[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20099-20101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUESTS

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the 
two scheduled votes in the Senate, we proceed to the consideration of 
H.R. 3630, which is the House-passed legislation--the House-passed 
legislation that, out of 435 Members of Congress, got 10 Democratic 
votes--that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two 
leaders or their designees prior to a vote on passage of the bill; that 
no amendments be in order prior to a vote on passage, and that the vote 
on passage be subject to a 60-vote threshold--which my friend, the 
Republican leader, seems to believe is the standard around here 
anymore--further, that if the bill is not passed, it remain the pending 
business, and that following I be recognized.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, our 
most immediate concern at this point is that despite Federal funding 
expiring 2 days from now--Friday night--my friend the majority leader 
is blocking action on the funding bill to keep the government open. 
That is our most immediate concern, and we should address it first 
because the deadline is literally just 2 days away. That comes first.
  My good friend the majority leader has said shutting the government 
down would be extreme and that it is too risky to even entertain, and 
that issue is just 2 days away. Everyone knows the truth is that the 
bill would fund our troops, our border security, and the remaining 
funding for the rest of the fiscal year, and it is ready to go. They 
were prepared to sign the conference report earlier this week until 
leadership on this side said don't sign the report.
  There is agreement on the funding bill but no agreement and no plan 
at all about how we are going to pass the payroll tax cut extension in 
the Senate. So we ought to finish our most immediate concern first.
  Let me repeat that our friends across the aisle have no plan, and 
some might suggest no desire, to pass a payroll tax cut extension--the 
President's top priority--extend unemployment insurance or ensure 
seniors' access to medical care. They have made no attempt at all to 
produce a bill that can pass the Senate. It is their responsibility in 
the majority to do that. Instead, we have wasted week after week after 
week on one senseless show vote after another--votes that one member in 
the Democratic Senate leadership recently admitted were designed solely 
to score points on millionaires.
  So let's deal first with the deadline that happens this Friday, 2 
days from now--fund the government through the rest of the fiscal 
year--and then turn immediately to the payroll tax extension that 
expires later in January, and let's pass the job-creating and job-
saving measures the House has passed.
  Therefore, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the 
majority leader's request to say as follows: that the Senate would turn 
to the consideration of the House bill relating to the payroll tax 
repeal extension immediately after the Senate passes a conference 
report or a bill received from the House that funds the government 
through the end of the fiscal year.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the majority leader so modify 
the request?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, my friend is living in a 
world of nonreality. Let's look for a way out.
  The House of Representatives, which has a significant majority of 
Republicans, last week couldn't even pass a bill. That was in all the 
press. They couldn't get the votes. So what they did, in an effort to 
placate the far right so they could pass a bill with Republican votes, 
they stuck in a bunch of issues that are hard to comprehend--issues 
dealing with the environment that have nothing to do with this bill. 
Even a Republican Senator said that bill, standing alone, looks OK, but 
jammed in with everything else it doesn't look so good. They should be 
separate issues.
  We have issues on the so-called omnibus or spending bill that have 
not yet been resolved, one dealing with Cuba, a very important piece of 
legislation in the minds of many Senators. One of the Senators who 
believes so strongly that this provision should be taken out is a 
Republican Senator from Florida. We have issues dealing with the 
environment which are extremely important: light bulbs, coal, and many 
other issues that haven't been resolved in this so-called omnibus.
  So, Madam President, I think everyone can see very clearly that my 
friends on the other side of the aisle obviously want to have the 
government shut down.
  As I have said before, and I will say again, they have had experience 
doing this. The presumptive Republican nominee Newt Gingrich tried that 
once and it didn't work so well. So I don't think it is going to work 
very well again. Everyone knows why the government is going to shut 
down, if, in fact, it does.
  We have 160 million Americans who are out there cheering for us--
cheering for us--that we can get them the tax relief they deserve. We 
have well more than 1 million Americans who have been out of work for a 
long period of time who are cheering for us. We have businesspeople out 
there who are cheering for us, that there are certain tax benefits that 
are important to creating jobs that we need to do before we leave here.
  So, Madam President, I object and ask unanimous consent that if the 
Senate receives from the House a bill that continues funding for the 
Federal Government through December 21, 2011, it be in order for the 
majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, to proceed 
to the bill; further, that the bill be read three times and passed, all 
with no intervening action or debate.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard for the first 
request.

[[Page 20100]]

  Is there objection to the second request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I am not sure what the majority 
leader just said.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, what I said is, I ask that if we get a 
bill from the House to have a CR, a continuing resolution, for another 
few days, that we be allowed to take it up. Under the rules of the 
Senate and the Congress, I cannot initiate a CR here. It is a tax 
measure and constitutionally has to start over there. So I have said 
that if the Senate receives from the House a bill that continues 
funding for the Federal Government--I said through December 21--any 
reasonable time is fine with me--it be in order for me, after I talk to 
the Republican leader, to proceed to the bill.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, we do 
not need to do that.
  Representative Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, one of the top 
members on the House Appropriations Committee, said this yesterday:

       Our bill is done, and it should go to the president 
     immediately. . . . We're not holding it up. . . . I can't 
     speak for Harry Reid. I can't speak for him. As far as I'm 
     concerned, it should be done.

