[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14812-14824]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Well, Mr. President, Democratic leaders in Congress 
finally have their prize--a government shutdown that no one seems to 
want but them. House Republicans worked late into the night this 
weekend to keep the government open, and Senate Democrats dragged their 
feet literally for days. They refused to pass anything. News reports 
suggest the majority leader was even working behind the scenes to block 
any bipartisan negotiations from taking place.
  Then, after doing essentially nothing all weekend but obstruct, with 
just hours left to go, Democrats voted again and again to reject 
reasonable legislation. Every piece of legislation the House sent over 
would have kept the government from shutting down--every single one of 
them. Each one represented more of a compromise than the last. And get 
this: Last night Senate Democrats went so far as to reject legislation 
that would have kept the government running under just two conditions--
just two--that families get the same 1-year relief as employers and 
that Congress has to follow the same rules on the ObamaCare exchanges 
as their constituents. That is how extreme the Democratic position is. 
They won't even accept basic fairness as a principle under ObamaCare.
  Today they have gone even further. They have now said they won't even 
agree to sit down and work out differences. They won't even talk about 
it. They literally just voted against working out a compromise. They 
seem completely opposed to negotiation or compromise on a law that is 
killing jobs, driving up premiums, and driving people out of the health 
care plans they already have and like, and they do not even want to 
talk about it.
  So we know the Democrats who have shut down the government will yell 
and point fingers. They have already started that particular routine. 
They will say it was the mean old Republicans or the tea party or FOX 
News or

[[Page 14813]]

maybe even George W. Bush. They shut down the government, and now they 
are praying the American people will think somebody else is 
responsible. They are doing this because they would rather see the 
government shut down than do anything to protect the American people 
from the consequences of ObamaCare despite the stories we see every 
single day about the pain this law is causing all of our constituents.
  Now, I will say this: I appreciate yesterday's bipartisan action to 
ensure that servicemembers currently defending us are going to be paid 
on time. The brave men and women who defend our country deserve no 
less. But now we need to do the same for the rest of the American 
people.
  The House legislation has been perfectly reasonable. It didn't have 
everything Republicans wanted. It didn't have everything Democrats 
wanted. But it represented compromise, and it reflected the will of the 
American people, who don't want a government shutdown and who want to 
tap the brakes on ObamaCare--good folks who just think the middle class 
deserves a bit of a break. Senate Democrats could have passed any one 
of those compromises and averted this mess. Instead, they chose to shut 
down the government.
  Well, it is past time for Senate Democrats to listen to the American 
people. The House has already done its job to fund the government again 
and again and again.
  I know the Democrats who run Washington want to extract as many 
political points as they can from this manufactured shutdown, but they 
owe our country more than that. They need to understand that ObamaCare 
is not ready for prime time--not ready for prime time. Their stubborn 
refusal to even discuss temporary relief for the middle class was a 
staggering act of political arrogance. So this morning I am calling on 
the Democrats who run the Senate to sit down with the House and 
negotiate, to come to a reasonable solution that cancels their shutdown 
and pass it because no one wants a shutdown, it seems, but our friends 
on the other side of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend the Republican leader spoke as if 
George Orwell wrote his speech. This is ``1984,'' where up is down, 
down is up, east is west. All one needs to do is look at the press. We 
have a situation where we have a good day for the anarchists. Why? 
Because the government is closed. Speaker Boehner and his band of tea 
party radicals have done the unthinkable: They have shut down the 
Federal Government. Now, for us, that is hard to comprehend as being 
good. For them, they like it.
  In Nevada today--7 o'clock in the morning out there--they are closing 
the Great Basin National Park. There will be some security folks 
around, but the visitor center will be closed. The Lake Mead National 
Recreation Area in Las Vegas where we have 600,000 people a year 
visit--not anymore--it will be closed. The Red Rock Canyon National 
Conservation Area--over 1 million people go there every year. No, the 
visitor center will be closed.
  This situation involves people who work cleaning offices, people who 
are security folks for our Federal buildings--they will probably be 
able to hang around--people who really need a job. I talked last week a 
little on the floor about a woman who came to my event last Thursday. 
She works for the National Park Service. She has worked there all of 
her adult life. She knows what it is like to have a government shutdown 
because she was there when the last one occurred. They never got that 
money back. She is struggling because she doesn't make that much money, 
and now her job is gone. It is that way all over America. And why? To 
extract political concessions through hostage-taking over one issue--
one issue--ObamaCare.
  The exchanges in Nevada kick in today. Approximately 600,000 Nevadans 
will be eligible for ObamaCare. These are 600,000 people who have no 
health insurance. Today they can search around on the exchanges that 
have been developed there by a Republican Governor, and they can get a 
policy for as little as $100 a month--$100 a month--and then if they 
get hurt they can go see a doctor or go to a hospital and not be 
embarrassed because they have no money.
  What the American people must understand is that the House of 
Representatives did not close the government. It was the Republicans in 
the House of Representatives who closed the government. The House of 
Representatives has 435 Members, but, no, they were not allowed to vote 
on keeping the government open; they are so fixated on ObamaCare. But 
that is happening all over America today, and that is one thing not 
being heard. The President has said it is going forward full bore, and 
that is welcome news for as many as 30 million people in America who 
have no health insurance. So Members of the House of Representatives 
were unable to vote to keep the government open--only the Republicans.
  Patty Murray, who is from the State of Washington and is chair of the 
Budget Committee, has worked hard, leading the Senate in passing a 
budget. She did that 6 months ago. The budget she passed is different 
from the one that passed the House of Representatives.
  For generations, for hundreds of years in the Congress of the United 
States, when there have been two separate pieces of legislation, we 
have gone to conference. This is something you learn about in 
elementary school. When the House has passed something and the Senate 
has passed something, what do you do? You sit down together in an open 
forum and work out the differences. That is how we have always done 
it--until the tea party took over.
  Senator Murray has asked to go to conference 18 times. The senior 
Senator from Arizona has asked eight times himself. By the way, the 
senior Senator from Arizona is a Republican. But there has been an 
objection. No conference. And this has gone on for 6 months. But as the 
clock ticked past midnight and the Federal Government officially barred 
the doors and hung a ``closed for business'' sign out, Speaker Boehner 
demanded the very conference they have shunned us on for 6 months. This 
display, I would hope, would be embarrassing to House Republicans and 
Senate Republicans. What a deal.
  So I say to the Speaker: We are happy to negotiate a budget. We have 
been trying to for months. And we have not only Senator Murray, who has 
been anxious to get to the budget, but we have had Senator Mikulski, a 
powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who can't do 
anything until we get a budget. So if the House passes the piece of 
legislation they have over there to keep the country functioning again, 
to reopen government, we will be happy to go to conference. Why 
wouldn't we? We have been trying to do it for 6 months. Hopefully that 
would lead to a long-term responsible budget agreement with our 
Republican counterparts. That is what conferences are all about. We 
have been asking to do that for months and months--but not with the 
government closed.
  Every day that the Speaker refuses to pass the bill they have over 
there, the resolution they have over there, and reopen the government, 
the American economy loses billions of dollars--billions of dollars.
  The conservative business community has warned of the grave 
consequence of this shutdown. This shutdown couldn't come at a worse 
time, just as the economy is beginning to gain steam. The shutdown has 
furloughed half of the civilian workforce. At Nellis Air Force Base, 
one of the largest military installations in America, the civilian 
workforce there is coming to work today to close their offices. There 
are some exceptions, but certainly three-quarters of them.
  The Centers for Disease Control has basically ceased their functions 
as to what happens if there is a bad flu epidemic someplace or some 
kind of an outbreak that they control.
  Checks will go out for Social Security and our disabled veterans will 
get their checks. But if you have just come back from Afghanistan or 
Iraq, sorry, no new applications will be received.

