[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14737-14742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, as you know, we are only 2 hours now 
from a shutdown. I am sure those who are mesmerized by our behavior saw 
a group of Senators on the floor who looked like they were smiling and 
enjoying themselves. Let me tell the Presiding Officer what was going 
on.
  Senators were actually having a conversation. We were talking about 
is there a possibility of a compromise. What you saw there is what I 
hope eventually would become a committee of 100, people actually 
thinking what could get us to a situation where we could begin to focus 
on the fiscal problems of the United States. There is a difference 
between the House appropriations bill and the Senate bill. I chair that 
committee. So there is a difference with us. But what I want people to 
see is that there are good people on both sides of the aisle who would 
like to get something done.
  The first thing we would like to get done tonight is not to have a 
government shutdown and to lay the groundwork for a continuing funding 
resolution that would be short term, that would enable us to come up 
with a compromise on discretionary spending, where we could reduce our 
public debt, fund our government at a smart, frugal level, and also do 
it in the way that promotes growth. This is what I think the mood of 
many in the Senate is. I think it is the mood on the majority of both 
sides of the aisle.
  So what do we need from our friends in the House? We do not need one 
more politically provocative, veto-bait rider on the funding 
resolution. The Senate passed a bill that essentially laid out a 
framework exactly for what I said, a continuing resolution to November 
15, and a fiscal level that is their level now. We want to negotiate 
up. I certainly do.
  If they would just take up the Senate bill which is neat, clean, 
clear, and gets us moving forward, we could be able to do this. So we 
were not just ha-ha-ha'ing over there. There is nothing here tonight to 
ha-ha-ha about. But there is a mood on both sides of the aisle to stop 
the shutdown, stop the shutdown and stop the slamdown. Let's be able to 
pass something tonight that gets us to a way that we can keep the 
government open, keep our processors functioning for compromise and 
negotiation and be able to get the job done.
  I think it would be an outstanding achievement. I believe the mood is 
here. I said it earlier. I think there is the will. I even think there 
is the wallet. Please, if the House cooperates, we would even have a 
way forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I wish to follow the comments from 
the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. This has been a tough 
week. It has been a tough weekend. It has been a tough day. I think as 
Members of the Senate, as we approach the showdown of a potential 
shutdown, it is important for us to recognize what is at stake. This is 
not just me staying here holding the floor late on a Monday evening. I 
have neighbors here in Washington, DC, who work for the Federal 
Government. One works for Homeland Security. One works for the 
Department of Defense. They asked me over the weekend: Am I working on 
Tuesday? What is happening on Tuesday? Are we shutting the government 
down?
  When we talk about those who are uncertain about what happens this 
next week with their jobs, I think it is important to recognize it is 
not just jobs we are talking about; it is the reality that if I am not 
at work is the childcare facility my kids go to going to be open? What 
does that mean to me?
  If I am the local sandwich shop owner around the corner from where 
the Fish and Wildlife Service building is and most of the folks who 
work for Fish and Wildlife are not working next week, what does that 
mean to me? How many loaves of bread do I make over this next week? I 
think we need to appreciate and understand, when we are talking about a 
government shutdown, it does not just mean those who receive a check 
from the Federal Government. The ripple effect from what we do has 
consequences.
  As we debate, as we ping-pong back and forth between this body and 
our colleagues on the House side, I think we need to recognize that 
there are real lives, real families who are lying awake tonight 
wondering what the rest of the week is going to mean to them. This is a 
difficult time for us. There are stakes that are very high.
  I have not hidden the fact that I am not a supporter of the 
Affordable Care Act. I have voted against it every time we have had the 
opportunity to do so. But do I believe we should shut down the Federal 
Government at this point because we have not been able to shut down the 
Affordable Care Act? I think we have a responsibility here. We have a 
responsibility to govern. We are not doing that right now.
  Folks back home are talking about a lot of things, talking about the 
fact that they had a tough fish season in certain parts of the State, 
talking about the fact that winter is coming on, and our energy costs 
are still as high as they ever have been. They are worried about what 
is coming forward for them and their families. What they do not need is 
to see that their government cannot operate.
  So as we deal with these very weighty decisions at this very late 
hour, we need to remember whom we represent, what we are doing here. It 
is not just about the next election; it is about making sure those 
people whom we work for are not stressing and are not anxious about 
what tomorrow is going to bring for them.
  So I am hopeful in the less than 2 hours we have, we will be able to 
figure out how we keep the government running, how we keep the wheels 
on the bus, and how we get back together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. I wish to thank my colleague from Alaska Ms. Murkowski 
and also the chair of the Appropriations Committee Senator Mikulski for 
their comments because I think, as Senator Mikulski said, the majority 
of the Members in this body believe it is important for us to keep the 
government open.
  We may disagree about the Affordable Care Act, but one aspect we 
ought to be able to agree on is that it is in the best interests of 
this country to keep government open. I believe the same is true in the 
House; that if the Speaker would bring up the Senate-passed CR, that is 
clean, that does not have any amendments on it, that extends funding 
for government through November 15, that accepts the top line numbers 
for the amount of money we would spend during that period, accept the 
House numbers, if the Speaker would let that be voted on, on the floor, 
I think it would pass the House.
  It is unfortunate that he has been unwilling to do that. But the 
reality is, as both Senators Mikulski and Murkowski said, a shutdown of 
the government is not just about what we are doing on the floor tonight 
or what the House is doing, it will have ramifications way beyond that.
  We had a meeting last week with some economists that included former 
Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin. One of the things he said to us was that 
unlike the last government shutdown in 1995, when there was not a real 
long-term impact from that shutdown, we are looking at a real long-term 
impact from a potential shutdown. We have already heard Mark Zandi, an 
economist, say that if it continues longer than a few days, if it 
continues for weeks, as it did in 1995, it could affect our growth in 
the fourth quarter over 1 percent.
  At a time when the economy is struggling, we cannot afford to have 
that kind of a hit to our economy. Families who are seeing their 
401(k)s just beginning to recover, pension plans that are beginning to 
see recovery, cannot afford to have that kind of a hit. We have

