combination of a restaurant and sort of a 
broader social services ministry.
  Chefs for Feds is an interesting group. They have other nonprofits 
that are involved--DC Diaper Bank, Martha's Table, which is an 
effective, faith-based ministry to hungry and homeless people.
  I showed up there at about 11:45. It is cold today. I showed up to go 
thank people and work as a volunteer. There was a line like you see in 
pictures of the Depression of hundreds of people waiting outside. The 
restaurant is actually kind of short. You go in, get in a line, and you 
are offered a sandwich or soup and some fruit and maybe an iced tea and 
utensils. People are coming in and eating quickly and leaving. You can 
take a sandwich for a colleague at work or for somebody at home if you 
need that. It looked like one of those photos you might see from the 
Depression.
  The volunteers are chefs and restaurant workers around Virginia who 
have their own issues and challenges to deal with, but they are there 
helping. Many of the volunteers are furloughed Federal employees. If 
you are being locked out of your job, you still want to help others, 
and so probably the biggest group of the volunteers were furloughed 
Federal employees.
  I met a Federal employee from Richmond who was furloughed and drove 
up just to volunteer today to help others, who lives not far from where 
I live. There were other volunteers who are just concerned citizens--
not Federal employees, but they heard about it and came.
  I met one of the volunteers, a kind of supervisor of the kitchen. His 
name is Tim, and so that was easy for me to remember. He was here from 
Ventura, CA. He knew nothing about this group until his house burned 
down in California, and they came to his community to offer meals. With 
his whole house destroyed, he started to volunteer to help others. When 
he heard about the shutdown, even as he is still dealing with his own 
issues in California after the wildfire, he came to help run the 
kitchen operation.
  Today, they not only expanded to the clothes closet and diaper 
distribution; they also announced a whole series of other restaurants 
and similar pop-up operations they are going to do all over the United 
States. They have looked where there is a high density of Federal 
employees, and they announced 15 to 20 other locations around the 
country where they are now going to start serving.
  It was something to see this long line of Federal employees waiting 
out in the cold to get into that restaurant. Just the length of the 
line made a real impression on me. It was emotional. It was interesting 
that so many were law enforcement in uniform--Park Service, people from 
the FBI and other Agencies, clearly law enforcement in uniform--waiting 
in the cold to come in

[[Page S322]]

and get a sandwich. There were parents with their children, young 
children. Being furloughed, it is hard to afford childcare, so if you 
are going to come down to get food, what do you do with your 3-year-
old? Well, they had their children in their arms.
  As I said, it looked like something from the Depression, but we are 
not in a depression. Our economy is strong right now. Our stock market 
is up right now. It is one thing to see that kind of a line when we are 
in a depression, but when we are being told that the economy is great, 
to see that kind of line made a huge impression upon me--so 
unnecessary.
  I thank Jose Andres and the chefs. I thank the volunteers. I thank 
Martha's Table. I thank others who are responding. They pointed out to 
me--they said: Look, this one is different from all the other ones we 
have done because it is the only disaster that is manmade and 
unnecessary.
  Jose looked at me and said: Shut us down by reopening government. You 
guys reopen and then shut us down. We don't want to be open at Seventh 
and Pennsylvania. We want to send the volunteers home and have the 
government reopen.
  The President said he was proud to shut down the government. I defy 
any thinking and feeling person in this country to go to Seventh and 
Pennsylvania between 11 and 6 and look at that line in the middle of 
January and say they are proud. I have a lot of words that I might 
attach to it. I don't think anybody could look at that--I don't think 
anybody going and talking to people or working the line like I did--
just the faces. The faces of people as they came to the line--all were 
grateful. All were grateful that others were there to provide some 
help, but many were embarrassed, certainly for their country and 
sometimes personally--again, like my Coast Guarder who said: I signed 
up to help people. I don't like asking for help. I don't like asking 
for charity.