[[Page 14814]]

No passport applications will be processed. That is pretty important 
for tourist economies such as Las Vegas. No small business loans will 
be issued. We talked about the national parks. Millions of Federal 
workers will be sent home without pay. Thousands and thousands in 
Nevada are sitting home today, waiting for Congress to act.
  As this economic reality kicks in, we need the Republicans also to 
kick in as to what is reality. I have had a number of Republican 
Senators come to me and say, You have got to give them something on 
ObamaCare. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with the 
fixation on a law of this country that has been a law for 4 years? I 
remind everyone again, the United States Supreme Court said it is 
constitutional. What is wrong with this picture: We will be happy if 
you give us something to hurt ObamaCare?
  No matter how many times they try to extort the American people and 
the Democrats here in the Senate, we are not going to relitigate the 
health care issue. We are not going to do that. If they have problems 
with that bill, we will be happy to sit down and talk with them about a 
reasonable approach. But we are not going to do it with a gun to the 
heads of the American people.
  Frankly, it is too late to avert the worst effects of the shutdown, 
but it is not too late to send the Federal employees back to work. The 
solution is as clear this morning as it was last night: Reopen the 
government. Let all 435 Members of the House of Representatives vote on 
the legislation they have from us. Then if they want to sit down in a 
sensible way and talk about Patty Murray's budget, we will do that; if 
they want to talk about the appropriations bills of Senator Mikulski, 
we will do that--as soon as the House takes a simple, reasonable 
action; that is, put the American Federal workers back on the job and 
we can begin the process of negotiating a long-term budget deal. We 
have been trying to do it for 6 months through the regular order of 
conference committee and continue to want to do that. But there is no 
time to waste. Every minute the Federal Government is closed shuts down 
American families, it costs jobs. Every week the Federal Government is 
shut down, the economy loses more than $30 billion. It is time for 
Republicans to stop obsessing over old battles.
  I say to my Republican friends, ObamaCare is over. It has passed. It 
is the law. And all over America today and for the next 3 months 
millions of people will sign up. Remember what I said about Nevada: You 
can buy a policy in Nevada for $100 a month. In the State of Alaska, I 
was told there is no premium. It varies State to State. People who have 
never had health insurance will be able to get it.
  I talked here on the floor 1 or 2 days ago. I know what it is like 
not to have the ability to go to a doctor or hospital. I know that. 
People have to understand that is not good. It is hard when you or a 
loved one is hurt or sick and you have nowhere to go. That is what this 
is all about.
  I have respect and admiration for my Republican friends. Every one of 
them is an accomplished person or they wouldn't be in the Senate. But 
don't say to me that we are happy to open the government if you give us 
an arrow we can put in our quiver and say we hurt ObamaCare. It is the 
law.
  I repeat what is a fact: The Republicans hated Social Security and 
they hated Medicare. How do people feel about Social Security and 
Medicare today? They feel really good. And that is the same with 
ObamaCare. People understand how good ObamaCare has been already if you 
are old and want to get a wellness check or if you have to buy 
pharmaceuticals. In the sparsely populated State of Nevada they have 
saved millions of dollars on drugs because of ObamaCare. You can stay 
on your parents' health insurance until you are 26 years old. That is a 
pretty good deal. You can finish college, maybe even start your life 
and not have to worry about that.
  People got refunds in Nevada and around the country. Why? Because as 
part of ObamaCare, Al Franken from Minnesota stuck a provision in the 
bill--that at least most of us voted for--saying if an insurance 
company doesn't provide 80 percent of their premium for health care, to 
having people get better, then they have to refund that money. This 
year, all over America hundreds of millions of dollars were refunded to 
people because insurance companies didn't spend 80 percent toward 
having people get well. They gave bonuses and all kinds of overhead 
that weren't fair. ObamaCare is so important.
  I say to my friends here in Congress, how many people have come up to 
them someplace and said, Thank goodness for ObamaCare. My daughter is a 
diabetic, and now we don't have to worry about her. She is insured.
  I have had someone tell me--and this is why I usually include this in 
my remarks--I have a son who is an epileptic. Has anyone ever seen 
someone with an epileptic seizure, your little child, and you can't get 
health care because they have a preexisting disability? That is what 
ObamaCare is all about. You can't be denied insurance if you have a 
child who is an epileptic.
  We will negotiate, as we have, on going to the budget and talking 
about a long-term agreement here. We have tried. The President has 
tried. They are only concerned about ObamaCare--ObamaCare--because they 
know that everything they do to try to throw monkey wrenches into the 
wheels of government as far as ObamaCare is good for the people who 
don't believe in government. They want it to fail. That is why they are 
doing all this. Each day that goes by--and now it is harder and harder, 
because on October 1 the exchanges are open. There will be a few 
glitches and there will be changes. That is the way it was with Social 
Security. That is the way it was with Medicare. But by the first of the 
year when millions of people are signed up on health insurance, it is 
good for everybody and it is good for America. And it is good for 
America because our country--this great country--will no longer be the 
only industrialized nation that doesn't have health care for everyone.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I won't be long, I say to my colleagues. I wish to thank 
our Leader Reid for bringing back a sense of history, for putting this 
fight over the new health care law into context.
  I did some research on what Republicans said about Social Security 
when it came up before in the Senate and the House: This is the end of 
the world. It was socialism. It was going to destroy mankind. I have 
the quotes. They are in the Record.
  No, Social Security proved to be the most successful antipoverty 
program in America. People love it. But they keep trying to take it 
away.
  Under George W. Bush they tried to privatize it and we Democrats 
stopped it. Then you go look to the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson talked 
about Medicare and the fact that our grandmas and grandpas at that time 
were being supported by their children because there was no health 
insurance available. This was the end of the world. Even Bob Dole in 
the 1990s said, I was there fighting against Medicare. Bob Dole, a 
wonderful man, a Republican: I was fighting against socialism. And now 
even tea party members put signs up: Don't touch my Medicare.
  So now we have the next reform, the Affordable Care Act. Republicans 
have called it ObamaCare. The President embraces it. In California 
today people are so excited. Millions of Californians who are uninsured 
will have the chance to get affordable health care. And, I might say, 
you go to coveredca.com, and you see the platinum plans that are the 
more expensive plans, you see the bronze plans, the least expensive, 
the silver plan. Who is going up there? Not people who already have 
insurance--it is about 80 percent--but those who don't. And in my 
State, the working poor will have a chance to get a Medicaid card.
  Thank God we have a Governor and a legislature with compassion, 
unlike other States where the Governors are saying, No, we don't care; 
we think it is going to cost too much. Well, the fact is we know, and 
the reason the Affordable Care Act ObamaCare saves a

[[Page 14815]]

