Congressional Record, Volume 165 Issue 13 (Tuesday, January 22, 2019)

[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.

____________________