[[Page 14738]]

already seen the stock market reacting. So we know there is going to be 
an impact.
  In New Hampshire we have 4,000 Federal employees who are going to get 
furloughed starting tomorrow if we are not able to keep the government 
open. That affects not just them and their family, that is bad enough, 
but it affects the grocery stores they frequent. It affects the gas 
station. It affects every business they are shopping in.
  We know 1,000 small businesses are not going to be able to go to the 
SBA and look for loans if the government shuts down. We know people are 
not going to be able to get their mortgages through the Federal Home 
Loan Agency because it is not going to be operating.
  We know in New Hampshire, as in Alaska, that tourism is going to be 
hit because visas are not going to get processed. We know that at the 
Department of Defense, half of their civilian workers are going to be 
furloughed; in New Hampshire, our Portsmouth Naval Shipyard--in New 
Hampshire and Maine. I see my colleague from Maine. The shipyard 
workers are going to get furloughed.
  So this is going to have a huge impact on families, on businesses, on 
the economy. We cannot afford this kind of political gamesmanship. We 
have to work together. We have to solve these problems, not just for 
the future of this country here in America but also for our standing in 
the world, where the rest of the world is looking at us, asking: What 
is the matter with the Congress that they cannot solve an issue that 
they ought to be able to come together to address?
  I certainly hope in the next couple of hours we can see some progress 
in the House. I hope the Speaker will bring a clean CR to the floor, 
will let the Members of the House vote on that so we can keep the 
government operating for the good of the country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we have a number of serious 
difficulties in our country. The most serious is a lack of jobs and a 
lack of economic growth. The Affordable Care Act is devastating to that 
situation, making it much worse.
  Our colleagues need to understand, as we talk about the difficulties 
that would happen if there would be a shutdown--and there will be 
difficulties, for sure. But the idea that this is not an important 
matter that needs to be addressed when we confront the Affordable Care 
Act, ObamaCare, is wrong. We have to address this question.
  One thing I would say to all of us, the numbers are in and it is 
quite clear: 77 percent of the jobs that have been created since 
January of this year are part time. Every economist has said that is in 
large part driven by the Affordable Care Act. They have no doubt that 
this is a major factor and is an exceedingly unusual and dangerous 
trend that businesses are hiring people part time, not full time--77 
percent of those hired this year are for part time work.
  When we look at the job numbers that will come in tomorrow and at how 
many people found jobs, maybe it will be 180,000, maybe it will be 
210,000. They will brag about that I'm sure. But has anybody thought 
about the fact that to an unprecedented degree those jobs will be part 
time, without health care, without retirement benefits, and less job 
security? Somebody needs to be thinking about this. The health care law 
is absolutely a driving factor. Businesses told me that as I traveled 
my State in August. They say they are trying to keep small businesses 
below 50 employees too. They are not hiring people only to stay below 
50 employees so they don't have to comply with some of these rules.
  What have we heard all year? We are not going to talk about fixing 
the Affordable Care Act. We are not going to bring it up. We are not 
going to get a single amendment in the Senate.
  The House has repeatedly legislated on the Affordable Care Act. The 
Senate refuses to take up their bills, refuses to allow votes, refuses 
to have a full debate. We are at the end of the year, and nothing has 
been done about it. We could expect some tension to build up here.