lot of money over time is because people get the health care they need 
and they get it early.
  We have a horrible day here today. I have 169,000 Federal employees, 
and about 80,000 of them are going to get furloughed. These are hard-
working, good people who work for the Border Patrol, who work for the 
FBI, who work for NASA, who work for the National Park Service, who 
keep our Federal buildings clean and open, scientists, caseworkers who 
do important Social Security cases, Medicare cases, food inspectors, 
small business loan officers so important to the small business 
community--they are going to pack up and go home. To my Republican 
friends who brought this Republican shutdown, these are hard-working 
people.
  I don't have one Republican on my bill who would take away our pay in 
a shutdown. Not one Republican. But they are ready to take away 
everybody else's pay. As a matter of fact, yesterday--to a person--they 
voted to take away the employer contribution from their own staff for 
the health care. I couldn't believe it. By the way, they don't need a 
law to do it. Senator Vitter's bill: Take away your health care--you 
don't need to take that employer's share. Give it back to the 
government. Call in your staff if you think they deserve this treatment 
and tell them you are going to reduce their salaries, and send the 
check back to the government. You don't need legislation to do it. That 
is how mean-spirited it is around here. So we face a nonsensical 
shutdown.
  I want to talk about exactly where we are. The House sent us a 6-week 
bill that keeps the government going at certain levels of spending. 
Then the Republicans say, well, the Democrats won't compromise. I have 
news for the Republicans. We don't like those numbers in that 
continuing resolution. We think they are way too low. We think they are 
hurting the economic recovery. We see the deficit's down by 50 percent. 
We don't have to bring about this austerity. We think it is hurting 
jobs and the economy, but that is not enough for them.
  They have a victory on the number, but they want to add other things 
to the budget that have nothing to do with the budget and have 
everything to do with their obsession with repealing health care 
reform, just like the Republican Party has had an obsession for years. 
I forgot to say, remember Newt Gingrich's famous line on Medicare, ``It 
is going to wither on the vine'' and Paul Ryan's budget, which 
destroyed Medicare as we know it.
  It is our main responsibility to keep the government going, to pay 
our bills. Instead of sending us a clean bill, they send us a bill with 
lower numbers than we want, we accept the numbers, and then they tack 
on these mean-spirited amendments to hurt people--with the exception of 
the repeal of the medical device tax, which would blow a $30 billion 
hole in our deficit. They repeal it. They have no way of making up for 
that money that would be lost to the Treasury.
  I could not believe it. Yesterday, their first take was to take away 
women's health care. Three of us went up to the gallery and we said: 
You continue your war on women. They actually, in the House, repealed 
an existing law that gives women cancer screening, gestational diabetes 
screening, and making sure they have the correct supplies and the 
counseling to breast-feed their children, and birth control. They 
actually took that out, repealed it. We went up to the gallery. They 
left that little thing alone. They gave up on that.
  But what are they doing now? Now they are saying their own employees 
have no right to an employer contribution. This is mean-spirited. This 
is hurtful. Send us a clean CR for 6 weeks and then vote to go to the 
budget conference, as Senator Murray has asked. But Senator Cruz keeps 
appearing on the scene and objecting to appointing conferees to deal 
with the yearly budget because he says he doesn't want to have them 
discuss the debt. Who is he to say what you can discuss or not discuss? 
The last time I checked, there is free speech in this country, 
including in a conference committee.
  That leads me to think they are going to play even worse games with 
the debt ceiling, about which Ronald Reagan--who asked for it and got, 
18 times, an increase in the debt ceiling--said even thinking about 
defaulting is a horrible and dangerous thing. No President has had this 
kind of difficulty. They are obsessed with the health care law and they 
are obsessed with hurting this President.
  Let's face facts. I have served with five Presidents; three of them 
were Republicans. Did I agree with everything Ronald Reagan believed 
in? The Presiding Officer and I served in those years together. 
Remember those days of the nuclear weapons proliferation? We had our 
battles and, yes, we made a symbolic vote once in a while not to raise 
the debt ceiling. That is fine. But we never purposely brought down the 
government, ever--ever. The last time Newt Gingrich and the Republicans 
did it, it was a disaster and they have done it again.
  I listened to the majority leader. The majority leader said the 
Republican leader's tale and his spin is similar to the book ``1984.'' 
Let me just say, it is ``Alice in Wonderland.'' It is not accurate.
  Let's pass the bill we sent over, the clean CR for 6 weeks. Let's go 
to a budget conference. Let's resolve our problems. This is too great a 
country to have us suffer like this, a self-inflicted wound that does 
not have to be done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, if we need evidence that there is a 
parallel universe in America today, on one hand is Washington, DC, and 
the bubble that seems to occur around this place, and then the rest of 
America. If we need evidence of that parallel universe, all we need to 
do is listen to the comments of the majority leader this morning who 
said, in the presence of these folks in the gallery in the Senate, 
``The government is shut down. The government is shut down.''
  That is clearly false. You know what. There are a lot of Americans 
who think that Washington is a train hurtling down the track, out of 
control. Who can blame them? When they look at our national debt, $17 
trillion, more than $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in America; 
when they see our unsustainable programs such as Medicare and Social 
Security, which the majority leader and the distinguished Senator from 
California hold so dear--we do too. Those are important programs. So 
why would we not want to try to fix them?
  The most amazing thing I heard today is the majority leader said that 
ObamaCare is sacrosanct. It is the law of the land. You cannot touch 
it. Over the last 3 years the Obama administration has repeatedly and 
unilaterally issued waivers, granted exemptions, and announced delays 
relating to this sacrosanct law known as ObamaCare. Since when is it 
beyond the power of the Congress to change existing law by amending it 
or repealing it or defunding it? It is absolutely unprecedented to have 
a majority leader of the Senate, someone who knows this institution as 
well as anyone, say Congress is powerless to act when our constituents 
tell us they want us to act because they do not believe ObamaCare will 
perform as advertised.
  The best evidence is the unilateral actions of the President of the 
United States, who granted waivers, exemptions, and delays for his 
preferred constituents. Meanwhile, the rest of America has to live with 
this monstrosity that will not work as advertised. Again, all we have 
to do is compare the President's promises to what has actually 
happened. He said if you like what you have you can keep it. That is 
not true. Millions of Americans are being dropped from their employer-
provided coverage into the exchanges they do not want to be on because 
they would prefer to have their employer-provided coverage. When the 
President says the average family will see a reduction in their health 
care premiums of $2,500, that is not true because they have actually 
gone up, on average, $2,400. For many young people, such as my 
daughters, they are going to have to pay

[[Page 14816]]

more so my generation will have to pay less, even though they do not 
need the government-approved, gold-plated health care plan, nor want 
it, nor can afford it.
  We know that ObamaCare is, in the words of some of the leaders of 
organized labor, doing permanent damage to full-time work because 
people are being moved from full-time work to part-time work in order 
to avoid the employer sanctions, and it is doing damage to our broader 
economy. All of us have listened to the small business men and women 
for whom we work, who are our constituents, who say: We cannot afford 
ObamaCare, so we are not going to hire more people. In fact, we are 
going to cut back in order to avoid some of the sanctions associated 
with it or, you know what. At some point I am tired of working for the 
government instead of working for myself, my family, so I am just going 
to close business and shut her down.
  Despite all that, the majority leader has the temerity to come on the 
Senate floor and say this is the law of the land; we can't touch it; it 
is perfect, couldn't be better. That is like whistling past the 
graveyard. Senate Democrats have refused to make any changes 
whatsoever, even in those provisions they themselves believe are flawed 
or defective in ObamaCare. They are refusing to abolish the medical 
device tax, which is a job killer and kills medical innovation that 
saves lives, even though 79 Senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, 
voted against the medical device tax on the budget resolution.
  They are refusing to delay the individual mandate, even though the 
President of the United States has given businesses a 1-year delay in 
the employer sanction. Yet Democrats voted against delaying the 
individual mandate for average Americans. How can that be fair?
  Most remarkably, when it comes to the ObamaCare exchanges, Senate 
Democrats have toed the line--you might say walked the plank last 
night, at the insistence of the majority leader--and they refused to 
treat Members of Congress the same as all other Americans. That is what 
one of the votes we had last night did.
  If I were a Democrat running for reelection in red States in 2014, I 
would be very worried about that. This is a toxic vote for them because 
Americans, although they may not be able to quote Federalist 57, know 
what it says in their hearts and spirits because it is fundamental to 
our democracy; that is, that Members of Congress should be treated no 
differently, certainly no better, than the rest of America when it 
comes to the law of the land. Those who cast that vote, who walked that 
plank last night, will be held accountable in the 2014 election.
  You know what. I believe all of this points to the fact that the 
majority leader and President Obama want a government shutdown because 
they are reading some of the polls that say they think this will 
benefit them politically. They are willing to risk a shutdown of the 
Federal Government in order to gain political advantage. I am not so 
sure about that. I certainly did not believe that a shutdown--it was 
not my first choice. I thought surely cooler heads would prevail. When 
it came to the individual mandate, when it came to the medical device 
tax, when it came to eliminating the special carve-out for Congress, 
surely we can find some common ground somewhere. When there is plenty 
of evidence that the President and his administration have acknowledged 
the flaws and the defects and the unkept promises of ObamaCare, surely 
we could find somewhere we could find common ground.
  Our colleagues in the House have now passed multiple bills to keep 
the government open and allow ObamaCare to remain funded, even though 
clearly our first choice is to repeal and replace this devastating 
legislation which is killing jobs, running up costs, and falling out of 
favor with even its most ardent advocates such as organized labor. 
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party, from the President of the United 
States to the majority leader of the Senate, to all Democrats in this 
body, have become the party of no: no compromise, no negotiations, no 
changes. It is all perfect. We would not change a thing. Life is good.
  But the Government shuts down and invariably some people get hurt. 
The President of the United States was thinking about holding a meeting 
of congressional leaders at the White House. The report in one of the 
newspapers in Washington is Senator Reid, the majority leader of the 
Senate, shut it down. The President wanted to demonstrate some 
leadership. He should demonstrate some leadership. People expect 
leadership out of the President of the United States, but Harry Reid 
shut it down. So Harry Reid shut down the Government and got what he 
wanted.
  I think it is about time the President overrule Harry Reid. He was 
elected by the American people. For many of us he was our second 
choice, but he is the President of the United States. He needs to 
demonstrate some leadership. Instead, the Democrats have doubled down 
on their strategy, hoping to gain political advantage at the expense of 
the people hurt. The shutdown was not my first choice, but there are 
many of my constituents who are calling me, telling me: Look, we are 
worried. We are scared about our future. We are scared not only about 
our ability to find jobs, we are scared about our children and their 
future. My generation was the beneficiary of the sacrifice and hard 
work of the greatest generation, the World War II generation, people 
who risked everything so we might have a better life.
  I am hearing from a number of my constituents back home, and they are 
saying, look, we are willing to risk some hardship if that is what it 
takes to get the American people, the Democratic Party, and the 
President to wake up and say: We need to work together and fix these 
problems that we all know exist, the national debt, lower median 
income, unsustainable Medicare and Social Security, for which the 
Democrats offer only higher taxes and more regulation. No wonder the 
economy is growing so slowly. The triple whammy is ObamaCare, which is 
killing jobs and hurting the economy.
  We can do better than that, and we certainly can by working together. 
Now is the time for the President to call that meeting in the Oval 
Office.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am disappointed that the process has 
failed us in the last week for my friends in the House and in the 
Senate who, as I did, when we ran for these jobs, said we would do 
everything we could possibly do to not go down this path where the 
government gets between people and their doctor. Those are heartfelt 
and sincere views. If we were in the majority and had a President on 
our side, we would have already taken care of this issue.
  For those who mistakenly thought if we didn't have any appropriations 
bill that somehow the President's health care plan wouldn't move 
forward, we now see today that was a mistaken view of what would 
happen. Most of the President's health care spending is mandatory. It 
is something the Congress doesn't even vote on. The way not to move 
forward is to change the law, but we have not had any opportunity to 
change this law. We didn't have an opportunity when the Presiding 
Officer and I served in the House together to change the law. This is a 
law that never was amendable on the floor of the Senate or the House.
  It is hard to imagine that we have decided to restructure 1/16th of 
the whole economy and everybody's health care relationships without 
ever having a chance to amend the law. Surely my friends on the other 
side who have supported this bill, are supportive of this law, 
understand the frustration we have when there has never been a 
possibility to bring an amendment to the law and say: Let's see if we 
can't make this part of it work better.
  What was the amendment yesterday? The amendment yesterday to the law 
that the House offered the Senate--the principal amendment was: Let's 
not have the individual penalty for a year. The President, on his own, 
decided we won't have the corporate penalty for a year, that we 
wouldn't have the business penalty for a year. This is sort of

