[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14724-14729]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I come to the floor today in a state of 
disbelief. With millions of people out of work, with an economic 
recovery still far too fragile, with students and families being 
crushed by student loan debt, with millions of seniors denied their 
chance at one hot meal a day, with Meals On Wheels, and millions of 
little children pushed out of Head Start because of a sequester, with 
the country hours away from a government shutdown and days away from a 
potential default on the Nation's debt, the Republicans have decided 
that the single most important issue facing our Nation is to change the 
law so employers can deny women access to birth control coverage.
  In fact, letting employers decide whether women can get birth control 
covered on their insurance plans is so important that the Republicans 
are willing to shutter the government and potentially tank the economy, 
over whether women can get access to birth control in the year 2013,--
not the year 1913, the year 2013.
  I have a daughter and I have granddaughters, and I will never vote to 
let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth 
control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back--not 
ever.
  This assault on birth control is just one more piece of an ongoing 
Republican assault on the orderly functioning of our government and the 
orderly functioning of our economy. In effect, the Republicans are 
trying to take the government and the economy hostage, threatening 
serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the 
Affordable Care Act.
  This assault is utterly bizarre. Congress passed the Affordable Care 
Act to solve real, honest-to-God problems. Our health care system is 
broken. Forty-eight million people in this country had no health 
insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with 
diabetes were denied health insurance because of a preexisting 
condition. People with cancer hit the caps on health insurance 
spending. Health care spending in this country was growing way too 
fast. So we worked hard. We compromised. We came up with a solution--a 
solution that will substantially improve the lives of millions of 
Americans--because that is the way democracy works.
  It is time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act 
should exist and whether it should be funded. Congress voted for this 
law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld this 
law. The President ran for reelection on this law. In fact, his 
opponent said he would repeal it and his opponent lost by 5 million 
votes.
  I see things such as this and I wonder what alternate reality some of 
my colleagues are living in. So let me be very clear about what is 
happening in the real world. The ACA is the law of the land. Millions 
of people are counting on it--people who need health care coverage, 
people who need insurance policies that do not disappear just when they 
are their sickest. Women will get insurance coverage for birth control. 
The law is here to stay, and it will stay. Earlier today the Senate 
emphasized that reality by flatly rejecting the Republicans' newest 
ransom note, just as we did last week.
  We should be having a real debate about our budget because we have 
real problems to solve. Earlier this year automatic across-the-board 
cuts went into effect throughout the Federal Government. That is the 
sequester. The sequester hits American families where they live. During 
my visits to cities and towns across Massachusetts, I have heard from 
families, small business owners, and community development 
organizations--from the Berkshires to the Cape. They tell me what it is 
like trying to stay afloat with mindless, across-the-board spending 
cuts weighing them down.
  More than a thousand employees at Westover Air Force Base and Barnes 
Air National Guard Base in western Massachusetts are facing furloughs. 
This fall, more than 2,000 Massachusetts kids could not get into Head 
Start because of cuts, and the Head Start Program in Billerica will 
close completely at the end of this year. Federal workers across our 
State stand to lose as much as 30 percent of their salaries. Every one 
of those losses will tighten family budgets. And when families make 
less money, they have less to spend with local merchants and less money 
to pay off bills and less money to save and less money to do all that 
keeps our economy humming.
  In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says ending the sequester 
would add 900,000 jobs to the economy by the end of next year. Next 
time you think about someone you know who is looking for a job or who 
is working part time but hoping to get full-time work, think about the 
900,000 jobs the sequester has destroyed.
  Scientists and medical researchers in Massachusetts are also getting 
pounded by the sequester. They are working hard to expand our medical 
knowledge and develop new cures for devastating diseases. They are 
working on discoveries that will help us in ways we cannot even 
imagine. Yet here we are, bluntly hacking away at their funding, 
delaying their research, and cutting off promising new work before it 
even starts--not because we have to, not because it is inevitable, but 
because Washington has its priorities all wrong, and it is making some 
truly terrible decisions.
  Consider the Framingham Heart Study. It is a generations-long study 
of the causes of heart disease, a study that has helped create 
groundbreaking advancements in medical knowledge.

[[Page 14725]]

There are people across this country who are alive today in part 
because of the work that began with this study. This study continues to 
yield extraordinary results, but it is scheduled to lose 40 percent of 
its funding--40 percent. Next time you think of someone you love who 
has heart trouble, think about the sequester cutting one of the world 
premier heart research programs.