  What I hear the House saying is: Delay this bill for 1 year. It is 
not working. Delay the individual mandate and give ordinary Americans 
some relief from this law. The President has already delayed parts of 
ObamaCare--probably without lawful authority--and delayed it for a year 
for Big business. But the President and Senator Reid have, in effect, 
said: We will shut down the government before we delay the law for 
ordinary Americans.
  The House has passed a bill to fund the government, but the bill that 
was just voted down would simply have delayed the individual mandate in 
the Affordable Care Act for 1 year. Maybe this time we could actually 
fix some of the problems or change some of the provisions in ObamaCare 
that are so damaging to America.
  One thing I wish everyone to know--and I am the ranking Republican on 
the Budget Committee and we deal with the numbers--I wrote to the 
Government Accountability Office. They are an independent group, and I 
asked them what the long-term costs of the Affordable Care Act would 
be. The President said, unequivocally, this bill will not add one dime 
to the debt of the United States. Do you remember him saying that? He 
said it many times. His aides and Senators said the same thing many 
times. The President went on to say, however, you may have forgotten: 
Not now, not ever, period.
  Well, is that true? Will the Obama administration health care law not 
add one dime to the United States debt now or ever?
  What did the Government Accountability Office say? This is a chart 
that reflects what they told the Budget Committee in response to my 
question.
  They said over the 75-year period, it adds $6.2 trillion to the debt 
of the United States. That number is huge, as $1 trillion is a lot of 
money.
  How huge is it? How do we compare it? All of us know that Social 
Security is in great difficulty and under serious threat. We have to 
reform it and put it on a sound basis. It is not going to be easy to do 
that. Why? Well, it has unfunded liabilities. We don't have enough 
money coming in to pay for the commitments we made to pay out in the 
future.
  Remember, Social Security has a dedicated source of revenue as well. 
It is on your paycheck every month. It is the FICA we pay. It goes to 
Social Security and there is a Medicare withholding too. Those funds 
are dedicated for Social Security or Medicare. But people are living 
longer, and the benefits are such that we are going to have a shortfall 
in the future.
  How much is that Social Security shortfall we have been wrestling 
over how to fix? It is $7.7 trillion. In the ObamaCare bill that passed 
on Christmas Eve, that they rammed through the Senate on Christmas Eve 
on a party-line vote before Scott Brown could take office and provide 
the vote for Massachusetts that would have killed the bill. They rammed 
it through the Senate without any amendments, and it added at least 
another $6.2 trillion to the long-term debt of the United States of 
America. It is worse than that, and I can explain why it is even worse. 
That number does not consider interest on the $6.2 trillion over 75 
years. I suspect the interest is going to be many trillions of dollars 
more and it adds to the debt.
  As we borrow the money, we pay interest on the money we borrow. It is 
not free. We borrow the money on the market or from trust funds. This 
is a big deal. The American people need to know that the promise this 
law will not add to the debt is absolutely false.
  This is based on, the GAO said, accepted accounting principles and a 
realistic scenario of what is likely to happen over time should the 
plan be implemented. One of the things they say is the cuts they made 
to Medicare providers, hospitals and doctors, that provide health care 
to seniors are so large they will not be sustainable. If they continue 
to cut in that fashion over a period of years, hospitals would close 
and doctors would quit practicing. You cannot do it. We are already 
dealing with a doc fix now on a bill that cut doctors more than they 
could reasonably be cut. Every year we