[[Page 14817]]

a strange place for us to wind up. On this side of the Senate we are 
saying: Don't give job creators--we like to talk about job creators on 
this side of the Senate aisle--a break and not give people working at 
those jobs a break.
  The President, on his own, can apparently amend the law without us. 
This is also pretty unusual, that the President, on his own, without 
us, thinks he can amend the law, but we have no avenue to amend the 
law. The President, on his own, said: We are going to eliminate the 
corporate penalty. We are going to say that for this first year, 
businesses that have more than 50 employees don't have to offer 
insurance or pay a penalty; that is what the law says was supposed to 
happen on January 1. But the President said: No, we are not going to do 
that; that is too hard to do. We are going to take a $12 billion hit in 
funding this program because that is what the estimated penalties might 
have been. Frankly, that might have been low because a lot of 
businesses that were offering insurance I think will not offer 
insurance when we get into the requirement to offer insurance.
  I think that was probably a low number, but it was a number. It was 
$12 billion. Our friends in the House sent something over here that 
said: If we are going to waive $12 billion, let's waive $4 billion. 
Let's waive the penalty for individuals if they don't have insurance. 
By the way, many of those individuals were led by this law to believe 
they were going to get insurance at work. The President said there is 
no penalty for not offering insurance at work for this first year, but 
we are still going to penalize individuals who don't have it. If you 
are an individual and for whatever reason you can't afford or don't 
have insurance, you will have a $95 penalty the first year, and it goes 
up after that. That was a chance to amend the law in the right way. The 
House would have voted, the Senate would have voted, and the President 
would have signed a bill. Imagine that. The House votes, the Senate 
votes, and the President signs a bill. I think that is the way the 
process is supposed to work. How we could have a $12 billion waiver for 
the employer and have a $4 billion penalty for the employee doesn't 
make any sense to me.
  This law was not amendable, so, sure, would it be better not to amend 
it on a resolution to support the government? Absolutely that would 
have been better. Would it have been better for the Senate to pass a 
single appropriations bill of the 12 that were supposed to be passed 
before the spending year begins? Absolutely. That would have been a lot 
better. Would it have been better for the Senate to prioritize 
anything?
  Senator Mikulski, the chairman of my committee, the Appropriations 
Committee, as was mentioned earlier, voted out most of the bills. Some 
of them were voted out on a partisan vote, some of them were voted out 
on a bipartisan vote, but only one got here, and it was one the leader 
knew couldn't possibly pass. So we haven't passed one bill. It would 
have been better to do it that way. We wouldn't be at this moment if in 
fact we passed the appropriations bills and agreed with the Senate.
  Then the majority leader talks about the hardworking chairman of the 
Budget Committee, and said we can't do our work because we don't have a 
budget conference. Last year the majority leader said we don't even 
need a budget. It is too late for the budget. The spending year has 
begun. That was months ago when that should have happened. Why didn't 
that happen? Because the House passed a budget that obeyed the law and 
the law says we can't spend more than $967 billion. That is the law, 
like it or not. Just like on my side of this discussion, ObamaCare is 
the law, like it or not.
  Apparently that is a law we have to enforce, but we don't have to 
enforce the Budget Control Act because the Senate budget was over $1 
trillion--$1.038 trillion was the Senate budget. Of course we are not 
going to have an agreement if we are $70 billion or $80 billion apart 
and one side obeys the law and the other doesn't.
  Essentially for a week now Republicans in the House have been 
negotiating with themselves because there is nobody who is willing to 
negotiate. The President says negotiating on the debt ceiling is 
blackmail. It has never been blackmail before. In fact, we wouldn't 
have the Budget Control Act if we hadn't negotiated on the debt 
ceiling.
  So it is blackmail to negotiate? This is a process where the House, 
the Senate, and the President are supposed to work together to move 
forward. The debt ceiling has been used over and over to talk about 
spending. It has been used a number of times to talk about things that 
weren't spending. Usually Congress is controlled by Democrats with 
Republican Presidents. And they said, ok, the President doesn't want to 
talk about this issue without the debt ceiling, so we are going to add 
it to the debt ceiling discussion. But more often than that, it has 
been used to talk about spending.
  If you go to the banker and say: I have spent all the money you have 
given me, used up my line of credit, so I would like to extend the line 
of credit, I guarantee your banker will say either no, you have already 
exceeded what we told you you could borrow from us to spend, or if we 
are going to do that, let's talk about your spending habits. Show me a 
plan that shows you will spend differently in the future than you spend 
now. But the President says that is blackmail. More than anybody else 
in the United States of America, the President of the United States is 
in a position to figure out what he is for that the Congress would be 
willing to do. That is not happening, and that has not happened.
  There is plenty of blame for the fact that there is no funding today, 
but there are also plenty of victims. Everybody who depends on the 
government is a victim. Social Security checks are going to go out, but 
you can't apply for Social Security if you don't have it. If your check 
is lost or didn't go out, you can't find out why that happened. People 
in harm's way: The border control agents, the Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement people are out there, but their paycheck for their family 
is not coming.
  How could we have solved that yesterday? I am confident that one of 
the ways we could have solved that is by saying, okay, we won't collect 
this $4 billion from individuals just as we are not collecting the $12 
billion from companies.
  The reason this health care law continues to be such a problem is it 
was never amendable, and it was never discussed. Even the President 
said, as he does some of these unilateral things, if this were a normal 
circumstance, I would go to Congress and ask them to change the law, 
but it is not a normal circumstance. I can't find that anywhere in the 
Constitution where the President gets to decide if the Constitution 
applies or doesn't apply.
  Everybody is to blame here because the Congress is not doing the work 
Congress is supposed to do and the President is not leading. Americans 
are going to suffer because the Congress and the President haven't done 
their job.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, as my colleague from Missouri said, as 
we are here on the floor today, much of the Federal Government has been 
shut down. It is shut down because of the Democrats' unwillingness to 
compromise on keeping the government open and delivering fairness to 
all Americans.
  While employers got a pass from the President on his health care law, 
the American people still face a mandate that they start signing up for 
Washington-approved health insurance and the exchange is open today. 
The House of Representatives took the reasonable and responsible step 
of keeping the government open while eliminating the health care law's 
unfairness.
  It is unfair that the mandate for health care law will not be delayed 
for individuals for a year but does delay the mandate for businesses. 
It is also unfair to refuse to eliminate special exemptions under the 
health care law for Members of Congress. That wasn't in the health care 
law at all. Yet the

[[Page 14818]]