  There are people who are there that--yes, they are grateful, but they 
are embarrassed and some are angry at how they are being treated, and 
who can blame them for that?
  As I conclude, there is a way out. There is a way out, and I think 
the way out has two steps: First, reopen government ASAP, and second, 
treat the President's proposal from Saturday seriously. I do believe 
the President's proposal--and we have talked about this--I do believe 
it is a proposal that deserves to be treated seriously.
  The proposal he has made, if it were offered for a vote now, with no 
opportunity to study it and improve it, I probably would vote against 
it, but it is a proposal that deserves to be treated seriously because 
it deals with four issues. It deals with the right investment in border 
security; that is an important issue. It deals with how to deal with 
Dreamers; that is an important issue. It deals with how to deal with 
the TPS program; that is an important issue. There is a fourth issue in 
the proposal that the President didn't speak about Saturday--the 
standards and processes for applying and potentially receiving asylum 
in the United States. He didn't mention that during the speech. It is 
in the proposal. It is an important issue.
  What does it mean to take the President's proposal seriously? Even if 
I have some points of difference on each of the four elements, I would 
not disagree with the assertion that each of the elements is very 
important. We should be dealing with them.
  What does it mean to take the President's proposal seriously? If he 
means it seriously, then he should want us to address it seriously.
  I understand that the bill is 1,200 pages. I understand that it might 
be introduced today. I haven't seen it. I don't think it has been 
introduced yet. Maybe it has and I was down serving lunch and haven't 
had a chance to read it. But 1,200 pages is a big bill, and these are 
big and important topics.
  What would be the way we would engage, Democrats and Republicans, 
with this proposal to show the President we are taking it seriously? We 
would put it in a committee--the Judiciary or Appropriations Committee. 
The Parliamentarians would determine where it would go based upon how 
it is drafted, but it would likely be one of those two committees. The 
relevant committee obviously has a Republican chair in a Republican 
majority body; that is fine. There is a Republican majority on the 
committee; that is fine. But you would put it in the committee, and the 
first thing you would do is you would ask the administration to come up 
and explain each point.
  They put a proposal on the table. OK, $5.7 billion--how do you want 
to spend it? What does your TPS proposal mean? What does your Dreamer 
proposal mean? How do you propose to change the asylum laws? The 
administration would explain their proposal and answer questions about 
it.
  Then promptly--especially with a Republican committee chair with some 
power over timing--promptly, the committee could take up the matter and 
have a normal committee process, with members able to make amendments. 
I am not on either of the relevant committees, so this is easy for me 
to say, but if a Democrat had an idea about, here is a way to improve 
it, there is no chance that idea is getting passed without some 
Republican votes because the Democrats are in the minority. But a 
Democrat and a Republican should be able to offer ideas for how the 
proposal should be improved, and that can be done promptly.
  With a Republican majority, the chances of the President's proposal--
hopefully with some improvements--being reported out to the floor is 
very high. If it is reported out to the floor, we could have a similar 
process here, with Members being able to make amendments. Again, no 
amendment is going to be accepted from a Democrat without some 
Republicans saying it is a good idea. No amendment would be accepted 
without a majority or a supermajority of this body saying: That is a 
good idea; that improves the proposal.

  That would be how we would show President Trump that we take the 
proposal seriously.
  I have heard--and I know it is not yet completely decided, though--
that there is an effort that we want to have a vote on it this week. We 
don't want to have a committee process. We don't want to have 
amendments. We just want to have a vote on it this week.
  That would suggest that the proposal was not offered in seriousness 
and the Senate was not being serious about addressing it.
  I think the Senate, on this proposal, should just be the Senate, and 
we should count on committees, which are helmed by Republicans, to try 
to promptly move this through a process where they all get to put their 
thumbprints on it and make it better.
  Let me address quickly, as I conclude, the elements of the proposal.
  How much to spend on border security? For this Senator, the dollar 
amount that the President proposed does not trouble me as long as it is 
used right. I have voted for proposals to try to advance to the White 
House that had more than $5.7 billion of border security. Our 2013 bill 
had $40-plus billion over 10 years. The bill we voted on in February 
had $25 billion over 10 years. The dollar amount is not the challenge 
for this Senator. The challenge is that I want to make sure we use it 
the right way.
  When every Member of Congress who represents the border--all nine--
say that just using the money to build a big wall is a bad idea, that 
should tell us something. When our border professionals say there are 
higher priorities than using all the money to build a wall, that should 
tell us something.
  But if the administration goes to the committee and presents their 
case, and they have border professionals saying, ``Here are the ways to 
spend it, and physical barriers are really important in this place or 
that place,'' they would really help us. I am very open to that. I just 
don't want to waste the money, but the dollar amount is less important 
to me than the way money should be spent. That is the kind of thing we 
can negotiate and find an accord on.
  Dreamers. The President terminated protection for about 1.7 million 
Dreamers two Septembers ago. He then challenged us to find a 
congressional resolution.
  His proposal is to restore protections to about 700,000 Dreamers for 
a period of 3 years. Well, I am curious--700,000. Why not the full 1.7 
million whose protections you pulled. Three years--why not four? But 
these are issues we could debate. These are issues where amendments 
could be offered, and we could find--again, I believe--a compromise.