[[Page 14739]]

have to find up to $20 billion to get the money to fund the doctors 
because we can't cut below a certain amount. So I would say this GAO 
number is low.
  As we wrestle with the great responsibilities we have been given as 
Senators, yes, we need to think about what would happen in the next few 
days if the government does not function. I hope we avoid that. We 
absolutely should avoid that because it is not good.
  We need to be asking ourselves what are we doing to our children, 
grandchildren, and the financial stability of the United States of 
America with a new entitlment program that is going to commence now, by 
January 1, that will add more than $6.2 trillion to the debt of the 
United States. This is a huge amount. I ask our colleagues to consider 
it.
  One more matter that shows how we get in trouble financially is when 
the numbers get so large nobody can quite follow. The larger the 
numbers get, the harder it is to follow.
  Under the legislation of the Affordable Care Act, the plan was to cut 
up to $500 billion over the next 10 years from Medicare by cutting 
providers while promising patients would receive just as good health 
care as they always did. We are not cutting your benefits, we are only 
going to cut providers. We have done this before. At some point you 
can't sustain that.
  On December 23, the night before this bill passed, I spoke with the 
Director of the Congressional Budget Office, our own accountant, and 
told him in a conference call words to this effect: It is absolutely 
unbelievable to me, Mr. CBO Director, Mr. Elmendorf, that we are about 
to vote tomorrow morning, we are told, on the largest health care bill 
since Medicare and we don't know how to count the money. I think they 
are double-counting the money. This is unbelievable, how many hundred 
billion dollars we are talking about, it seems to me. I could hear 
somebody on his end of the conference call say: It is double-counting. 
I heard someone say it in the background.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent of the Chair for 1 additional 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  Mr. Elmendorf, by the next morning, gave us a letter. It laid out and 
contained this language. He said:

       The key point is that savings to the HI trust fund--

  That is the Medicare trust fund.

     --of $500 billion over 10 years, the savings from the HI 
     trust fund by cutting providers and increase Medicare taxes 
     under PPACA--

     That is the Affordable Care Act.

     --would be received by the government only once, so they 
     cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, 
     at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of 
     the legislation or on other programs.

  You can't simultaneously say you are using this money to support 
Medicare by making Medicare more sustainable and then spend the money 
on a new program because then it is not going to be available to 
strengthen Medicare. That double-counting is not even taken into 
account in the $6.2 trillion figure derived from the GAO study.
  I would conclude by saying the unfunded liabilities in this law are 
huge. They are a direct threat to the future of the United States 
financially. At this point in history, we need to be saving Medicare, 
we need to be saving Social Security, and we need to be saving 
Medicaid. We don't need to be starting another program without 
sufficient funds to pay for it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I am happy to have an opportunity to speak for a 
minute, particularly following my good friend, the Senator from 
Alabama. He and I have worked on so many issues. It shows one day you 
can work together and agree on something and the next day you can have 
different points of view.
  He and I worked successfully on the RESTORE Act. We worked on the 
FAIR Act where we can get a portion of our revenues to bring back to 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, from offshore oil and gas production. 
I have to say I have enjoyed working with him many times over the years 
we have been in the Senate.
  Tonight I take issue with some of the things he said. To 
recapitulate, with much due respect, if everything the Senator said 
about the Affordable Care Act was actually factual--and it is not--if 
everything he said about the act was true, this time and method of 
shutting down the government to prove his point is still wrong.
  You should not hold Federal employees, the economy of the United 
States, the governments of the United States--Federal, State, or local 
which will be affected by this--hostage because you agree or think that 
the Affordable Care Act is a bad act. It is the wrong method and it is 
the wrong time for that debate. That is the issue.
  They are on the floor debating whether the Affordable Care Act is 
good or bad. This is not the debate we are having tonight. The debate 
we should be having tonight, whether it is good or bad, is, is it worth 
shutting down the government of the United States tonight? The answer 
is clearly no.
  Secondly, the Senator from Alabama said this bill was passed in the 
middle of the night. It was passed late one night several years ago. It 
has been passed by the House and the Senate, signed into law as every 
bill by the President of the United States. In the case of this law, it 
was upheld by the Supreme Court and is being implemented by a majority 
of States in the United States. This bill, law, concept, and approach 
was debated for 40 years in 20 Congresses. This wasn't debated in 1 
night, in 1 week, morning, noon, or midnight, but 40 years across many 
Presidents, both Republican and Democratic. The question was, How does 
the richest Nation in the world, the most developed democracy on Earth, 
a Nation with 1 million-plus workers, provide affordable health care 
without bankrupting the country and putting too much burden on either 
individuals or businesses?
  There were ideas thrown out for the 40 years this was debated--not 1 
night, not just on Christmas Eve. There were hundreds of hearings, 
thousands of documents, millions of pieces of paper and studies done on 
the subject, and there were about four options:
  One, Medicare for all--lots of opposition to that. It is expensive--
popular but expensive.
  The second option was a single-payer system similar to Canada's. It 
was very popular with some, deemed too socialistic by others.
  The third option was Medicaid savings accounts, health care savings 
accounts. Republicans love it. Democrats don't like it, don't think it 
is fair to the middle class. It would only really help those at the top 
2 percent. We said No.
  So we compromised on an idea that came not out of the Democratic 
caucus but out of the Republican caucus, not out of a Democratic think 
tank but a Republican think tank--the Heritage Foundation--and we 
passed a private sector, market-based insurance choice for all 
Americans.
  But that debate is over. At least the bill has passed; the debate 
will go on for a while--but not about shutting the government down. The 
debate as far as the bill passing, it is done. It is signed into law. 
And contrary to arguments made on the other side that nobody is 
interested in amending anything, I don't know if they have read their 
Congressional Record. It is right in the Congressional Record. We have 
already amended the law twice on a vote in the House and the Senate. 
Remember a year and a half ago we passed the 1099? We repealed that. It 
was a part of the way we paid for the bill. We reviewed it after we did 
it and thought that wasn't a very good idea, and we changed it. There 
has been another change to the law. It is not as if this law will never 
be changed. But for Republicans--particularly the extremists--every 
time we come up to a budget debate or the full faith and credit of