President has granted special exemptions that I believe show the 
unfairness of the approach by the Democrats.
  President Obama saw that other parts of the health care law won't 
work and weren't ready. He has currently signed seven different bills 
which will repeal and defund other parts of his law. In the interest of 
fairness, he should deal with these parts that are seen all across the 
country as very unfair.
  The President has allowed exemptions and changed the laws for 
specific groups. He has delayed the employer mandate for a year. The 
question is: Why does he oppose delaying the individual mandate for a 
year as well? Why do the bosses get an exemption but not the workers? 
That is what someone asked me at a health fair in Lovell, WY, over this 
past weekend.
  The American people already know the health care law is unaffordable, 
unworkable, unpopular, and now families are also saying the health care 
law is unfair. The House has asked us to treat all Americans fairly, 
but the President and the majority leader refuse to do that. If you 
look at their rhetoric over the past week or so, Washington Democrats 
seemed eager for a government shutdown. Well, they got their wish. 
Meanwhile, the administration is still promising people great benefits 
from the new government-run health insurance exchanges. Today hard-
working Americans get to see which promises are kept and which have 
been broken. I think what people are going to learn today can be summed 
up in two words: Buyer beware.
  Here is how the Wall Street Journal put it yesterday. This is their 
front-page article: ``Late Snags on Eve of Health Rollout.''
  The article says the Obama administration officials are scrambling to 
get the health law's insurance marketplaces ready to open on Tuesday 
but keep hitting technical problems, while government-funded field 
workers across the country say they are not fully prepared to help 
Americans enroll in the program.
  The reports in the news today show a system failure across the 
country as the exchange goes live. Remember what the President said in 
his address to the Nation Saturday. He said they are opening on Tuesday 
no matter what--no matter what, they are opening today.
  Well, I think the people across the country are going to have more 
than just technical problems. First of all, people are going to see 
significantly higher costs. Last week, the President promised to give 
Americans, and I quote, ``high-quality affordable health care for less 
than their cell phone bill.''
  Remember, the average monthly cell phone bill is $71. In Cheyenne, 
WY, the least expensive plan a 27-year-old man can buy will be $271. 
The President said less than $71. Why is it $271 a month in Cheyenne, 
WY? And that is for a healthy 27-year-old. So before the health care 
law, before the exchanges, they could buy a plan such as that for $82; 
now, $271--a lot more than a cell phone bill.
  The White House isn't even disputing anymore that prices will be 
higher for many people. Now the White House is arguing that consumers 
will spend more, but they will get, as they say, better insurance.
  The administration is also saying that prices are going up less than 
they had previously estimated. They previously estimated they were 
going to go up a lot. Now they are estimating they are not going to go 
up quite as much as a lot, but they are still going to go up. A smaller 
increase isn't what the President promised. He said families could pay 
$2,500 less a year. That is what the President promised. It is not what 
is happening.
  Prices in the exchanges are up all across the country. In California, 
the cheapest plan at the silver level will cost a 40-year-old in Los 
Angeles $242 a month. That same person, because of something in the law 
called community ratings, buying the same plan in Sacramento, CA, would 
pay $330 a month. I see the astonishing looks on faces of folks in this 
Chamber. They can't believe it. They say, How can it be true? Perhaps 
they should have read the law, read the bill before they voted to pass 
it. The price is 38 percent more in Sacramento than in L.A. for the 
same identical policy, for the same 40-year-old person.
  In addition to the higher cost of insurance premiums, there are also 
higher out-of-pocket costs, higher copayments, higher deductibles--all 
things that are going to make people look at this and say, Cheaper than 
my cell phone bill? Not a chance. All of that means more money out of 
the wallets of hard-working Americans and more sticker shock.
  The second thing people are learning today as they sign up in the 
exchanges is that many of them will actually lose their doctor. I 
practiced medicine for 25 years. I know how important it is for 
patients to have a long-term relationship with their caregivers. The 
exchanges--the mandates coming out of this President's health care 
law--break that bond. That is because insurance companies needed to 
find ways to keep rates from going even higher. So what they have done 
is limited the doctors and limited the hospitals that patients can 
visit.
  In New Hampshire, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield is excluding 10 of the 
28 hospitals in the State from the exchange. A young mother may not be 
able to keep seeing the pediatrician whom she knows and trusts with her 
children's care. That wasn't supposed to happen. The President promised 
that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. Today, many 
Americans are finding out that is just not the case.
  On Sunday, a few days ago, Howard Dean, the former head of the 
Democratic National Committee, admitted that one of the unintended 
consequences of the law is that small businesses are going to dump 
their employees into the exchange. The people who work at those small 
businesses don't get to keep the insurance they had, and they may not 
get to keep the doctor they had either.
  A third thing people are going to start to see today as the exchanges 
open for business is that there is a definite risk of fraud and 
identity theft. How can that be? The administration has hired so-called 
navigators--people to help enroll consumers in the exchanges. It turns 
out that these workers aren't well trained or even subject to 
consistent background checks. Even the Obama administration has been 
warning that con artists will take advantage of confusion over the law 
to steal people's identities. As I said earlier, buyer beware. Security 
may also be inadequate in the giant government ``data hub.'' These are 
the huge databases of detailed personal information about everyone in 
the exchanges. The information will be available to people in many 
different government agencies, in the whole chart of all the different 
places that this data is going to be sent all throughout government. 
The administration promises that the data hub will work, but they will 
not talk about what they have done to ensure that it is secure.
  Finally, we know that today there are going to be a lot of customer 
service system failures. President Obama said that buying insurance 
through the exchanges would be like shopping at Amazon.com. It is 
shaping up to be much less consistent than that. Instead of simply 
clicking a few buttons online, many people are spending hours following 
up with phone calls, e-mails, and faxes. Faxes?
  As recently as two weeks ago, government software couldn't reliably 
tell people the correct price for their insurance. Late last week, the 
administration delayed enrollment of some of its small business 
exchanges. Washington, DC, said last week that parts of its exchanges 
also weren't ready. In the State of Oregon, State officials say the 
software problems will force them to delay their Web site. People there 
will have to find other ways to get help for signing up.
  That is not how Amazon.com works. That is not what the President 
promised.
  It didn't have to be this way. The American people knew what they 
wanted from health care reform. They wanted lower costs and more 
accessible, quality care. President Obama could

[[Page 14819]]

have drafted a law that actually addressed Americans' concerns. 
Instead, he forced through a law making health care more complicated, 
more uncertain, and more expensive.
  Now is the time for the American people to hold the President to his 
promises. Coverage in the exchanges, as he said, should cost less than 
your cell phone bill, be as easy and secure as Amazon, and let people 
keep their doctors. How well those promises hold up will be the real 
legacy of the Obama health care law.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. 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. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally 
divided between both parties.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. President. 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. LEE. 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. LEE. Mr. President, yesterday when the President of the United 
States addressed the American people, he was very clear about what a 
shutdown would mean. He said:

       Office buildings would close. Paychecks would be delayed. 
     Vital services that seniors and veterans, women and children, 
     businesses and our economy depend on would be hamstrung. 
     Business owners would see delays in raising capital, seeking 
     infrastructure permits or rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy.
       Veterans, who have sacrificed for their country, will find 
     their support centers unstaffed. Tourists will find every one 
     of America's national parks and monuments, from Yosemite to 
     the Smithsonian to the Statue of Liberty, immediately closed. 
     And of course, the communities and small businesses that rely 
     on these national treasures for their livelihoods will be out 
     of customers and out of luck.