  Senate Democrats have put forward alternatives that would adequately 
fund the government while also addressing our budget deficits. Back in 
March the Senate passed a budget that would have ended the sequester. 
It was not easy. We had to make some compromises. No one loved 
everything in the final bill, but we debated it and we passed it. This 
is what Congress is supposed to do. But after we did all of that, 
Senate Republicans decided to filibuster the budget again and blocked 
us from going to conference with the House on the final bill. That is 
just pure obstruction, plain and simple.
  In July the Senate attempted to pass the first of several 
appropriations bills to keep the government open and to end the 
sequester. We had a bipartisan Transportation and Housing bill that 
would have helped repair crumbling roads and bridges in our 
communities. It would have created more jobs, and it would have rolled 
back sequestration in these programs. But, once again, Senate 
Republicans filibustered and blocked that bill.
  Now we are just hours from the government running out of money. We 
have not fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We have 
not finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We have not even 
passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction.
  The least we can do--the bare minimum we can do--would be to pass a 
continuing resolution to keep the doors open and the lights on. We can 
ensure that over a million Federal workers are not simply sent home for 
no reason. We can avoid a government shutdown. But the Republicans have 
refused to do even that. They have continued to threaten to shutter the 
government unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. 
The Senate rejected that position twice. Yet the Republican response 
has been to continue to threaten to shut down the government.
  These threats may continue, but they are not working, and they will 
never work because this is democracy, and in a democracy hostage 
tactics are the last resort for those who cannot win their fights 
through elections, cannot win their fights in Congress, cannot win 
their fights for the Presidency, and cannot win their fights in the 
courts. For this rightwing minority, hostage taking is all they have 
left--a last gasp for those who cannot cope with the realities of our 
democracy.
  The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the 
reality of our democracy to get out of the way so that those of us in 
both parties who understand the American people sent us here to work 
for them can get back to work solving real problems faced by the 
American people. We have real work to do, and that is what we should be 
doing.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I urge leadership in the House of 
Representatives to simply schedule a vote on the Senate-passed bill. I 
understand a number of people in the majority party are going to vote 
no. I also believe that--and the Presiding Officer used to be in the 
House of Representatives, as I was years ago. It is a democratic House, 
and I mean ``democratic'' with a small ``d.'' They should schedule a 
vote. I believe a majority of Members of the House of Representatives 
would vote for the bipartisan continuing resolution that passed the 
Senate. I believe they would pass it in the House if the Speaker of the 
House would let it come to a vote.
  Is the Speaker of the House going to be the Speaker of the radical 
right of the Republican Party or is he going to be the Speaker of the 
U.S. House of Representatives? Fundamentally, that is the question. Is 
he going to be the Speaker of the radical right in the House of 
Representatives or is he going to be the Speaker of the U.S. House of 
Representatives? If he chooses the latter, if he chooses before 
midnight, there will not be a government shutdown because a majority of 
the House of Representatives--not necessarily a majority of the 
Republicans, but a majority of those who took the oath of office on 
January 3, 2013, who were elected in November of 2012, and then took 
that oath--I believe a majority of them will support it.
  I think it is always a good idea to look back in time a little to 
what happened in the past. We know that more than 30 times when 
President Reagan was President and President Bush Senior was President 
and President Bush Junior was President, the Congress raised the debt 
ceiling, even with a Democratic Congress, without preconditions, 
without threatening to shut the government down or without threatening 
default; and a number of times the same situation on continuing 
resolutions, passing budgets, all those things.
  But never really before in the House of Representatives or the Senate 
has there been a body of Members who have tried repeatedly to have 
their way to, in a sense, attach their political platform from the 
election of the year before to a continuing resolution, and if they do 
not get that political platform attached, they are simply going to shut 
the government down. That is really what is happening.
  There is all this talk about that the public does not like the 
Affordable Care Act. Some call it ObamaCare. The official name is the 
Affordable Care Act. There is some talk from the House of 
Representatives, really ad nauseam, that they do not like the 
Affordable Care Act and they say the public does not like the 
Affordable Care Act. But let's look at that.
  (Mr. DONNELLY assumed the Chair.)
  In 2012, the President of the United States was reelected--a strong 
supporter of the Affordable Care Act.