[[Page S323]]

  The President is terminating TPS programs for about 400,000 people 
from 10 countries. He is proposing, actually, to restore about 300,000 
of the individuals with rights under the Temporary Protected Status 
Program. I want to know: Why not all 400,000? What is it about some 
countries that you want to restore the protections you took away but 
you don't want to restore protections to the other countries? Maybe 
there is a reason. Maybe there is a good reason. But maybe there isn't 
a good reason, and we ought to have that discussion and offer Democrats 
and Republicans the ability to take some sandpaper to it and try to 
make it better.
  Finally, asylum. This was the issue that the President did not speak 
about in his speech, but apparently the bill, which I haven't seen, has 
dramatic changes to the processes for applying for asylum and possibly 
the standards for getting asylum.
  That is an important issue. We want to make sure that we do it right. 
There are international legal ramifications, and there are also 
ramifications in terms of this ``Statue of Liberty'' Nation. We want to 
make sure we get it right, but is there an openness to having 
discussions about asylum procedures? Of course there is.
  So I would say that when President Trump put a proposal on the table 
on Saturday that dealt with border security funding, TPS, Dreamers, and 
asylum, each of those issues are issues on which we ought to be having 
a discussion, and we ought to be able to find some accord.
  Frankly, if we can't find a pretty significant bipartisan accord 
here, the chances of there being one in the House is slim. So we ought 
to take the time to find it here. We ought to take the time to do that 
and do it promptly without people being needlessly hurt.
  That is why I return to my original request. I hope we will take a 
step that will shut down the pop-up restaurant at 7th and Pennsylvania, 
as the chefs asked me to do today. Let's reopen government and shut 
down the restaurant that has popped up to serve those 6,000 to 8,000 
people a day who are being punished unnecessarily.
  I thank the patience of the Chair and those in the Chamber.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Portman). The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, on December 11 of last year, at a 
meeting at the White House, President Trump said he would be 
``proud''--``proud''--to shut down the government of the United States 
if he didn't get things 100 percent his way. Then, 11 days later, on 
December 22, President Trump shut down the government.
  We are now 32 days into the longest government shutdown in the 
history of the United States, and I say to President Trump: That is 
nothing to be proud of.
  The damage is growing by the day in every part of our country and 
across different sectors of our economy. It is estimated that the 
partial government shutdown is now costing the economy $6 billion every 
week. Eight hundred thousand Federal employees are going without pay, 
and this coming Friday will mark the second full pay period in which 
they get pay stubs with a big fat goose egg on them.
  Hundreds of thousands of those Federal employees are working every 
day without pay, and hundreds of thousands of them have been locked out 
of work and want to get back to doing the business of the American 
people but are prohibited from doing so because of the government 
shutdown. So as a result of their inability to go to work, there are 
tens of millions of our fellow Americans who are losing access to vital 
government services.
  There is nothing to be proud of in shutting out a whole sector of 
service contract employees and small businesses that provide support 
services to the Federal Government.
  I am going to go into a little more detail in a moment, but small 
businesses around this country that depend on the Small Business 
Administration for loans or because they do business with the Federal 
Government are getting absolutely clobbered. That is nothing to be 
proud of.
  It is not anything to be proud of that so many Federal employees are 
not able to make their rent or mortgage payments or the monthly tuition 
installment payments for their children's college education or for 
other provisions they want to provide for their family.
  Now, sadly, this Senate is complicit in the shutdown. Let me actually 
rephrase that. The majority in the Senate is complicit in the shutdown 
because we have not been allowed a vote on two bills that are on the 
Senate calendar that we could vote on today and would reopen the 
government.
  I have one of those bills right here. I have brought it to the floor 
in the past. It is a bill that would open eight of the nine Federal 
Departments that have nothing to do with the Homeland Security 
Department or border security or a wall--eight of the nine of them. 
This bill is sitting on the Senate calendar. We could vote on it today, 
and yet the majority leader refuses to bring it up for a vote.
  The great irony is that this bill that is on the Senate calendar 
contains provisions that have already been supported in the Senate by 
overwhelming bipartisan majorities. A big part of this bill includes 
about four Federal Departments where we voted by 92 to 6 on the funding 
levels for the whole fiscal year until the end of September. In other 
cases, what is in this bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 
on a vote of 31 to 0 and another on a vote of 30 to 1. So why aren't we 
bringing up these bills?
  Now, the majority leader had said previously he wasn't going to bring 
up any bills in the Senate unless they were supported by President 
Trump and by the Democrats. Do you know what? That is an abdication of 
the responsibility of this Senate as a separate and coequal branch of 
government. Since when do we say to this President or any President: We 
are not going to consider a piece of legislation on the floor of the 
Senate unless you tell us ahead of time that you are good with it?
  That is not doing our job. That is not fulfilling our constitutional 
responsibility. We have an obligation to do our duty as a separate 
branch of government and vote, especially when it is on a piece of 
legislation the Senate has already voted on and already supported 
overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis and that would reopen the 
government.
  So instead of doing our job, we are going to contract out our 
responsibilities to the President of the United States, but apparently 
it is going to get worse because now, as I understand it, the majority 
leader has changed his position and now he will allow a vote on 
something in the Senate Chamber. But guess what it is. It is on the 
President's proposal.
  So now not only are we going to essentially say that we will not vote 
on something the President doesn't like, but now the one thing the 
majority leader says we will vote on is what the President wants--what 
the President wants.
  Well, do you know what? I am OK having to vote on the President's 
proposal, but if we are going to vote on that, my goodness, we should 
also vote on the bill that is already on the Senate calendar and that 
has already received strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.
  So I do have a question for the majority leader. If we are going to 
be voting on President Trump's most recent proposal, are we also going 
to be able to have a vote on the bill that was already on the Senate 
calendar, that has already been supported by a bipartisan majority, and 
that would reopen the government right away? That is my question.
  Let's vote, and let's just see what happens, but let's vote on not 
just what the President of the United States wants. Since when does the 
President dictate what we do here in the Senate? That is a question for 
every Member.
  So I am for voting, but I am not for doing what appears to be about 
to happen, which is just to say that we are going to vote on what the 
President wants and, again, contracting out our responsibilities to the 
White House.
  What we are seeing every day, as I said, is the growing damage from 
this shutdown. I mentioned that small businesses are really feeling the 
pain. There is a story in the Wall Street Journal, headline: ``Small 
Businesses' $2 Billion Problem: Government Shutdown Leaves Loans in 
Limbo.''
  This is happening all over the country. What you are seeing is that 
businesses and startups and the engines of