  I share the President's concerns about what will happen to the 
American people--about ``real people,'' as one of my colleagues put it 
yesterday--during and in connection with a government shutdown.
  I wish to focus our attention in the coming hours and days on these 
people. I think it is also important that we continue to focus as well 
on those who are already hurting--hurting for reasons that don't have 
to do with the shutdown.
  So I would like to turn for a moment to people who are and for a 
number of months have been already feeling the negative effects of 
another government policy the President and his allies in Congress 
staunchly defend.
  ObamaCare happens to be the No. 1 job killer in the country. A recent 
analysis documented hundreds of businesses that are cutting back hours 
to avoid the crushing cost of ObamaCare's severe mandates. As a result, 
major unions have said ObamaCare could destroy the 40-hour workweek--
the backbone of the American economy. People are losing their health 
insurance. Just a week ago Friday, 20,000 people--employees of Home 
Depot--were informed they would be losing their health insurance. UPS 
is no longer going to provide health insurance for spouses of 
employees. The grocery store chain Trader Joe's has dropped health care 
coverage for part-time workers altogether.
  For everyone who has been furloughed by the government shutdown, the 
change hopefully will be temporary--perhaps lasting a few days, maybe 
even a few hours--if the Democrats decide to negotiate. For everyone 
who has lost a job, had their hours cut, their wages reduced, or who no 
longer receives health insurance, the change could well prove to be far 
more permanent. Do we not have an obligation to do something for those 
people? I think we do. So let's look for the path forward. Let's return 
to the President's concern about those who are hurt by a government 
shutdown.
  One positive and encouraging step was taken yesterday in response to 
action taken by the House of Representatives late Saturday night. Late 
Saturday night, of course, the House of Representatives passed a bill 
to ensure that all Active-Duty military personnel--the brave men and 
women in uniform who serve us bravely--will continue to get paid. 
Yesterday the Senate took up that measure and passed it unanimously. It 
did so in a matter of minutes, in a seemingly effortless legislative 
act.
  I think we can do the exact same thing with a number of 
noncontroversial spending bills that fund aspects of government that 
Americans overwhelmingly support, that Americans acknowledge we need, 
and that are completely unrelated to ObamaCare. My plan, in other 
words, would involve setting up segmented continuing resolutions, 
appropriations measures that would keep the funding going at current 
levels to various areas within government, including the Department of 
Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, military construction, 
CJS, which includes funding for the Department of Justice, the Federal 
Court system, the FBI, NASA, the National Weather Service, for example, 
and also the U.S. Department of the Interior, which includes our 
national parks.
  I mention national parks with special interest because today is the 
first day of what we hope will be a short, quickly resolved government 
shutdown. We have at least two Honor Flights coming in from around the 
country bringing World War II veterans--members of the ``greatest 
generation''--to Washington, DC, who plan to visit the World War II 
veterans memorial, a memorial designed specifically for them. When they 
arrive, if nothing changes between now and then, they will painfully 
discover what we have learned this morning, which is that those parts 
of the National Mall have been fenced off and barricaded. They will not 
be able to get in. They will not even be able to get very close. This 
is unfortunate and, just as important, it is unnecessary. We can act. 
We should act. We must act today to resolve this. There is absolutely 
no reason this noncontroversial aspect of our Federal Government's 
operations should continue 1 more day or even 1 more hour, for that 
matter, without being funded.
  This is an effort to compromise, an effort that is badly needed, an 
effort that comes in the wake of other efforts to compromise that have 
for the most part failed. The House of Representatives has tried now 
three different times to avoid a shutdown, passing three different 
measures to make sure our government would continue to be funded. 
Senator Reid and those Members of his conference who support him have 
rejected all three plans, rejected all three offers to keep the 
government funded, accusing Republicans of playing games with 
ObamaCare.
  In light of that, let's leave ObamaCare for another day and not hold 
the vast majority of government functions hostage when the vast 
majority of government functions do not have anything to do with the 
implementation and enforcement of ObamaCare. We did it yesterday. We 
did it. It worked well. It was seamless. It was done with absolute 
unanimous consent. We did it with respect to Active-Duty military pay 
yesterday. We can do it for veterans benefits, for border security, for 
national parks, and for many other government agencies. We can keep 
government open. We can keep those aspects of our Federal Government 
funded. We can do so. We should do so. Together, we will do so.
  I look forward to having these discussions in the coming hours to 
make sure we can continue to work together as colleagues. We may not 
agree on everything, but in those areas where we should agree and where 
we in reality do agree, let's keep the government funded.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the 
time during any quorum call be equally divided between the two parties.

[[Page 14820]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, today is a day of enormous promise and 
needless tragedy. The promise is the beginning, another step forward, 
in America's progress toward providing all America with affordable 
health care. It is a welcome day because Americans can now enroll in 
health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. But it is a 
needlessly tragic day because, in the midst of a tragic economic 
recovery, millions of Americans are out of work now--an extremist 
faction having sworn to its followers the Affordable Care Act would 
never be allowed to stand have now shut down the government because 
they did not get their way.
  I wish to begin by talking directly to the people of Connecticut. 
Today is an enormously frustrating one for me because in the years and 
decades of public service I have sought to provide to people in 
Connecticut, never have I been barred, as we are today, each of us in 
this Chamber, from serving those needs individually, from phoning them 
and proactively putting staff on issues that concern them.
  Due to the shutdown of the Federal Government, our office operations 
in both Hartford and Bridgeport are severely reduced, as well as in 
Washington. If a constituent needs help, if there is an emergency, if 
there is an issue that is time sensitive, you can reach our office and 
we will provide help. We will endeavor to meet any issue that concerns 
the health and safety and lives of the people of Connecticut and in no 
way is our commitment to you diminished.
  I regret that our staff will be handicapped by the legal constraints. 
Indeed, we are, in many instances, not permitted to work in the ways 
that we have. But I can assure you we are continuing to serve you.
  Today, in Connecticut, enrollment in our health exchanges will ensure 
access to more affordable quality health care for millions of middle-
class families. Access to affordable quality health coverage is a basic 
right. We cannot deny it and we cannot turn back the clock. We need to 
work together--Republicans and Democrats--to improve and strengthen it 
and to bring down the cost of health care. The task ahead is to reform 
health care delivery to bring down the rising--in fact, the 
astronomically increasing--cost of health care, and to build on the 
work that has already begun under the Affordable Care Act and before 
it.
  There is a real difference between an America with affordable health 
care and one that lacks it. It is an America where being a woman is no 
longer a preexisting condition, where a family who is responsible and 
pays for health insurance knows when they arrive at the delivery room 
they will not be bankrupted by the bill, and where children are not 
denied care because they happen to get sick.
  We are at an impasse in Washington because of a matter of principle. 
The kind of hostage-taking we see here cannot be allowed to take place. 
It has no legitimate role in a spending bill. The bill before us would 
enable government to continue the people's work, to continue to do 
business for the American people. That is our job, and the attempt has 
been to attach to that resolution a completely unrelated demand that 
the Affordable Care Act be defunded or delayed or destroyed. To tie 
health care repeal to a funding bill is akin to tying immigration 
reform to the National Defense Authorization Act. It is a dangerous 
precedent and it cannot be permitted. If we accept this take-or-leave-
it approach that led to this shutdown, we will be forced to govern this 
way--or fail to govern this way--in the future.
  In fact, the resolution before us already involves compromises--less 
money than is necessary, for example, to rebuild our roads and bridges, 
to engage in infrastructure, repair and rebuilding. Rather than nation-
building abroad, more nation-building here at home has to be done and 
more investment is required. The compromises in this funding bill have 
been made in the amounts of money included in it.
  The impacts of this shutdown will be felt throughout our economy, in 
all 50 States, and in thousands of jobs in Connecticut if the shutdown 
continues for weeks or months. There are millions of families 
nationally and thousands in Connecticut who will go without paychecks. 
There are 9,000 Federal employees in Connecticut who will be affected. 
Their work is important, but the ripple effect is equally important. 
The losses of income and diminished consumer demand will further 
inhibit economic growth. Defense contractors will lose their contracts 
or possibly fail to receive checks when they need them.
  A shutdown does nothing to address our need to agree on a responsible 
budget and replace the slash-and-burn, across-the-board sequestration 
cuts that are continued in this resolution.
  A shutdown undermines one of the key engines of economic growth in 
this country, research and innovation, such as the research done at the 
Coast Guard's Research and Development Center in New London, CT. What 
if the studies in that facility led to better ways to secure our 
borders, to rescue people lost at sea. Who knows what future 
innovations will be sacrificed at the National Institutes of Health 
across the country and in companies around Connecticut.
  The lifeblood of our economy--job creation, research and innovation, 
investment in the future--is undercut and undermined by this shutdown. 
In fact, even as we go through this process in Washington, the 
Northeast region is seeking to recover from a shutdown in train service 
that occurred just days ago. That shutdown has been remedied to some 
extent--an inadequate degree--so that half or slightly more of the 
service has been restored. The failures in the feeder cable that led to 
this shutdown are directly due to a failure of investment in 
infrastructure, just as the derailment and collision that was caused 
months ago reflected a failure to invest in infrastructure. Right 
before our eyes, as we engage in this kind of conduct in Washington 
that led to a shutdown, are the consequences of investment failure in 
our roads and bridges and train system.
  With displaced workers struggling to get back into the labor market 
and businesses in need of specific skills, it is shocking we should cut 
back first on job training through these unresolved sequester cuts that 
are projected to force Connecticut's job training services to assist 
9,360 fewer job seekers than they otherwise would.
  We need to come together now. The message to Speaker Boehner has to 
be: Let the House vote. There are reasonable minds on both sides of the 
aisle who say let's have a simple, straightforward spending bill 
without these unrelated demands, without the blackmail and hostage-
taking tactics. Let us come together on that kind of simple, 
straightforward way of continuing the people's business and the 
government's work for the people.
  Many of my colleagues and I listened with great interest to the 
Senator from Alaska and others on the other side of the aisle saying we 
should let common sense and compromise prevail and deal with the issues 
relating to the Affordable Care Act, for immigration, separately and 
distinctly. They are measures that deserve and need attention, and 
there are ways to strengthen and improve many of our laws. But let's 
deal with them on their merits, not as demands or conditions for 
continuing the people's work by their government.
  I truly believe, as we look back on this day, it will be with pride 
in another step forward for health care reform in this country. A lot 
of work remains to be done. Bringing down the cost of health care is a 
task, an unmet challenge that needs to be addressed, as well as other 
ways to strengthen and improve our health care system and the law 
itself. Let the House vote on a measure that provides simple, 
straightforward funding to continue the work of government for its 
people and allows the economy to continue its recovery

