[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14705-14708]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we are at the brink. We are only hours 
away from a possible government shutdown. All over my State and all 
over the Nation there are very devoted Federal employees who are 
waiting to hear: Are we going to be called nonessential to performing 
important government services?
  Should they come in tomorrow? People have applied for small business 
loans. Are those loans going to be processed? People have applied for 
student loans. Are they going to be processed?
  What is going to happen to the National Weather Service? What is 
going to happen at NIH? What is going to happen at the Food and Drug 
Administration, where people stand sentry over the safety of our food 
supply and our drug supply.
  We don't know because we have just tabled the radical bill that the 
House sent over to us. It was deliberately designed to be politically 
provocative. Continuing resolutions were always about disputes over 
money. They were not about political, ideological viewpoints over past 
legislation.
  I am pleased that what we did was to table it and send it back to the 
House. The Senate acted very responsibly last week on a short-term 
continuing funding resolution that got rid of politically motivated 
riders and kept the

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government working for the American people until November 15 to work 
out our differences on funding bills.
  The House sent this back--yet one more bill that says if you don't 
delay the Affordable Care Act for 1 year, we will shut down the 
government. If you don't eliminate the benefits affecting prevention 
and particularly women's health, we will shut down the government. If 
the government shuts down tomorrow, it will be because of the House's 
viewpoint: My way or the highway.
  A government shutdown is a serious matter. These are a few things 
that will happen if we don't come together across the aisle, across the 
dome, and across town to pass a clean short-term continuing resolution. 
I wish to take a minute to highlight how damaging a government shutdown 
is on the day-to-day lives of our American people and our economy.
  Shutting down the Federal Government will have immediate and harmful 
consequences on our economy. Small Business Administration approval 
loans will be put on hold, and 28 million small businesses will no 
longer have access to federally assisted loans or technical assistance.
  In the rural areas, the USDA Rural Development housing, farm loan and 
grant program will stop.
  Let's go to the safety of our waterways. The Army Corps of Engineers 
will stop work on all flood control and navigation projects. This is 
what helps ensure that our ships can travel through America's 
waterways, whether they are coming up the Chesapeake Bay into the Port 
of Baltimore or they are traveling down the Mississippi River or the 
Missouri River or coming into the gulf.
  The Department of Commerce will stop economic development, minority 
business, and international trade assistance programs.
  I know that the House passed a separate amendment funding active duty 
military. I would hope so. These are men and women who put themselves 
in the line of duty.
  I also wish to remind people that there are other people every day 
who are doing a job to protect the health, safety, and laws of the 
American people. I represent all of the men and women who work at the 
Food and Drug Administration. It is headquartered in my State, and 
2,000 people--or 55 percent--will be furloughed at midnight.
  FDA will stop monitoring imports at our borders. What does that mean? 
Those men and women whose job it is to stand sentry over the food 
supply of the United States of America, we are going to tell them they 
are nonessential. If they stand sentry over the safety of our drugs and 
our medical devices, we are telling them they are nonessential. I don't 
think the American people support that. They might be a little bit 
cranky about the Federal Government here or there, but I think they 
want their food to be safe, their drugs to be safe, and they want us to 
move ahead with these devices to make sure they are in clinical 
practice.
  Over at the National Institutes of Health, which is located in 
Bethesda, MD--the National Institutes of Health and their subsidiaries 
that receive extramural funding throughout the United States of 
America--70 percent of the staff at NIH will be furloughed. Seventy 
percent of the 10,000 men and women who work at NIH will be furloughed 
at midnight. These are the people who are working on the cure for 
Alzheimer's, they are working on the cure for autism, and they are 
working on the cure for arthritis, and I am just going through the 
``a'' words. We could go on to the ``b'' words. How about breast 
cancer? How about cancer itself? Last year, when the NIH announced that 
cancer rates in America had been reduced by 15 percent, instead of 
pinning medals on the people at NIH and the private sector who worked 
with us on important drugs and biological products, we announced 
sequester. What kind of government would destroy the very agency that 
is set up to come up with cures in the case of Alzheimer's cognitive 
stretch-out? Seventy percent. And who are they? They are the lab 
technician people. They are the people who help run the administrative 
end of things, which enables those talented researchers to be able to 
do this.
  The NIH Clinical Center won't be able to admit new patients or start 
new clinical trials. The NIH Clinical Center is a hospital at NIH. You 
don't go there unless you are really sick and unless you are really 
desperate and unless you really have no place to go. You go in with no 
hope. But that is what they have nicknamed NIH around America--not the 
National Institutes of Health but the National Institutes of Hope, that 
what they are doing today is going to lead to solving the problems of 
tomorrow. Why? Why are we furloughing 70 percent? And not only are we 
furloughing, we are saying: Bye-bye for now. You are nonessential.