  In 2012, supporters of the Affordable Care Act were elected, 
including the new Presiding Officer, who replaced the Senator from 
Hawaii, who is a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I was 
reelected--a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. A strong majority in 
the Senate support the Affordable Care Act, many of whom stood for 
reelection and were successful. In fact, two more were elected this 
time who held office prior to this election and who supported the 
Affordable Care Act. More people voted for House candidates who 
supported the Affordable Care Act. More people voted for Democrats in 
the House races than Republicans, even though redistricting made the 
outcome a little different, obviously, from that.
  So the point is, there is no public sentiment to shut the government 
down in order to defund or repeal or hold back or delay or emasculate 
or pull apart--or whatever--the Affordable Care Act.
  But let's go back a bit in history.
  In July 1965--48 years and a couple months ago--President Johnson 
signed Medicare into law. It passed bipartisanly, although a number of 
Republicans were strongly against it, especially the far right. In 
1965, when Medicare passed, the John Birch Society did not like it. 
That was sort of the tea party of today. A lot of doctors did not like 
it. A lot of insurance companies did not like it in 1965. But a lot of 
people who were suspicious of government overall said they did not like 
it and opposed it, and a lot of them continued to oppose it after the 
election.
  But 5 years later, the country clearly was very happy with Medicare. 
Certainly 48 years later, the country is very happy with Medicare. I do 
not think there is much question that 5 years from now people will be 
happy with the Affordable Care Act. They know it will have worked for 
people in this country. Much of it already has worked, as the Presiding 
Officer knows.
  In my State, almost a million seniors have already received benefits. 
They

[[Page 14726]]

have gotten free preventive care with no copays, no deductibles. 
Seniors from Youngstown and Toledo have had screenings for osteoporosis 
and physicals and all and there is no copay or deductible for those 
living on Medicare. People from Cleveland to Cincinnati, people in 
their twenties--100,000 Ohioans in their twenties--have been able to go 
on their parents' health care plan up until the age of 26. Because of a 
rule in the Affordable Care Act, we have seen thousands of Ohioans get 
a rebate check from the insurance companies because the insurance 
companies charged too much.
  We know a lot of those benefits have been out there. Families who 
have a child with a preexisting condition are no longer being denied 
coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. So we know much of it has 
taken effect and much of it has been to the public benefit. We also 
know come tomorrow, October 1, much more of the Affordable Care Act--
the rest of it--will be rolled out.
  Seniors have saved in my State--and I think in the State of Indiana--
an average of about $700. Those who are in the prescription drug plan 
have saved about that amount of money on their prescription drugs, 
again, because of the Affordable Care Act. We know that. Put that 
aside.
  Let's simply ask the House of Representatives to bring this bill up. 
We know what happens if we do not. A shutdown would hurt the financing 
of more than 1,000 small businesses per week in my State--from Hamilton 
to Chillicothe, to Mansfield, to Ashtabula. The Small Business 
Administration in 2012 approved nearly 54,000 applications through 
their credit loans program, supporting over half a million jobs. A 
shutdown would stop the ability of the SBA to loan to small businesses 
through this program.
  A shutdown would put 52,000 Ohio federal employees at risk of being 
out of work. Most of them would temporarily lose jobs. We know that is 
a drag on the economy. We know it would mean government services are 
not being rendered. It would mean those tens of thousands of workers 
would not get paid. It would mean a stumbling, a faltering, a 
sputtering of our economic growth and the economic recovery, because 
people are not making the money and putting money back into the 
economy.
  Senior citizens would be ineligible, if there is a shutdown, to apply 
for new Social Security benefits. The Social Security applications 
would not be taken as a result of Federal furloughs and service cuts. 
In 2012, more than 2.2 million Ohioans received--obviously many had 
been receiving for years--Social Security benefits.
  All we ask is that the Speaker of the House do what one should do in 
a democracy. Let the elected representatives of Congress have the 
opportunity to vote. Give them the opportunity to vote yes or no on the 
Senate-passed, bipartisanly passed continuing resolution. Speaker 
Boehner needs to make a decision. Is he going to be the Speaker of the 
radical far right Republican party or is he going to be the Speaker of 
the House of Representatives? That choice is clear. Bring that bill to 
the floor. Let all 435 Members of the House of Representatives who were 
elected last November and sworn in in January have the opportunity to 
vote.