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our economy are not able to access loans through the Small Business 
Administration. In fact, Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics estimates the 
shutdown has delayed the $2 billion in SBA lending. Jill Emerson, the 
CEO of an electrical components company in Tennessee, just heard that 
her lender shut down their $3 million line of credit. ``Our frustration 
is unbelievable,'' she said. This is the CEO of an electrical 
components company in Tennessee. ``To keep us alive, I am borrowing 
from business associates who have worked with us for years.''
  We are hearing other small businesses that are just starved for lack 
of capital, others where the small business owners are personally 
guaranteeing loans. For the most part, there are many who are just not 
getting the capital they need to open up their businesses, to sustain 
their businesses, and as a result, they are laying off workers. That is 
a growing consequence of this shutdown.
  Many times, I have shared on this floor some of the stories of 
Federal employees who work in Maryland and the fact that they want, 
first and foremost, to get back to work. Everywhere I go, even before 
people mention the fact that they are missing their paychecks, they 
tell me they want to get back to do the work for the American people. 
Then they do share terrible stories about how the lack of pay is 
impacting them more and more, day by day.
  Beyond the stories you will hear from Federal employees who work in 
my State of Maryland or Senator Kaine's State of Virginia--and I want 
to thank Senator Kaine for all of his efforts to reopen the government 
and, of course, Federal employees in the District of Columbia--the 
reality is, 80 percent of Federal employees live outside of this 
region. They live all over the country. We are talking about the Coast 
Guard, Coast Guard officials. We are talking being TSA officials. We 
are talking about Homeland Security officials. We are talking about 
people in Federal Agencies who are scattered across this country.
  A former marine who is now an EPA employee in Kansas is the primary 
breadwinner for her family and two children. Here is what she had to 
say the other day: ``To have to go to your landlord and say, `I don't 
know how I'm going to pay you,' I have never had to do that.''
  The President said people would ``make adjustments.'' The President 
said he could ``relate.'' It is easy for the President to say. He is 
sort of jetting from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, to Trump Tower. 
Those words are hollow to the millions of Americans who are actually 
really hurting.
  Here is what this Federal worker in Kansas said:

       We're trying to cut the grocery bill just down to the 
     necessities, I mean we don't live extravagantly so it's hard 
     to cut out any bills.