[[Page 14740]]

the United States, to reengage in this debate, it is not fair to the 
American people, it is not fair to the workers of the United States, 
and it is not fair to the businesses in the United States. It is just 
simply not the right way to legislate.
  So I would like the chairman from Alabama, as the ranking member of 
the Budget Committee, I wish he would get on the floor and urge his 
colleagues to go to conference on the budget he was talking about 
because I do agree with him. We do have a deficit problem. We do have a 
debt problem. We do have some entitlements that need to be looked at. 
We have to get our budget in balance. But the way to do it is not to 
hold the American people hostage, to take their jobs away from them and 
shut the government down. That is not the way to operate. It is to go 
to conference.
  We have tried 18 times to go to conference, and we have been blocked 
by the Senator from Texas. The Senator from Texas Mr. Cruz has objected 
to going to conference to debate the budget.
  Let's debate the budget. Let's debate the appropriations bills. I am 
an appropriator. I am the chair of the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee.
  Tomorrow thousands of people are going to be laid off. People who 
protect our borders, who help navigate international trade, help keep 
our hospital industry going, passports, et cetera, are going to be 
impacted. But instead of the Senator arguing and urging us--as the 
ranking member of the Budget Committee--to go to the Budget Committee 
to negotiate, they have objected. We can't go to a conference.
  Senator Murray passed her budget months ago. We passed a budget. The 
House has passed a budget. They aren't the same budget, but it is their 
version and our version. Let's go to conference and work it out. But, 
no, we have to now threaten the shutdown of the entire government of 
the United States because the Republicans after 40 years of debate feel 
that was not enough. Forty years of debate was not enough. Two 
Presidential elections, which they lost, was not convincing enough. The 
majority of the Senate fell to the Democrats. That was not convincing 
enough.
  The people who voted that way, their votes, their actions as a 
democratic nation are being disrespected by our colleagues on the other 
side. It is not as though this is a dictatorship. We were elected. I 
was even elected in a State where this is a difficult issue. It is not 
clear-cut. I have people for it and against it. But after studying and 
after soul-searching and after looking at all the options and 
understanding that I have 800,000 people in my State who are uninsured, 
that I have hundreds of thousands of small businesses that had been 
dropping their insurance because they couldn't afford it, and that 85 
percent of our market is taken up by one company with virtually no 
competition, I said there has to be a better way. This may not be 
perfect, but the status quo is worse.
  We had that debate, and their side lost. So instead of just trying to 
fix what they can or suggesting changes or finding a time where we can 
debate--and we have already changed two things; the President, 
administratively, has already pushed back one--they want to shut the 
government down. It is on their shoulders.
  So I came to the floor--and I will ask for 5 more minutes--to talk 
about two things because I have hesitated to speak on this big issue 
because I have been focused for the last year on a real problem--not 
that this isn't a problem; it is a problem, but this is a real issue 
that with a little bit of attention from everyone and a lot less 
rhetoric, we could fix this, and that is helping to amend a bill that 
did pass and does need to be amended, and that is the Biggert-Waters 
bill.
  I am not threatening to shut the government down over this; I am 
simply asking and raising attention to the fact that at some point we 
would like to have a debate on this floor and in the House on Biggert-
Waters. This was a bill that was passed through here--it wasn't debated 
for 40 years, it was debated for a very short time. At the time the 
bill passed--Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 
additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. The bill passed out of the committee on the Senate 
side. It never did come to the floor at all for debate. It went to the 
House, was changed pretty dramatically, and then was put in a 
conference committee. This happens sometimes. It is not usual, but it 
does happen. I am not complaining about that except that as a result of 
that, hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Texas, Florida, 
North Dakota, New York, and New Jersey, tomorrow morning--as I guess if 
the government is shutting down, they may not be able to go to work, if 
they have a government job--they will have a big fat bill coming on 
their flood insurance because Biggert-Waters, the bill in the House, 
had several very pernicious provisions.
  There are about 5 million flood insurance policies in the country. 
There should be about 17 million, but there are only 5. There will be 
17 million, or some such universe as that, but there are 5 million now, 
and we have many in Louisiana.
  When a person goes to put their house on the market and they sell it, 
the act of selling, according to Biggert-Waters, removes their 
grandfathered status. They then go from that grandfathered status, 
which was below market rate--and that was done purposely to help people 
who live in coastal areas--not necessarily in secondary homes, not in 
condos, not in million-dollar mansions, but people who work on the 
rivers, who fish, who live in coastal communities, hard-working 
individuals and small businesses. This allowed them to live where they 
have lived, in our case, for 300 years. They didn't just move there in 
the 1980s. They didn't move down there for sunbathing. They have been 
there for 300 years, and this was to give them an opportunity to live 
in their homes with reasonable insurance.
  In the Biggert-Waters bill, that trigger--the act of putting up a 
``for sale'' sign or selling your house--eliminated the subsidy, 
virtually rendering a person's house valueless. And it is not just 
paying 25 percent more, 100 percent more, or 400 percent more. That 
would be hard enough, but in some cases it literally will render a 
house valueless because let's say, for instance, you paid $1,200 a year 
for insurance, but let's say the real rate is actually $15,000. The 
trigger mechanism means their flood insurance will go from $1,200 to 
$15,000 overnight. No one will buy a home that has a $15,000 annual 
premium for insurance. So if they have $400,000 in equity in their home 
or $500,000 or $150,000 in equity or perhaps they have $1 million in 
equity, it is gone because their house will not be able to be sold for 
virtually any price close to what it is worth. And that is not right. 
That comes close to a taking.
  When this bill passed, I put an objection in the record. I said then 
that we would be back talking about it. There are ways we can fix 
bills. We need to get Biggert-Waters fixed and changed, and I want to 
submit that if we don't shut the government down, we can do it. We can 
negotiate, we can meet in conference and bring amendments to 
committees, and we can work together.
  I want to read for the Record for a few minutes. I don't see anyone 
else on the floor.