[[Page 14821]]

and growth, that allows job creators to do their work, and that allows 
our working families--middle-class families--to have the benefits of 
education and Social Security and the veterans' benefits they vitally 
need. These essential functions must continue.
  Let the House vote. Let reason prevail, and we can return to the work 
that government should be doing for its people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I think the American public 
overwhelmingly opposes ObamaCare. Every survey shows that, and all of 
us traveling back and forth to our States hear it. But they also 
support keeping the government open.
  We have had an opportunity over the course of the last several days 
to deal with both of those issues. In fact, in order to avoid a 
government shutdown, you have to have people who are willing to work 
together and come to a solution. The House of Representatives has not 
once, not twice, but three times sent to the Senate proposals that 
would fund the government and that would make some changes to ObamaCare 
that would provide the same sort of relief to every American that big 
businesses have received from the President by virtue of some of his 
waivers and exemptions. On all three occasions that was turned down--
tabled--when it got to the Senate.
  So what did the House of Representatives do? Their most recent 
proposal advanced to the Senate was to allow the House and the Senate 
to go to conference, to work out the differences. They asked the Senate 
to appoint conferees to a conference committee, where Senators and 
House Members might be able to sit down, Democrats and Republicans, and 
actually hammer out some sort of solution to the challenge we face in 
front of us. That got tabled this morning. That is the first time I 
have ever seen that happen in my time in the Congress--and maybe the 
first time it has ever happened--where one body has asked for a 
conference and asked for appointing of conferees and it was tabled.
  It was not just turned down. We didn't say: No, we are not going to 
do it now; we will do it another time. But we actually tabled the 
motion--tabling a motion of the House of Representatives to have a 
conference on how to work out the situation and in a way that will 
allow us to keep the government open and hopefully provide middle-class 
Americans some relief and the economy--the taxpayers and employers 
across this country--some relief from ObamaCare.
  So we are where we are now--with the House of Representatives having 
suggested to the Senate that we sit down together in a conference 
committee and work out our differences--and the Senate having rejected 
that.
  We could all argue about how we initially got where we are. I think 
it all starts when we don't do things the way they are intended to be 
done around here--in other words, taking the appropriations process and 
moving those bills forward.
  Here in the Senate we had an opportunity, as we do every year, to 
move the individual appropriations bills. There are 12 separate 
appropriations bills that historically have been the way in which we 
have funded the government. This year we didn't move a single 
appropriations bill through the Senate. The House of Representatives 
moved four of the bills through the process. They didn't get through 
all of them, but at least they got some of the appropriations bills 
completed. But here in the Senate, we didn't do a single appropriations 
bill.
  We all saw this coming. It is not as if there is any secret or 
surprise. So what happens is there is a calendar, and when those 
deadlines aren't met, we get up against the end of the fiscal year, the 
way we are right now, and we have this huge push to try to keep the 
government from shutting down, and we generally do it in the form of a 
continuing resolution. But the fact is, if the Senate had done any of 
its work earlier this year, if we had taken up any of the 
appropriations bills and passed them, we wouldn't be in this crisis 
moment we have in front of us now.
  Why is it that so many Republicans in both the House and Senate--and, 
I would daresay, Democrats as well, although they haven't demonstrated 
it with their votes--are concerned about what is happening with 
ObamaCare? Obviously, as more information becomes available about 
ObamaCare, the more concerns, the more frustrations, the more questions 
the American people have.
  I mentioned this previously, but in my State of South Dakota, 
according to the report put out last week by the Health and Human 
Services Department, if you compare the premiums that a 30-year-old 
male and a 30-year-old female would pay in the State of South Dakota 
for a bronze plan in the exchanges, the increase in premium for people 
in that age category would be for a man 393 percent and for a woman 223 
percent. So for a 30-year-old female in the State of South Dakota, the 
annual increase in insurance premiums would be $1,500, and if you are a 
male in the State of South Dakota, the annual increase would be $2,000. 
So there is a real concern about the impact this will have, as these 
exchanges get up and running, on what people are currently paying for 
health care coverage.
  There is also a lot of evidence and data out there now that suggests 
it doesn't apply just to a 30-year-old male or female in my State of 
South Dakota, but it also applies to families. There are many families 
across this country who are obviously concerned about how this is going 
to impact the cost of health insurance for them. If we look at what 
health insurance costs have done for families since the President took 
office, they have gone up on average about $3,000. Since ObamaCare 
passed, those premiums have gone up for families by about $2,500. So we 
have seen premiums going up already.
  We have a lot of concerns as these exchanges get up and running 
starting today about what impact they will have on premiums for middle-
class Americans. That is why there is a lot of concern and anxiety 
across the country today with regard to the impacts of ObamaCare.
  We also have a lot of concerns about how this will impact jobs and 
the economy. We have already seen that a majority of the jobs created 
this year are part-time jobs. There are many reasons for that, but if 
we talk to employers, one of the things they will point out is that the 
requirements in the new health care law are that if they have 50 or 
more employees, they have to offer government-approved health care or 
pay a penalty. So a lot of employers are trying to stay under that 50-
employee minimum or threshold so they don't have to face that 
requirement. So what happens? They either don't hire people they were 
otherwise going to hire or they look at ways to reduce their workforce.
  It applies in another way because the definition of ``full-time 
employee'' in the law is 30 hours per week. Again, employers will be 
subject to the same sorts of penalties, so what many are doing is 
instead of hiring full-time workers, they are hiring part-time workers, 
29-hour-a-week workers. Obviously, 29 hours a week doesn't give you the 
kind of pay that would allow you to meet the needs your family has. So 
more and more people are working two jobs, and we see the impact and 
the distortion this new law is creating in the workplace and for a lot 
of employers.
  There was a lot of anxiety and angst about that, which I think was 
voiced to the President and to his administration. So what does the 
President do? The President decided to delay the employer mandate in 
the law for 1 year. I think employers took great comfort at least in 
knowing it is not going to be there for this year, but they are also 
still very worried about what will happen when it does kick in in the 
following year.
  But there are all these employers, and people may say: Who are these 
people? I don't know how one can travel their State or anywhere else 
outside of their State and not hear from employers who are expressing 
concerns and asking questions about what this is going to mean for them 
and expressing

[[Page 14822]]