  Her children notice, she said. She said:

       My son wants to sell art to pay our bills.

  Right now, we have Federal employees all over the country who are 
trying to take on odd jobs to make ends meet. Sometimes that takes 
startup costs, which, of course, they don't have because they don't 
have any income coming in the door.
  One story from Cadillac, MI, goes as follows: Debra-Ann Brabazon, a 
furloughed Forest Service worker, said she is paying $100 to get 
fingerprinted and get background-checked so she could get certified as 
a substitute teacher. She was down to eating one meal a day. She didn't 
have the $100 to pay to get the fingerprinting and background check to 
get an odd job in order to bring in some income while she wasn't 
getting her Federal paycheck. She said she leapt to volunteer in 
exchange for grocery money and that ``I was a nanny in college. I am 
falling back on everything I learned about how to survive.''
  As we can see, as each day goes by, the pain grows--the pain grows on 
small businesses, the pain grows on families. The Trump shutdown is 
also hurting our national security and creating growing harm to our 
national security by the day.
  The FBI Agents Association put out a report today on the impacts they 
are seeing. One agent said:

       I have been working on a long term MS-13 investigation for 
     over three years. We have indicted 23 MS-13 gang members. . . 
     . Since the shutdown, I have not had a Spanish speaker in the 
     Division. We have several Spanish speaking informants. We are 
     only able to communicate using a three way call with a 
     linguist in another division.

  The government shutdown is hurting the FBI's efforts to go after MS-
13 gangs.
  I often hear President Trump talking about the need to crack down on 
MS-13, and when it comes to MS-13, he is absolutely right. Long before 
the President even started talking about MS-13, many of us in this body 
and in the House of Representatives have been working to crack down on 
MS-13 gang violence. The President just discovered MS-13 when he 
decided to run for President, but many of us had been working on that 
issue for a long time. Yet now the government shutdown is undermining 
that effort.
  Here is what another national security official says:

       Not being able to pay Confidential Human Sources risks 
     losing them and the information they provide FOREVER. It is 
     not a switch that we can turn on or off.

  Here is another FBI official indicating that the shutdown has shut 
off funds they used for critical informants to track down criminals, 
but apparently that doesn't matter to President Trump. That effort is 
just another casualty of the shutdown he brought about.
  We are also seeing impacts on cyber security. WIRED magazine reported 
last week: ``As the Government Shutdown Drags On, Security Risks 
Intensify.'' The article notes that the new Cybersecurity and 
Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security 
is operating with a skeleton crew, risking government websites and 
systems.

       Many government websites have had their HTTPS encryption 
     certificates expire during the shutdown, exposing them to 
     potential snooping or even impersonator sites. And with most 
     IT staff staying home, it seems unlikely that software 
     patches and upgrades are being installed at their regular 
     clip, potentially leaving them exposed to malware they'd 
     otherwise be protected against.

  In other words, since President Trump has sent all these employees 
home without pay, they are not able to ensure that government computers 
are not kept up to date with the software they need to protect them 
against cyber attacks. The shutdown is leaving a lot of the U.S. 
Government's computer systems more vulnerable. When that happens, it 
makes all of us more vulnerable.
  In addition, the private sector that relies, in many ways, on a 
public-private partnership with cyber security resources from the 
National Institutes of Standards and Technology, NIST, says they are 
not able to access that information at this point in time.
  Those are just some of the more recent impacts that harm our national 
security. Interestingly, what we are seeing is that not everyone is 
hurting. It turns out, if you have friends in the Trump administration, 
you may able to get some relief.
  I think many of us were interested last week when the mortgage 
industry was able to persuade the administration to bring back some 
employees from the IRS back to work. Here is what the mortgage industry 
said: Could you make these guys essential, meaning some of the folks 
then wanted to bring back at the IRS.
  Do you know what? In response to the mortgage industry, the White 
House brought more people back. According to the report, the shutdown 
was stalling an IRS process to confirm borrowers' incomes before they 
could grant home loans, and that of course is a problem for the 
mortgage industry in making those loans. So the Mortgage Bankers 
Association reached out to the Department of the Treasury, and suddenly 
the Department of the Treasury said: Oh, that is an essential function. 
The mortgage industry wants it. We are going to bring back folks to 
process that information.
  The story quotes the chief executive of the Bankers Association, 
saying: I would like to take some credit. Our direct request got quite 
rapid results.
  I am glad people are getting their income checked through IRS 
validations so they can get their mortgages. The way to do this isn't 
to respond piecemeal to some powerful special interests. We shouldn't 
be playing favorites in this shutdown, and that is what we are seeing 
from this administration.