       Many in Congress were led to believe that the flood 
     insurance program was unsustainable, that it consistently 
     paid out more in losses than it collected in premiums, and 
     that the only way to balance the ledger was to eliminate 
     subsidies and raise rates. That simply isn't the case.
       During 3 of the past 5 years, the program has actually 
     collected more in premium revenue than it paid out in losses. 
     In fact, the program has tabulated an annual surplus 18 times 
     during the 42-year period for which we have data.

  Now, there were times, after Florida had that terrible year--2004, I 
think--when four hurricanes hit and of course after Katrina, where the 
program took a very strong hit, like when our levees broke and caused 
so much to drain from the fund. But if we look over time, it was about 
a $19 million average loss per year--not great but not

[[Page 14741]]

horrible; not enough to generate the kind of bill that was passed here 
that is so draconian.
  Continuing to quote:

       I also think that most Members of Congress would be 
     surprised to learn that 40 percent of all properties which 
     are required to maintain flood insurance do not have an 
     active policy. This violation of the law costs the program 
     hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Stricter penalties 
     under Biggert-Waters for lenders who fail to enforce 
     mandatory purchase requirements will help to address this, 
     but it is difficult to justify these exorbitant rate 
     increases for people who are participating in the program and 
     playing by the rules when millions of property owners are 
     bucking their legal obligation to pay into the program.
       I also think most Members of the Congress and the general 
     public would be shocked to learn that only 44 percent of the 
     money collected by the program is used to cover flood losses 
     in a given year. In fact, the program spends more money 
     paying the insurance companies and agents who administer the 
     program but don't incur any risk and servicing the debt 
     created by the Corps of Engineers than it spends on annual 
     flood losses.