  Well, I think they are crucial. I think they are not only essential, 
but I think they are crucial. So I worry about what are our priorities.
  Then we go to the weather forecasters. Oh, they will be on the job. 
They are located in my State too.
  You might say: Well, do you have any people who work in the private 
sector?
  People in Maryland work in the private sector because of the public 
sector.
  Our law enforcement, our FBI, will be on the job. They are in the 
line of fire too, but they will be getting an IOU. Instead of an IOU, 
we should say to the FBI and to our border patrol and to our marshals, 
who are chasing sexual predators and human traffickers, not an IOU, we 
owe you a debt of gratitude. We owe you getting your pay on time. We 
shouldn't hide the fact you haven't received a cost of living for 3 
years. And we shouldn't be dancing around with ideologically motivated 
shutdowns.
  Social Security checks will go out, but the 18,000 people who will 
visit Social Security offices will find they are understaffed. On the 
average, half a million people call Social Security every day. They are 
going to get either no answer or a busy signal.
  I could go on and on about what the consequences of a shutdown will 
be. We really cannot do that. So I say to my colleagues on the other 
side of the dome, please, let's pass a clean CR. Let's pass it to 
November 15. Let's negotiate on a middle-ground number. They have a 
budget number of $988 billion, and they accept sequester as the new 
norm. Let's find a way to cancel sequester at least for 2 years.
  I marked up the appropriations bills at $1.058 trillion. That is the 
number the Senate passed in its Budget Committee in April. There is a 
$70 billion difference. I am ready to negotiate, but we can't 
capitulate. Let's find a middle ground.
  There was a great American general and a great statesman and a real 
American icon--Colin Powell. Over and over during the Reagan 
administration he would say: Let's find that sensible center. Let's 
find that sensible center.
  Let's avoid a shutdown. Let's stop playing slam-down politics. Let's 
come together and find a way to solve the problem of keeping the 
government open as well as a long-term fiscal solution for paying down 
our government's debt. I understand that. But also let's make sure we 
have a progrowth budget that lowers the unemployment rate, raises 
educational achievement, finds those cures for diseases affecting the 
American people. Let's have an FDA that can get them approved, ensuring 
safety and efficacy in the hands of our doctors here and doctors all 
over the world. Let's make sure that when we talk about American 
exceptionalism, we know where it comes from.
  Mr. President, I know there are other colleagues who wish to speak. I 
now yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Missouri.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I find the position we are in right 
now beyond frustrating, and I can imagine what the American people must 
be thinking right now. It is very hard from a distance to figure out 
who has really lost their minds--one party, the other party, all of us, 
the President. But I really want to boil down what has occurred because 
it is stunning when you boil it down.
  The House sent us a piece of legislation where they wanted to defund 
the

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health care reforms--ObamaCare--and that was the price they were 
demanding in order for the government to stay open. The ticket to 
admission for an open government was our getting rid of the health care 
bill. Well, we took that up and we defeated that bill. By a 10-vote 
margin, 54 to 44, we defeated that bill, and we sent it back to them 
with just the ticket to keep the government open--without an extra 
price of admission.
  This is where it gets interesting. What happened after we sent that 
back? Did they take it up and defeat it? No. No. They didn't vote. I 
want to make sure the American people understand this. All of the 
Members of Congress who were elected to serve the people of this 
country didn't get a chance to vote because the Speaker decided there 
wouldn't be a vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate-passed 
measure.
  Somebody said: Well, it is the Hastert rule.
  I have searched the Constitution, and I can't find the Hastert rule. 
It is not there. So the question we have to ask right now is, Why won't 
they let the House vote? Maybe they will defeat a clean attempt just to 
keep the government open.
  By the way, nobody here is against negotiating or compromise. We have 
compromised on the number in this continuing resolution, and we are 
perfectly willing and, in fact, we have been desperately trying to 
negotiate and compromise on the budget for months. Senator Cruz has 
blocked our attempts to go to conference on the budget.
  So it is not that none of us are willing to compromise. Maybe some of 
us aren't, but there is a good healthy bipartisan margin of Senators 
who want to compromise on issues surrounding Federal spending but not 
on keeping the government open and not on paying our bills. Let's get 
those done. Let's get those done. That is basic. Let's get it done.
  So my plea today to Speaker Boehner is this: Quit making decisions on 
behalf of all your Members--a small group of you huddled in a back 
room--because that is what is happening. There are two or three men in 
a back room down the hall, and they are deciding whether they are going 
to allow the elected representatives of this country to vote. I say let 
the House vote. I think the American people may be surprised that there 
would be a healthy bipartisan margin to, in fact, keep the government 
open when the clock strikes midnight tonight.