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  The way to deal with it is obvious: open up the government so we can 
resume these functions. In the U.S. Senate, the fastest and best way to 
open up the government is to have a vote--to have a vote on the bill 
that is on the Senate calendar that has already received broad 
bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.
  I want to talk a minute about Homeland Security. The Trump 
administration's request for this portion of border security funding 
was $1.6 billion. That is what is in their budget. You can look at 
their budget online. They requested $1.6 billion. I serve on the Senate 
Appropriations Committee, and the Senate Appropriations Committee 
provided that request--provided that request for strengthening 
barriers. We did say you can't use that money to build that sort of 
new, huge wall the President used to talk about, but we provided $1.6 
billion. That was going to work out fine in the long run.
  Then, of course, in December, the President said: Oh, I need this 
$5.7 billion for a big wall.
  I think all of us who follow these issues closely know that even 
before President Trump was elected, we had 700 miles of barriers and 
fencing along certain strategic parts of the border, and we have 
provided funds to reenforce and strengthen some of those barriers. So 
this is a totally manufactured issue by the President of the United 
States in terms of all of a sudden demanding more funds than the 
President himself in his budget requested.

  So we should have a serious conversation on border security and 
immigration issues, and we can have it now, but what we cannot do is 
continue to allow the country to be held hostage through this 
government shutdown. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, it was 
the President of the United States who said on December 11 of last 
year, he would be ``proud'' to shut down the government if he didn't 
get things his way. Well, that is just not how things work, especially 
not how things work in an era of divided government. So I appeal to my 
colleagues, my Senate Republican colleagues to work with us to find a 
way out. Obviously, the fastest way out is to vote on the bills that 
already have bipartisan support. We should have the conversation, but 
what I do find to be a very sad reflection on this body, is if we move 
forward and have a vote only on the proposal the President of the 
United States wants and not also a vote on the bill that previously had 
bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate because that would send an awful 
message. It would send the message that the majority party has allowed 
an independent and coequal branch of government to be totally hijacked 
by the President of the United States, as opposed to doing our job as a 
separate branch of government under article I.
  If we are going to take the position that this Senate, with 53 
Republicans and 47 Democrats, is only going to vote on a proposal from 
the President of the United States, then we simply have become a 
vehicle--an agent for the President. That would be a great shame on 
this body.
  If we are going to have a vote on that bill--and I am fine to have a 
vote on that bill. We should have votes. In the light of day, we should 
have transparency and accountability, but what would be outrageous is 
to say: OK. We are only going to vote on the bill the President of the 
United States wants and not on another measure that has already 
received broad bipartisan support. That would be a dereliction of duty 
in the U.S. Senate as a separate and coequal branch of government.
  Let's end this shutdown. We have it in our power to vote now. Let's 
do our job. The President can do what he wants, but let's do our job 
under the Constitution and let's do it and be held accountable by the 
American public. Let's not use procedural devices to only allow votes 
on what the President wants and not votes on bills we voted on before.
  I am hoping this Senate will do its job and do its duty and hold that 
vote to reopen government and not just on the President's proposal but 
on the other proposals as well. In the meantime, we should continue to 
have serious conversations about the most effective and cost-effective 
way to provide border security and how we can deal with other 
immigration issues, but nobody should send the signal that shutting 
down the government is a good way to do business. I would hope that 
neither Republican nor Democratic Senators would want to send a signal 
to the Executive that they are going to be rewarded for shutting down 
the government--now 32 days long, a real shame for the country, and 
something nobody should be proud of. No matter what the President of 
the United States says, this is nothing for anybody to be proud of.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
   Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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