  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the complete 
document from which I just quoted.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 The Truth About Program Sustainability

       Many in Congress were led to believe that the flood 
     insurance program was unsustainable, that it consistently 
     paid out more in losses than it collected in premiums, and 
     that the only way to balance the ledger was to eliminate 
     subsidies and raise rates. That simply isn't the case.
       During 3 of the past 5 years, the program has actually 
     collected more in premium revenue than it paid out in losses. 
     In fact, the program has tabulated an annual surplus 18 times 
     during the 42-year period for which we have data. Over the 
     26-year period between the time that the federal government 
     took over the program in 1978 and the catastrophic losses in 
     2004 when Florida was struck by four major hurricanes, the 
     program collected $10.2 billion in premiums and paid out 
     $10.7 billion in claims, resulting in a modest deficit of 
     just $500 million or $19 million per year on average.
       I also think that most members of Congress would be 
     surprised to learn that 40% of all properties which are 
     required to maintain flood insurance do not have an active 
     policy. This violation of the law costs the program hundreds 
     of millions in lost revenue. Stricter penalties under 
     Biggert-Waters for lenders who fail to enforce mandatory 
     purchase requirements will help to address this, but it is 
     difficult to justify exorbitant rate increases for people who 
     are participating in the program and playing by the rules 
     when millions of property owners are bucking their legal 
     obligation to pay into the program.
       I also think most members of Congress and the general 
     public would be shocked to learn that only 44% of the money 
     collected by the program is used to cover expected flood 
     losses in a given year. In fact, the program spends more 
     money paying the insurance companies and agents who 
     administer the program but don't incur any risk and to 
     servicing the debt created by the Corps of Engineers than it 
     spends on annual flood losses.
       The fiscal structure of the flood insurance program is 
     definitely broken, but it isn't because of subsidies. Taken 
     in combination, these facts paint a very different picture of 
     the National Flood Insurance Program than the one that 
     prevailed during the debate last Congress when Biggert-Waters 
     was presented to us.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, these are several reasons why this 
bill needs to be amended. Again, I am not threatening to shut the 
government down. That is not appropriate to get amendments to this 
bill. There are ways to amend a bill, and we can work on that.
  Madam President, I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record a quote from Michael Hecht. Michael Hecht is the executive 
director of GNO, Inc. He is leading a great delegation or a group of 
people--realtors, bankers, gulf coast residents and many others.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          Michael Hecht Quote

       I would like to read a statement that was made last week by 
     the President of Greater New Orleans Inc., a regional 
     business organization in Louisiana, which I believe conveys 
     the sentiment of thousands of people who I represent that are 
     facing steep rate increases in the midst of so many 
     unanswered questions and misconceptions about this program's 
     underlying problems.
       ``It is irresponsible to introduce drastic reforms that 
     will potentially devastate hundreds of thousands of American 
     home- and business-owners, before basic questions about 
     forgone revenues and high costs are answered. To proceed 
     otherwise, destroying the wealth of innocent Americans--who 
     have done exactly as the government has told them, maintained 
     insurance and often never flooded--is both economically 
     unwise and morally unjust.''

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, let me read this quote from Michael 
Hecht. He said:

       It is irresponsible to introduce drastic reforms that will 
     potentially devastate hundreds of thousands of American homes 
     and business owners before basic questions about forgone 
     revenues and high costs are answered. To proceed otherwise, 
     destroying the wealth of innocent Americans--who have done 
     exactly as the government has told them, maintained insurance 
     and often never flooded--is both economically unwise and 
     morally unjust.
  I know my time is almost to the end. There is no one else on the 
floor, so I would like to speak until someone else gets here. But this 
is what we should be working on. We should be working on fixing the 
flood insurance. Tomorrow morning, October 1, these rates go up. These 
trigger mechanisms go into effect. It is devastating for people in our 
States. But the Texas Senators seem to be more concerned about the 
Affordable Care Act. I understand in their mind it is a problem and in 
their heart they are sincere. I understand their constituents are 
complaining. But it is the law, and we should not shut down the 
government over this.
  I wish they would turn their attention to the Biggert-Waters bill, 
which the House and Senate passed. It needs to be amended. It needs to 
be fixed, and we need to negotiate a way forward.
  No. 2, if people do want to fight about changes to the budget--I am 
an appropriator. We have been negotiating for years with Republicans 
about how much to spend, how little to spend, what programs to fund, 
what not. We do that in a budget conference. We do that in the 
appropriations bills. In fact, on this measure we are debating tonight 
the Democrats accepted the House number. Talk about negotiate. We just 
accepted the number they gave us for the continuing resolution. It was 
below our number. We want to fund the government in this month a little 
bit higher, but we even accepted their number. We said, fine, we will 
take your number.
  We usually don't do that. We usually cut it in half or split the 
difference or say, you want this, we want this. We just took it. We 
just said yes. They can't even take yes for an answer because they are 
so committed to using the Federal Government as a hostage, or the full 
faith and credit of the United States as a hostage to change a bill 
they had every opportunity to change and didn't change or couldn't 
change, didn't have the votes to change. Maybe one day they will. But 
they don't have those votes in this Chamber tonight and they don't have 
those votes in the House. If they would let the whole House vote, they 
most certainly would not. They are just allowing the Republicans to 
vote. But if they would allow the House to vote in its entirety, 
representing the country, they would support the position of the Senate 
and they know that.
  I end my remarks by saying let us focus on what we can do to fix some 
bills, the Biggert-Waters flood insurance bill being one of them. Let's 
not hold the American public and government hostage over a bill that 
passed, that was signed into law, and upheld by the Supreme Court and 
is being implemented by a majority of States in America. We can debate 
it and not shut down the government over it.
  I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I wish to put something else on the Record as well that 
is important for us to think about tonight, besides the underlying 
debate which I have spoken about and the Biggert-Waters reform which 
unfortunately is going to go into effect tomorrow. We are going to do a 
press conference tomorrow on it and try to get as much support as we 
can for Republicans and Democrats to fix it. But there is another issue 
I wish to bring up to the body tonight while we are waiting for the 
leader.