  Elections matter, and elections are what dictate what happens around 
here. We had an election last November. I remember it very well. I 
stood for election last November. There were two candidates for 
President of the United States, and every American citizen had a chance 
to decide who they wanted to lead this country. The contrast was very 
clear. One candidate said he was going to repeal ObamaCare on the very 
first day he was President. He was going to, by Executive order, wipe 
out ObamaCare on day one. The other candidate said: I am going to 
implement ObamaCare. That candidate won, and it wasn't even close.
  Every single Democratic Senator who ran for reelection and voted for 
ObamaCare was reelected. Red State, purple State, blue State--all of us 
were reelected who voted for ObamaCare. In fact, a couple more were 
elected in States where Republicans had represented those States. We 
didn't lose seats, we picked up seats. Even in the House of 
Representatives, the raw votes, there were more Democratic votes cast 
in the House of Representatives than Republican votes. They have the 
majority because of the way the districts are drawn. And I understand 
they control that House, but should they control whether people get to 
vote? Let the House vote.
  They say: ObamaCare is so unpopular; the American people don't want 
it.
  Now, I get that the polling is not good for this reform, and I am 
perfectly willing, as we implement it, if we need to, to make tweaks 
and changes to make it better.
  I hope my friends across the aisle will quit using this as a 
political 2 by 4 and help us make it as good as we can possibly make it 
because this isn't about any plot, this is about accessible and 
affordable health care for all Americans with a free market solution. 
These are all private insurance companies. There is not a government 
program in this. People are going to be able to choose between various 
private policies and various options, and they are never going to have 
to pay more than 9\1/2\ percent of their income for their insurance. 
The insurance companies aren't going to be able to swallow fat profits 
for golden parachutes for big CEOs anymore. They are going to have to 
spend 80 cents of every dollar for your health care. But it is all free 
market.
  This was a Republican solution in the beginning. The candidate for 
President forgot that--former Governor Romney--this was his solution 
for Massachusetts when he was Governor.
  Now, I will give the Republicans this: It is unpopular in the polls 
right now. But let's take this proposition: Guess what background 
checks for guns polls right now? I know the Presiding Officer knows 
painfully well what those numbers are because of the tragedy in his 
State. It is much higher, frankly, than those who say they think 
ObamaCare should be repealed--the Americans who support background 
checks on weapons purchases. So what would everyone on the other side 
of the aisle think if we decided, well, you know, we are going to shut 
down the government if you won't pass background checks on guns. It is 
what the American people want. We will just shut down the government if 
you won't pass it. That is not the way we legislate. That is not the 
constitutional framework our Founding Fathers put together. There would 
be outrage that we would try to shut down the government over 
background checks on guns. Yet the very same premise would apply to 
what they are doing.
  The President won. The majority of the Senate are in fact individuals 
who support this valiant attempt to try to do something with a health 
care system that was headed off the rails, becoming more and more 
unaffordable every day. By the way, everything that is bad now is 
ObamaCare. I laughingly made a joke in my State that our university's 
team didn't do very well in offense during the first half. I said, it 
must be ObamaCare. Because no matter what is out there that people are 
upset about, somehow they manage to paint it with the ObamaCare brush.
  I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised. It is not going 
to be as intrusive as some of the talking heads warned. It is going to 
provide a marketplace where people can pool risk and get a better deal. 
It is going to provide a lot more nights where parents can rest easy 
because they are not rolling the dice every day and depending on the 
emergency room for their day-to-day health needs.
  My message today is very simple. All of this is premised on the 
notion that one should be able to shut down our government because they 
don't get their way in an election. I don't think that is the role 
model we want to serve to the other governments in the world, much less 
to our kids. I think we can compromise on a lot. We can even work on 
making this bill better. But let's keep the government open, let's pay 
our bills, and then let's sit down and have some meaningful negotiation 
and compromise about Federal spending. I am somebody in my caucus who 
is always open to other ways we can cut spending. Some in my caucus 
don't feel as strongly as I do about that, but I am willing to listen 
to all sides and negotiate around the budget.
  Let's not hold our economy hostage in the process. Real people are 
going to be hurt. This isn't just about who is on the Sunday morning 
shows, who is your primary opponent, what are they saying on cable 
news. This is about real folks, and we need to be focused on them.
  I implore Speaker Boehner, let the Members vote. Just let them vote. 
Put it on the floor. He can do it in an hour. Put it on the floor and 
let them vote. If it is defeated, then let's talk. I will bet it won't 
be.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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