  A government shutdown is 2 days away. We have an agreement based on 
what all the appropriators on the conference report are saying. We can 
pass that and do first things first--prevent a government shutdown. I 
agree with the majority leader, a government shutdown is a terrible 
idea. He has said that repeatedly. We have all said it repeatedly. The 
way to avoid that is to get our work done. The work is done on the 
appropriations conference report. We ought to get signatures on it, and 
we ought to pass it, and we ought to do it in the next 2 days.
  Now, Madam President, there were a series of other competing UCs 
here, and I am a little confused as to where we are.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object to that one, by the way, the last one we were 
discussing.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I know Congressman Moran. He is a fine man 
who has been in Congress many, many years. But he should step over here 
and talk to Senator Menendez or Marco Rubio and see how they feel about 
Cuba and the language in that bill that changes things in relation to 
how they feel, which dramatically changes our relationship with Cuba, 
or how about the chairman of the Environment Committee, Barbara Boxer. 
See how she feels about going back, in effect, to some saying the Dark 
Ages, changing lightbulbs, or how about dealing with other 
environmental issues, dealing with coal. How about talking to some of 
the other Senators on that committee.
  The bill is not complete. I think we could complete it very quickly 
if people sat down and focused on what we need to do to get out of 
here. But now it has not been completed. I do not care what Jim Moran 
says or what Mitch McConnell says, the bill is not completed.
  But, Madam President, what is obviously extremely clear, which is 
extremely clear here, my friend the Republican leader has talked for 
days--I went through what he said on Monday, what he said on two 
separate occasions on Tuesday: Let's vote on this bill now. That is 
what he said. It is obvious that something has happened in the last few 
hours that suddenly they do not want to vote on their own bill.
  Keep this in mind: The House has passed a bill that I have said and 
non-Democrats have said is a dead duck, DOA, dead on arrival. It is 
here. It is dead. And they do not want to vote on it. Do you think 
maybe they do not want to vote on it because Republican Senators are 
kind of embarrassed or ashamed of what is in that bill? I would think 
so.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I would say, speaking of 
embarrassment, it is that we are doing an omnibus again. The reason we 
are doing an omnibus again here on the eve of Christmas is because we 
have not passed our appropriations bills. We have had almost as many 
show votes in the Senate this year, roughly an equal number of show 
votes--in other words, designed to fail, to go nowhere, to present a 
talking point for the President in his campaign--as we have had votes 
on real bills that we are supposed to pass.
  So here we are once again. Three years this Democratic Senate has not 
passed a budget. Three years we have ended up either in omnibus or CR 
situations. And here we are again.
  Now the appropriators in the House and Senate have labored long and 
hard. A couple days ago, they said they were ready to sign the report. 
My good friend the majority leader and the President said: Don't let 
them sign the report. We might actually have to pass the bill--a 
mysterious strategy to me.
  All I am saying here is, first things first. If the majority leader 
is convinced the House-passed bill is DOA, why doesn't he start talking 
to the Speaker about how we might actually craft a bill that can pass 
both the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and quit wasting 
our time here in the Senate scoring points? A government shutdown is 2 
days away.
  So first things first. Let's keep the government from shutting down. 
These other measures do not expire until the end of the month. If the 
majority leader is correct that the House bill will not pass the 
Senate, why doesn't he talk to the Speaker and work out something that 
can pass on a bipartisan basis because, regretfully, I would say to my 
friend the majority leader, the Republicans control the House. The 
Democrats control the Senate, unfortunately, from my point of view. 
This has to be worked out.
  The last time I looked, Christmas is a week from Sunday. Time is a-
wasting. We have fiddled all year long--all year long, one point-
scoring bill after another, designed to fail, designed to divide us, 
designed to get no result, to give the President a talking point out on 
the campaign trail--and here we are, a few days before Christmas, and 
the silliness continues.
  Now, if my friend the majority leader is so convinced the House-
passed bill cannot pass the Senate, I would say again, talk to the 
Speaker and work out something that can pass both the House and the 
Senate. Time is a-wasting.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, talk about a diversion--that is what we 
just heard. My friend the Republican leader has talked from the very 
beginning of this Congress that his No. 1 goal is to defeat Obama for 
reelection. That is not looking so good. Romney is stumbling, Gingrich 
is plodding along, heading now everyplace.
  But, Madam President, because the Republican leader has caused us--
because we have the rules in the Senate, which I accept--has caused us 
to focus all of our attention on my friend trying to make sure the 
President is not reelected, we have spent months and months on things 
that were ordinarily done just like that.
  Funding the government--we had numerous CRs for very short periods of 
time. Finally, we were able to get that done. Then came the debt 
ceiling, and we spent 3 months on that--3 months of wasting time here 
in the Senate. Never have we done that. As I indicated and has been 
spread on the record of this body many, many times, under Ronald 
Reagan, the debt ceiling was raised 18 times just like that.
  Also, Madam President, anyone who understands Washington--and there 
are a lot more people who understand Washington than the people who are 
in this Chamber--my friend says: have him--me--go deal with the 
Speaker. Well, the issue there is kind of stunning how my friend has 
said this: Go talk to the Speaker. Everyone knows the Speaker cannot 
move forward with any negotiations until this bill is defeated here, 
period. Obviously, that is the case. The Speaker cannot negotiate with 
me until this bill is killed.
  So I repeat, the spending bill my friend the Republican leader 
complains about is not completed. The issue facing the American people 
is whether

[[Page 20101]]

they are going to have tax relief the Democrats want to give them or 
whether they are going to face a shutdown that was first made very 
unpopular by Newt Gingrich. And there is going to be another one that 
will be just as unpopular.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The original unanimous consent is 
still pending.
  Is there an objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. We will both object, just for good measure--a bipartisan 
objection.
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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