[[Page 14742]]

  I think with the consent of both Republicans and the Democrats, we 
could allow the District of Columbia--which is one city that is going 
to be more impacted than others should the budget of the United States 
not be able to be negotiated in the next hour or hour and a half. So 
what I am hoping by raising this issue is that Members will consider 
that every city in the United States is going to operate tomorrow 
morning, every State is going to operate tomorrow morning, even if the 
Federal Government shuts down. They will be impacted, but they will 
continue to operate with their own money, on their own steam, under 
their own laws. I would like the same thing for the District of 
Columbia.
  The District of Columbia's budget is 75 percent local and 23 percent 
Federal. So most of their money is local money raised by local taxes, 
not the taxpayers of the United States. More impressive than that, they 
have balanced their budget--unlike us--for 18 years. People may be 
surprised to know this, but the District of Columbia, which is about 
650,000 people, does not have a Senator to speak for them. They have a 
House Member, but the House Member has no vote. So I wish to speak on 
their behalf for just a few minutes. They have balanced their budget 
for 18 years and they have well over $1 billion cash in the bank.
  So I am raising this to my colleagues to ask for us to consider a 
unanimous consent resolution that several of us are putting together 
now. I would love for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
simply allow the District of Columbia to use their own money--even if 
the Federal money doesn't come forward, to use their own money raised 
by their own taxpayers to keep their own government operating, because 
they are under a special provision to us and have been for many years. 
People argue whether that is right. That is not the point of this. 
Whether it is right is of no consequence. It is the law. If we can give 
them some relief, it would be very helpful to the thousands of people 
who need a signal from us that just because we can't get our budget 
straight, just because our budget is in deficit doesn't mean we can't 
honor the fact that the DC budget is in surplus, $1 billion in the 
bank. It has been balanced for 18 years, and 75 percent of their budget 
comes from their own taxpayers. We should allow them to use their money 
to stay open.
  I hope we avoid a shutdown. It doesn't look we are going to. It could 
be 1 day, it could be 2 days, it could be 3 weeks, it could be 4 
months. Who knows how long it is going to be. I hope it doesn't happen, 
and I hope it is a very short period of time. But whatever it is, there 
is no reason in the world for the District of Columbia--as Mayor Gray 
said: We have balanced our budget for 18 consecutive years. We have 
well over $1 billion in the bank. Yet we cannot spend our own money to 
provide our residents with services they have paid for unless we get 
permission from a Congress that can't even agree to pay its own bills.
  If we can't agree how to pay our bills, I think it is unfortunate. We 
should. But this is a big city. It is an important city. It is the 
Capital of the Nation. They should be able to operate tomorrow morning.
  I am hoping in the next hours we can find a way. All it takes is a 
unanimous consent. I know tensions are running high. We can be angry at 
each other or frustrated, but we should not be angry with the District. 
They have done nothing wrong. They have balanced their budget. They 
need to be able to operate. Many people all over the Nation depend on 
the District government. So let's not shut them down while we are 
shutting ourselves down.
  I yield the floor and 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. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________