  I think if they do, it will mean the President will sign the bill 
before midnight and keep this government operating. There is simply no 
reason for it, as we lurch from crisis to crisis, all created by a 
political agenda, that most of the people in this country have rejected 
at election time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, we are here tonight in the Senate, hours 
away from a deadline which, if action is not taken on the House side, 
the other body, will lead to a government shutdown. Unfortunately, when 
I have been asked today by either constituents or reporters, and they 
ask: Is it less likely or more likely that there will be a shutdown, I 
have had to be honest and say: At least at this moment it seems more 
likely than less likely.
  I think we have to examine not just how to try to resolve this in a 
way that makes sense, but also to remind ourselves how we got here. 
This is not the typical battle in Washington. We have had a lot of 
those. We should all try to work in a bipartisan fashion. But this one 
is unique in the sense that you have, on the one side, Democrats in 
Congress and across the country who are united in an effort to continue 
the operations of the government and not have a government shutdown, 
even if we want to make a point, even if we want to make an argument 
about this or that policy.
  We see a growing number of Republicans here in the Senate and across 
the country, and maybe even a few in the House, even in the last 24 
hours or so, who are saying: Let's just get the government funded so we 
can move forward. We might be able to have a debate in the middle of 
November or somewhere down the road. But let's not hold up the 
operations of government or default on our obligations for the first 
time since 1789 in order to make an ideological point or a political 
point.
  It is clear from the national data that Independents are on that side 
of the argument as well. So you have this consensus on one side, with 
Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, who say that we should not--
in order to make a point about an issue, whether it is health care or 
the economy or whatever it is--we should not act in a way that would 
shut down the government to do that.
  On the other side, you have the far right of the Republican party 
which not only believes that in order to make their point they are 
willing to allow the government to shut down, but they also have a 
determination to do that to the extent one wing of one party is really 
driving the train in that party. It happens to be the Republican Party.
  So this is unusual. It is not the typical Democrat versus Republican 
debate. It started months ago when politicians who work in this town 
would go home to their State or their districts and make the point 
that, no matter what, they were going to argue that this is the moment 
where they should stop the health care bill. No matter what was in 
their way, they were going to continue to drive in that direction.
  That is how we have gotten here. What happens if we go past the 
deadline and there is a shutdown of a few days or longer? Here is what 
some of the data show from some of the folks who are not in the 
Congress but who observe broader trends, especially economic trends.
  Mark Zandi is Moody's chief economist. He is widely respected. I 
think people in both parties respect his opinion. According to him--and 
I am not quoting, I am just summarizing what he said--a shutdown 
lasting a few days would cost the economy 0.2 percent of GDP, while a 
longer shutdown could cost as much as 1.4 percent.
  Sometimes it is difficult to say what 0.2 percent of GDP means. What 
it means for sure is the economy, which has been moving in the right 
direction--we have had tremendous job growth, over 9 quarters now, and 
many months of job growth. But we are not moving fast enough. We are 
not creating jobs at a fast enough pace.
  When I go home to Pennsylvania people do not say to me: Score every 
point you can for your point of view. They say to me: Work together 
with the other side to create jobs. Work together with the other side 
to put in place strategies that will lead to economic growth and to job 
growth.
  If you are going to go in the wrong direction when it comes to 
growth, and you lose 0.2 percent of growth, and then, if the shutdown 
goes longer you lose 0.4 or 0.5 or 0.6, over time you are going in the 
wrong direction. But we

[[Page 14727]]

know when you lose even 0.2 percent of growth you are killing jobs. So 
first and foremost, any shutdown is a big job killer. A default on our 
obligations would be a much bigger job killer.
  A shutdown would not just slow growth, but it would spread anxiety. 
This is just human nature. It will spread anxiety among consumers. We 
know that in the summer of 2011 the almost default on our obligations 
caused consumer confidence to take a nosedive. We did not come out of 
that hole of consumer confidence until many months later. A government 
shutdown has a similar effect.
  How about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not usually on my side of a 
lot of debates or on the Democratic side? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
has urged Congress to keep the government open and has said that a 
shutdown would be ``economically disruptive and create even more 
uncertainty in the U.S. economy.'' So this is the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce, which is often making arguments about uncertainty in other 
contexts. They are saying that a shutdown would create even more 
uncertainty.
