[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5200-5201]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to the floor to speak in 
morning business and to comment on the terrible situation we find 
ourselves in. We are in a terrible situation. The Republican leader is 
exactly right, the clock is ticking on a shutdown.
  But I have a couple principles as we head into the midnight witching 
hour on Friday. First of all, my first principle is no shutdown. Let's 
have a sitdown. Let's not shut down government and cut off the funding 
for private sector contractors that do business with the government. 
Let's have a congressional sitdown and arrive at an orderly, rational 
agreement that does create a more frugal government but does not 
torpedo our economy.
  But my second principle is, if we shut down the government and 
Federal employees and contractors do not get paid, Congress should not 
get paid. Not only should Congress not get paid, no back pay, no way. I 
spoke about the congressional no-pay position yesterday.
  Today, I wish to talk about the consequences of the shutdown. I am 
against a government shutdown. Shutting down the government breaks 
faith with Federal employees, jeopardizes our economic recovery, 
threatens the viability of small- and medium-sized businesses that do 
business with the Federal Government and even threatens the safety of 
our families and our economy.
  That is why I am for a congressional sitdown, not a shutdown of the 
Federal Government. Democrats and Republicans should negotiate over 
spending cuts. But what is not open for negotiation is whether the 
Federal Government is worth keeping open. Parties must come together.
  There is a belief that a shutdown will occur only in Washington. Oh, 
the lights will go out in the Washington Monument, maybe a museum will 
be closed here or there, maybe even a national park will be closed here 
or there. Both on the Senate floor, the House floor, and even in the 
media, it is followed by kind of a snicker or even a snarl. How 
foolish, how they do not understand the functioning of the Government 
of the United States of America.
  I am afraid the lights will go out. I am afraid the government 
agencies will be shuttered. I am concerned that people who work on 
behalf of the Federal Government as those contractors, small- and 
medium-sized contractors, disabled veteran contractors will not get 
paid.
  I am for cuts. I voted for the Democratic package with over $51 
billion in cuts. In my own appropriations bill, I reduced agency 
overhead by 10 percent. I cut out lavish conferences and so on by 25 
percent. I could eliminate that year by year. But cuts alone are not a 
strategy to reduce the deficit.
  What I do not want is to make sure our government will not be funded. 
There are other ways of doing it, and I will talk about that more 
tomorrow, about how we can actually pay for this, but today I wish to 
talk about the consequences of what we are doing. There is nobody on 
the Senate floor talking about it. I appreciate the minority leader, 
but on my side, if nobody is going to talk about it, I am going to talk 
about it.
  A possible government shutdown creates uncertainty in consumer 
confidence and further damages the economy. Mark Zandi, the chief 
economist of Moody's, says it will damage the confidence in the economy 
and could result in the loss of 700,000 jobs. Well, let me tell you--
and everybody says: Oh, well, that is government. I am going to talk 
about: Oh, well, that is government in a minute.
  But let's take the private sector. Let's take that snickering and 
snarling over national parks. Do you know the national parks--we have 
365 of them, 49 States, 300 million visitors. Do you know those 
national parks generate 270,000 private sector jobs in campgrounds, 
restaurants, gas stations, vendors to the national parks.
  Oh, yes, you can laugh about closing down Yellowstone, and maybe that 
is not the explosive thing--270,000 jobs, mostly in the West. I did not 
hear that the West had such a low unemployment rate that they do not 
give a darn. Local communities near national parks will lose $14 
million a day. That is the national park argument.
  Let me go to the contractors. I represent the State of Maryland, 
where we

[[Page 5201]]

have a lot of contractors. Take the Goddard Space Agency, 3,000 civil 
servants who do everything from help run the Hubble telescope and green 
science, to figuring out how we can fix the satellites through robots 
in the sky. But there are 6,000 contractors--6,000 contractors. Some of 
them are small business, 8(a) contractors working their way up.
  Many of them--some of them are women. Many of them are veterans who 
started small- to medium-sized businesses. These people, if there is a 
government shutdown, will not get paid. Hello, colleagues. This is not 
only going to happen in my State, this is going to happen in your 
State.
  There was a major article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about 
what the shutdown means to the private sector. Well, let's wake up and 
let's move more quickly to this sitdown.
  I wish to talk about essential versus nonessential. In my State, I 
represent over 100,000 Federal employees. Three of them are Nobel Prize 
winners I will talk about in a minute--Nobel Prize winners who are 
civil servants. Those are not even the gangs at Hopkins and the 
University of Maryland. Those are three Nobel Prize winners who are 
actual civil servants.
  Under this shutdown we are headed for, they are going to be told they 
are nonessential. We have a Nobel Prize winner at NIST who works on the 
development of new work on laser light. Secretary Chu was his partner.
  We have a Nobel Prize winner at NIH who won the Nobel Prize for 
proteins and cellular communication that could lead to a cure for 
cancer and a Nobel Prize winner at Goddard in physics. I am not going 
to call their names; I do not want to feel awkward. But what am I going 
to do midnight Friday? Am I going to call these three Nobel Prize 
winners and say: Hey, guys, you are nonessential. We know you could be 
in the private sector making millions of dollars, but you are staying 
here to do research to save lives, save the planet, and lead to saving 
our economy. But, hey, I guess you are nonessential.
  In other countries, they carry you around on their shoulders and so 
on. But here, no, we are told they are nonessential. It is not only 
Nobel Prize winners, it is all the other people who are working. We are 
going to turn out the lights at the National Institutes of Health. We 
are going to say to a researcher: I know you are working on that cure 
for cancer. I know you are working on that cure for Alzheimer's or 
autism or arthritis--sticking just with the ``A'' words. But you know 
what, Washington, the Congress says, you are not essential.
  What about Social Security? I have over 10,000 people who work at the 
Social Security Administration. You say: Well, my God, that is a lot. 
That is 24/7 to make sure it all functions properly and efficiently. We 
have the lowest overhead of any ``insurance company'' in America. But 
these lights are going to be shuttered at Social Security, not only in 
Senator Barb's and Senator Ben Cardin's State, but it is also going to 
be shuttered, Madam President, in your State. When people want to come 
to apply for benefits they are eligible for, when people who are 
disabled want to apply for those benefits, they are going to come to a 
shuttered Social Security office. They are going to be told they are 
not essential.
  Well, then, let's wait until Monday morning. Are they not going to 
come to work fired up, ready to work for America, ready to help America 
be great again? They are America's essential employees doing the work 
that goes on at NIH, Social Security, the National Institutes of 
Standards. They come up with new ideas.
  Then look at commerce. I represent the great Port of Baltimore. Ships 
are going to come into the port. Who is going to inspect their cargo? 
Traffic coming into airports, who is going to inspect their cargo?
  But, oh, no, we are going to tell them they are nonessential. Well, I 
am telling you, this is not going to be good. But you know what is not 
good, not only the consequences but the way we are functioning.
  Madam President--hello? Madam President. I do not know if my speech 
is not that attention-getting, but can I have your attention?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has consumed 10 
minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Well, then, my time is up. Well, maybe the Senate is 
not paying attention, but the American people are paying attention. I 
am telling you, this is a situation of enormous negative consequence. I 
think we are going to rue the day at the way we are functioning. We 
need to come to the table, and we need to sit around and act like 
rational human beings.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.

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