  How about the economic recovery? I mentioned those 9 quarters of 
growth we have had. We have had job growth as well. Just in terms of 
how you measure it: 7.5 million private sector jobs--7.5 million added 
in the last 42 months. That will take a nosedive. So instead of growing 
at 160,000 jobs a month, roughly, which has been kind of the pace for a 
while now, which is not fast enough--we need to be at 200,000 or 
230,000 or 240,000 if we really want to say that the economy has taken 
off. But instead of growing at 160,000, 170,000, or even higher, we 
will go backwards. Maybe the job growth for the next couple of months 
will be substantially less than that. A shutdown all but ensures that 
to happen.
  We don't know exactly how much slowing or how much damage would be 
done to the job growth, but there is going to be a job impact for sure, 
and I think that is pretty clear from the data.
  Both sides in a lot of debates in Washington say they stand for small 
businesses. We can debate which side does a better job for small 
business. We know when a small business person needs some help, a 
measure of help from the Federal Government, they usually turn to the 
Small Business Administration. We know the SBA, their approval of 
applications for business loans guarantees and direct loans to small 
business would cease. If we take the Small Business Administration off 
the playing field, they average about 1,000 loans or loan guarantees 
per week. That is national.
  What does that mean for Pennsylvania?
  From October 2012 through August of this year, 2013, the SBA 
supported over 1,400 loans for over $600 million for small businesses 
in Pennsylvania. On average, that is about 30 loans for over $13 
million to entrepreneurs each week--every week, on average, based upon 
the recent data in Pennsylvania, 30 loans and $13 million helping small 
businesses in Pennsylvania. To shut that off would make our economic 
circumstance even worse.
  In Pennsylvania, we had many months in a row where the unemployment 
numbers were 500,000 people unemployed or more. Thankfully, it dipped 
below 500,000 for a couple of months. We just received the numbers from 
August because the State numbers are always behind. The State data for 
August unfortunately shows we are just above 500,000 people out of 
work. A shutdown will bring that 500,000-persons out-of-work number and 
send it higher and send it in the wrong direction.
  What about veterans? People say veterans' disability checks would go 
out, just as Social Security checks would go out, in the aftermath of a 
shutdown. That is only part of the story. If you are a veteran getting 
disability checks or a pension benefit--in our State we have 109,000 
veterans who receive disability or pension help. They may get their 
check, but it is highly likely, if not a certainty, that those checks 
will be delayed.
  If you are a veteran and are entitled to this because of what you did 
for our country, because part of a political party wants to make an 
ideological point, you have to wait for your check. You have to wait 
for your disability check. That makes no sense. To say it is unfair to 
a veteran or to his or her family is an understatement.
  What about Social Security? People say: Well, the checks are going to 
go out so people will be just fine in a shutdown.
  That is only part of the story. Yes, current recipients will get 
their checks, but if you reach the age of 65 and you wish to have your 
application processed, you will not be able to do that or, at a 
minimum, that will be slowed substantially.
  In our State, every month more than 11,600 people are able to start 
the process for Social Security benefits. Those people will have to 
wait and wait in the advent of a government shutdown.
  What about national parks? We have a great blessing in our State 
where we have an abundance of national parks and historic sites which 
are wonderful for the country, wonderful for enrichment, learning, and 
history, but they also are a big economic driver in different 
communities.
  In southeastern Pennsylvania, when you add it all, one of the numbers 
I saw was over $200,000 of impact. Those, unlike a lot of others I 
spoke about, those parts of the government will stop completely. An 
economic engine in one part of our State that averages about $200,000 
of economic impact will stop. Maybe we will lose $10,000 over the 
course of a shutdown. Maybe Pennsylvania will lose $20,000 or $30,000. 
We are going to lose for sure and a lot of other States will as well.
  The Flight 93 National Memorial is one of those from 9/11 and 
Gettysburg and Valley Forge/Independence Visitor Center in 
Philadelphia, there are many examples and many job impacts when it 
comes to all of those.
  The basic point is some people would say: Look, you are in the Senate 
or the House, and you wish to have a debate about something as 
significant and consequential to people's lives or to our economy such 
as health care, you ought to be able to debate that. I would agree with 
that. There is no question about it. We had big debates in 2009 leading 
up to a vote in the Senate. Then the debate continued in 2010. The bill 
was enacted in 2010. There was still debate about it after that. There 
were votes taken one after another to repeal it. Then the Supreme Court 
litigated it. That took months until the Supreme Court made a decision.
  The Supreme Court, which is dominated--or at least the majority are 
Republican-appointed Justices--said the Affordable Care Act was 
constitutional. Then there was a Presidential election, which was 
another kind of litigation or debate. One candidate said: I am going to 
keep the Affordable Care Act in place, and we are not going to repeal 
it. The other side said: We are going to repeal it. The side that said 
they were going to put it into effect won the election--that of 
President Obama.
  This has been debated and litigated several direct ways in several 
different branches of our government. That will continue and, frankly, 
it should continue. Some of the impacts are already in place. We know 
that.
  We know, for example, that since 2010, when the consumer protections 
went into effect, which had nothing to do initially with those who were 
uninsured, the tens of millions of uninsured, but we put in place the 
consumer protections for those with insurance, those who had coverage, 
were making payments--premium payments--yet their children were still 
not protected because of a preexisting condition.
  Up until 2010, it was the law--or it was the prevailing policy that 
if an insurance company wanted to say to those who were paying 
premiums, sorry, I know you are making your payments, but your child 
has a preexisting condition, and they are not covered, that was 
permitted when insurance companies had all of the power. I would argue 
they had all the power, an unfair advantage and bargaining advantage. 
Since 2010, we have had something on the order of 17 million children 
who could no longer be

[[Page 14728]]

denied coverage due to a preexisting condition, solely and completely 
because of the Affordable Care Act.
  We have millions of young people who can stay on their parents' 
policies from the ages of 19 to 25. They can only stay on those 
policies solely because of the Affordable Care Act, because it was 
enacted into law.
  We have millions of seniors who are getting payments over time to 
help them fill the coverage gap of the so-called doughnut hole. They 
are getting those payments solely because of the Affordable Care Act.
  Tomorrow, we are going to see the beginning of the exchanges going 
up, where people can go into a marketplace and shop for the best 
possible health care insurance that they can afford. Most people--
probably as many as 150 million Americans--already have coverage and 
their employer provides it, so their status will not change that much, 
if at all.
  These changes are going into effect over time. I would hope the 
people who wish to keep debating it and making changes to it--and I 
voted for changes as well--would allow it to be, if not fully 
implemented, something close to fully over the next couple of months or 
maybe even over the next couple of years. Then at some point this 
debate about who is right or who is wrong about the impact will have 
been determined.
  We are all for debate on the budget, health care, and everything 
else, but we shouldn't bring the country to these cliffs--the cliff 
meaning this deadline tonight on the budget, where the House has our 
legislation, which is only about the budget. They could pass it. It 
will pass if the Speaker puts it on the floor tonight. It would pass, 
and we would be beyond this crisis. Then we would move to the next 
deadline, get beyond these deadlines, have a big debate, and have very 
strong arguments made about how we get a full year's worth of a budget 
starting in the middle of November. That is the appropriate time and 
the appropriate place to make arguments about the budget, the economy, 
jobs, health care or whatever else it is. Now is not the time.
  I would hope between now and midnight, the House would put up our 
bill, which is very simple--it keeps the government operating with no 
conditions and no add-ons--and pass that legislation. We would be done 
with this, and we could move on to issues people want us to work on.
  I will restate what I said before. People in Pennsylvania, when they 
say to me what they want me to do, they say work together to create 
jobs. If you had to put that in a sound bite, that is what it is.
  I am hoping between now and then this consensus of Republicans, 
Democrats, and Independents that prevailed throughout the country will 
have the appropriate influence on those who are trying to push this to 
the end and shut down the government. A government shutdown is bad for 
everybody, no matter what party you are in. We should keep working to 
make sure it doesn't happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Earlier today the Senate rejected for the second time the 
House Republican continuing resolution. The approach they have adopted 
over in the House attempts to and would deprive millions of Americans 
of health insurance if it were passed here. It is not going to pass 
here.
  I would say to Speaker Boehner we have given your proposal a vote. In 
fact, we have voted on it twice. Now you owe it to the American people 
to hold a vote, a vote on the bipartisan, clean continuing resolution 
which would keep the government open. This is the resolution which the 
Senate sent to you just a few hours ago.
  The only thing preventing us from keeping this government open is 
Speaker Boehner's refusal to bring a bipartisan Senate continuing 
resolution to the House floor. I think most Republicans over there even 
acknowledge that it would pass if Speaker Boehner would allow a vote on 
it.
  The Senate, a short time ago, approved a measure to allow for the pay 
of our men and women in uniform to continue in the event of a 
government shutdown. This measure was necessary because requiring our 
military to go into combat with only an IOU instead of pay would be a 
travesty. Nobody should be fooled. It is only one travesty that was 
avoided among many. Even if we restrict our view to the impact of a 
government shutdown on the military, there are many other terrible 
impacts of a government shutdown.
  Our military Members would be paid so a shutdown would result in at 
least avoiding that problem. However, there are other unthinkable 
outcomes to our security with a government shutdown. Family members of 
military members who die in combat would not receive death benefits 
during a shutdown. It defies belief that in the pursuit of a narrow 
ideological goal House Republicans would prevent the payment of 
benefits for those who died defending our country. That is the result 
of a government shutdown.
  In the event of a shutdown, the Department of Defense would also 
further reduce already curtailed training and bring routine maintenance 
to a halt, exacerbating the corrosive effects that sequestration is 
already having on military readiness. The Department of Defense would 
be barred from entering most new contracts. That would harm 
modernization programs.
  A shutdown would severely curtail medical services for troops and 
their families. Commissaries would close, with hundreds of thousands of 
civilian employees. Workers vital to our defense would be laid off. 
Outside of the DOD, a shutdown would disrupt some operations in the 
Department of Veterans Affairs which is providing benefits to those who 
have served.
  Then there is the extraordinary disruption of having to plan for all 
of this absurdity. As Under Secretary of Defense Hale said on Friday:

       Even if a lapse never occurs, the planning itself is 
     disruptive. People are worrying right now about whether their 
     paychecks are going to be delayed, rather than focusing fully 
     on their mission. And while I can't quantify the time being 
     spent to plan, it has or will consume a lot of senior 
     management attention, probably thousands of hours in employee 
     time better spent on supporting national security.

  Again, that only covers the impact on our military and on our 
veterans. While Border Patrol agents and FBI agents would continue to 
work, they would be putting their lives on the line for an IOU instead 
for a paycheck. Health clinics would stop taking new patients. 
Lifesaving research would grind to a halt. The far-reaching effects of 
a shutdown on government services across the country should give us all 
pause, as should the fact that a shutdown is likely to damage the all-
too-fragile economic recovery.
  This has gone on for far too long and Speaker Boehner can end it now. 
There is still time for him to bring to the floor of the House of 
Representatives a clean continuing resolution and avert a government 
shutdown. For the good of our men and women in uniform and our national 
security, for the good of our economy, and for the millions of 
Americans who rely on and who benefit from important Federal programs, 
I hope the Speaker will allow our bipartisan continuing resolution to 
be voted on.
  I hope that even this late in the game reason is going to prevail. I 
hold that hope in part because while House Republicans have put tea 
party ideology ahead of the good of the Nation, many of our Republican 
colleagues here in the Senate have not. These Members recognize there 
is a difference between on the one hand debating serious policy 
preferences and on the other hand threatening government shutdown if 
you don't get your way.
  All of us in the Senate have issues on which we feel every bit as 
passionately as the opponents of the Affordable Care Act feel about 
that law. I happen to feel strongly, for instance, that we should have 
universal background checks for firearms purchases. By the tea party 
method of proving the strength of my belief, I should threaten a 
government shutdown if I don't get what I want on that subject. If all 
of us threaten legislative anarchy in pursuit of our goals, democracy 
will cease to function.

[[Page 14729]]

  As appalled as I am that some Members would threaten such damage to 
our Nation, I am heartened that many of our Republican colleagues here 
in the Senate have spoken out in opposition to this approach.
  When I came to the floor last week to speak on this topic, Senator 
Ayotte was speaking. I commended her for saying that the American 
people expect us to keep the government running even though I disagreed 
with much of what she said about the Affordable Care Act.
  I commend Senator Collins for saying a shutdown ``will only further 
damage our struggling economy'' and that we should resolve our 
differences ``without resorting to constant brinkmanship and the threat 
of government shutdown.'' I commend Senator Collins, even though I 
disagree with her on the Affordable Care Act, for taking that position 
against a shutdown and for seeing the distinction between fighting hard 
for what you believe in and threatening to bring down government 
operations overall if you don't get what you want.
  I commend Senator Portman for saying that the differences on the 
Affordable Care Act ``ought to be handled outside the context of a 
government shutdown.''
  I commend Senator Chambliss for saying that while, in his words, he 
would love to defund ObamaCare, a government shutdown is ``going to do 
great harm to the American people if we pursue that course.''
  I commend Senator Kirk for saying, ``Let's not shut down the 
government just because you don't get everything you want.''
  There are others who have made that critically important distinction 
between opposing a certain policy and shutting down the government if 
one doesn't get his or her way.
  I welcome spirited debate. I welcome differences of opinion. As my 
friend Senator McCain said last week, there was plenty of both during 
the debate on the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But it is deeply 
distressing to hear Members of Congress argue that the litmus test of 
whether you are fighting for your beliefs is whether you are willing to 
shut down the government if you don't achieve a particular goal. That 
is more than fighting for your position, that is wanton destruction. I 
hope at least some House Republicans will come to see the difference 
between fighting for your goals and sowing anarchy in pursuit of them.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, moments ago the House of 
Representatives adopted a rule which clearly indicates that it is set 
to adopt a resolution containing unrelated conditions that will 
forestall its approval by this Chamber. That is a tragic result which 
threatens harm and havoc to countless people who depend on government 
programs and to our economy. It threatens harm to veterans and children 
who depend on Head Start, seniors who receive meals, and it threatens 
jobs and economic growth with a ripple effect that will set all of us 
back in the continuing fragile and all-to-slow recovery we have seen 
from the greatest recession in recent memory.
  Today's result in the House of Representatives is a tragedy for 
democracy. Without any overstatement, we have to recognize that this 
result reflects a dysfunction in democracy. The threatened shutdown of 
our government is the result of an extreme ideological fringe element 
in one House and one party that has made the decision that their agenda 
is a take-it-or-leave-it condition, that it is more important than 
economic growth, more important than our seniors, our children, our 
veterans. Key services, our economic growth, and jobs will be impacted 
very directly by this impending shutdown.
  This morning I was at a gathering in Glastonbury, CT, with a group of 
manufacturers, their employees, and economic experts. One economic 
expert in particular, Steven Lanza of the University of Connecticut, 
told us that a shutdown of 3 to 4 weeks alone would cost the State of 
Connecticut 2,000 jobs.
  We know from the predictions of expert economists such as Mark Zandi 
of Moody's Analytics that the result for the country as a whole could 
be percentage points of lost growth. In fact, we can ill-afford this 
self-inflicted, manufactured wound to our Nation and to the trust and 
confidence people deserve to have in our democracy and our economy.
  For some businesses these problems will be more than acute; they will 
be life-threatening injuries because their existence--not to mention 
their profits--depends on consumer demand that will be diminished by 
the ripple effect and the ramifications of the 9,000 Federal employees 
in Connecticut who will be furloughed, not to mention the hundreds of 
others whose jobs will be threatened by a shutdown of just days or a 
week. The fact is that at this point we can't know what the full 
economic ramifications will be. There are more questions--serious 
questions--than there are answers.
  I will support an amendment and a measure that will be offered I 
think later this evening or within hours to preserve the benefits and 
payments that are due to our veterans for their service and sacrifice. 
That is a provision we need to make. It is our responsibility to keep 
faith with those veterans and make sure we leave no veteran behind and 
that the processing of claims goes forward so our veterans receive the 
benefits they have earned.
  At the forum I had this morning, Brian Montanari, the president of 
Habco, which is in Glastonbury, told us he relies on contracts with the 
Federal Government for much of his business, and his employees--to 
whose ranks he has been adding--will be impacted by this potential 
shutdown, if only the uncertainty it creates. He is not alone. 
Businesses all over Connecticut and the country will face a tougher 
economic climate because of the shutdown. The Small Business 
Administration will stop processing applications for the business loans 
it provides to tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, risk takers, and job 
creators around the country. Perhaps the most galling aspect of this 
shutdown is the direct economic hardship it will cause to families 
whose jobs will be threatened and whose livelihoods will be at risk.
  There are hours to go before the final hour, but the point is, as the 
President said so well earlier, keeping the government open is not a 
bargaining chip, it is our job. President Obama said: ``You don't get 
to extract a ransom for doing your job.''
  Families need to be able to plan for their future, businesses need 
certainty in order to make investments and hire new workers, and the 
Nation needs both parties, not just one, to be fully committed to the 
democratic process.
  I hope in the time remaining the House does its job, that these 
extremist demands are rejected--and certainly by this Chamber they will 
be. My hope is that we can move forward, keep the government open, 
provide the services people need, and support the economy, which is all 
too necessary at this point in our history.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam 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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