grave reservations about the impact it is going to have on their 
ability to create jobs.
  So as we speak with these various employers and get lots of anecdotal 
evidence--last week there was an interview done with employers in my 
State of South Dakota. A person was asked about how this would impact 
them, and he said: I guess we are probably not going to hire as many 
people as we otherwise would have hired. He said: I think that is going 
to be happening with businesses all over the country.
  That is one example from my State of South Dakota, but if we look at 
sort of the aggregate, according to Investor's Business Daily there are 
some 300 businesses that have said they are going to reduce the size of 
their workforce or not hire people they otherwise might hire as a 
result of the impact of ObamaCare. So we see more and more of the 
experience, the evidence that we get day to day speaking with employers 
in our individual States, but we also start seeing this cumulative 
effect and more and more businesses expressing those concerns.
  When we look at the economy today and where we are, we find out very 
quickly that the unemployment rate, which has been at north of 7 
percent, 7.5 percent for a long time now--when we add back into that 
equation the number of people who have either stopped looking for work 
or who are working part time when they would rather be working full 
time, the actual number is much higher. We have about 22 million 
Americans, and the unemployment rate climbs quickly into the double-
digit territory when we add those people back. The labor participation 
rate--which is the number of people in the workforce relative to the 
number of people who could be--is at the lowest level literally in 35 
years.
  So we have a historically low labor participation rate, fewer people 
actually looking for work, some just flat having given up on it. We 
have a very soft economy. I don't think anybody would describe the 
economy today as being robust. We have a chronically high unemployment 
rate, jobs that are being created being part-time jobs, and so we have 
the overall average household income in this country actually going 
down. In fact, if we look at the statistics since the President took 
office, the average household income has gone down by about $3,700 per 
family--$3,700 less income for the average household--$3,000 higher in 
health care costs, and we can see how middle-class families are getting 
increasingly squeezed by what is happening as a result of ObamaCare.
  One of the more recent suggestions that came over from the House of 
Representatives last evening came back with a funding resolution to 
fund the government and there were a couple of provisions that dealt 
with some of these more onerous provisions in the ObamaCare law. One 
had to do with the individual mandate.
  The whole theory behind giving people relief from that is to give 
them the same treatment, to be fair, that employers get. If the 
President has chosen to waive the employer mandate for big businesses--
which he has for 1 year--why then require individuals to have 
insurance?
  There is going to be a significant cost associated when everybody has 
to buy insurance. It is about a $12 billion cost to people across this 
country. The question then is, If you are going to give the temporary 
relief to the business community, why would you not in a fair way at 
least make sure individuals are treated the same way?
  That seemed to be a pretty compelling argument. If you are going to 
do something that actually does impact in a favorable way people across 
this country who are going to be suffering even more from the harmful 
effects of ObamaCare, it would strike us as at least reasonable to 
suggest giving a 1-year delay to people under the individual mandate--
the same delay the President has given big businesses under the 
employer mandate.
  The other provision attached to the continuing resolution proposal 
advanced by the House last night had to do with treating Members of 
Congress, their staff, and people here in Washington, DC, the same as 
everybody else. It strikes me again, at least, that if we are going to 
have these policies, everybody ought to be treated the same way.
  Frankly, my hope would be that we could relieve everybody. I would 
love to see us permanently delay this so that no American would be 
subject to the harmful impacts and effects of ObamaCare. But for sure, 
for certain, people here in Washington, DC, should not be exempt. There 
should not be a separate carve-out or separate treatment for people 
here in Washington, DC, compared to other people around the country.
  So the legislation that came over from the House last night included 
a 1-year delay in the individual mandate--trying to treat individuals 
and people across the country the same way as businesses are being 
treated in terms of the way the law is being applied--and secondly, 
make sure people here in Washington, DC, Members of Congress and their 
staff and others, are treated the same way as everybody else around the 
country. In other words, there is no exemption, there is no carve-out, 
there is no preferential treatment for people here in Washington, DC. 
Those were the two things that were attached to the funding resolution 
last night. That got tabled here in the Senate.
  So having sent now three different proposals over, I think the House 
of Representatives has decided, OK, clearly the Senate doesn't like any 
of our ideas. Let's get together and have a conference committee.
  So that was proposed, and--again, something I have never seen done 
before--there was a motion to table a request to go to conference. We 
get a lot of requests to go to conference. Sometimes those are not 
adhered to, and you have a debate about various conference meetings on 
various pieces of legislation that we deal with here in Congress. But I 
have never seen a tabling motion on a request to go to conference. It 
is a pretty clear indication that the Senate has no interest in 
resolving this matter; otherwise, they would at least sit down with our 
counterparts in the House of Representatives and say: What can we do to 
find that middle ground? What can we do to find that consensus? How can 
we resolve the differences we have here in a way that will keep the 
government up and functioning and hopefully provide some relief for 
people who are struggling under the impacts of ObamaCare?
  So that is where we are today. What is interesting about it is our 
colleagues on the other side, the Democrats--not all of them because 
they weren't all here at the time, but those who were all voted in 
favor of ObamaCare. There isn't a single Republican who was here at 
that time who did, nor are there any here today who would. In fact, 
every time we have had an opportunity to vote to repeal all or parts of 
it, everybody on this side of the aisle has voted for that.
  Now, our colleagues on the other side continually hold out this 
argument that, after all, this is the law of the land. Frankly, they 
are right. It is the law of the land. But it is pretty obvious that at 
least in the President's view there are parts of the law that don't 
need to be applied right away; otherwise, he wouldn't have extended a 
1-year delay or a 1-year waiver under the employer mandate.
  So it is pretty clear that the President has a different view than 
perhaps his allies here in the Senate with regard to what that law 
actually means. He has been perfectly willing on not just that occasion 
but on other occasions to take portions of a law and not apply them, to 
waive them and provide exemptions for particular groups of people--
namely, those here on Capitol Hill and also big businesses around the 
country. So there is a very discriminate way in which the President is 
approaching this law. It seems to me, at least, that in fairness he 
would give the same favorable treatment to individuals that he has 
given to big businesses.
  The other thing that is really interesting about the folks on the 
other side of the aisle saying this is the law of the land is that 
there are many things that are the law of the land. The Budget Act is 
the law of the land. The Budget Act, which was passed back in the 
1970s--

[[Page 14823]]

1973 or 1974--is the budget law that Congress has been under now for 
the past almost 40 years. Yet for 3 consecutive years in a row the 
Democratic majority didn't even pass a budget, didn't move it through 
the committee, didn't bring it to the floor, just said: We don't need 
to do it. We will just ignore the law. That happened for 3 years in a 
row.
  So I would suggest that our colleagues on the other side who are 
quick to say that ObamaCare is the law of the land are very willing, 
when it serves their purposes or they find it convenient, to completely 
ignore other laws that have been on the books for a much longer period 
of time. So that argument really misses the point.
  I guess what I would say is that I hope this can be resolved. It 
needs to be resolved. I think we need to provide some relief for the 
American people from the impacts of ObamaCare. Clearly, our economy 
needs a break. The American workers and middle-class families need a 
break. Employers have already been given a break--big businesses, by 
the President, have been given a 1-year delay under the law.
  Why not apply that to others who are going to be hurt in an equal 
fashion.
  Just to put a fine point on why it is important, we think, to have 
some delays--today is the day they roll out the exchanges. But if you 
look at what the reports are about, whether or not those things are 
ready, up and ready to go, it is pretty clear they are not ready for 
prime time. We hear about glitches, which is the President's word--I 
think that is a kind word--malfunctions, inaccuracies, bumps in the 
road. We have heard them described all those different ways. But the 
clear reality is that this thing is not ready for prime time. Why would 
we not delay it?
  There was a story yesterday in the Wall Street Journal and the 
headline was ``Late Snags on Eve of Health Rollout.''

       Nonprofit groups and brokers that will help enroll 
     consumers in the marketplaces, known as exchanges, say they 
     haven't yet had a chance to preview the systems. Technical 
     problems have limited certification for some nonprofit 
     workers involved. And some of these groups say they haven't 
     fully staffed up for the influx.
       The exchange software that determines whether people get . 
     . . subsidies was returning accurate determinations about 
     two-thirds of the time late Friday, up from less than 50 
     percent earlier in the week.

  At least they are trending in the right direction.
  Additionally, one Web broker agreement with CMS to sell Federal 
exchange health plans, announced that it will not be able to offer 
those plans on October 1, blaming CMS delays.
  The point is this is clearly not ready for prime time. Last week the 
District of Columbia said they are experiencing a very high error rate. 
Error rates, malfunctions, inaccuracies, bumps, glitches--these all 
seem to me to suggest that this is something that needs to be delayed. 
I think that would make the most sense, given the President has already 
acknowledged that for big businesses, for employers. It ought to be 
delayed for a year.
  I think there is bipartisan support for giving individuals and 
families relief just like businesses have been granted. We have a 
Democratic Senator, a colleague from West Virginia, who said last week 
a delay for individuals would be very reasonable and sensible. But this 
week Senate Democrats voted in lockstep with the President and refused 
to give low-income and middle-class families that same relief that has 
been provided to big businesses and to some of the President's allies.
  We are now in a holding pattern. It seems to me at least that the 
ball is in the Senate majority leader's court. The House of 
Representatives has asked for a conference, which has been rejected. 
The response was we are not going to sit down, we are not going to 
negotiate this. The President has said we are not going to negotiate. 
We are not going to sit down. We do not believe there is any room here 
for negotiation.
  I think the American people are going to perceive that to be an 
unreasonable position because I think most people understand when we 
come here we have differences of opinion. But the way you resolve those 
is you sit down and work out those differences. You try to come to some 
resolution that would allow everybody to move forward.
  What we have seen here is that time after time, the House of 
Representatives has sent to the Senate proposals. Those have been 
tabled here, and the House has sent back another one. I said three 
times now that has happened. Finally, the House of Representatives 
said: OK, we get it. You do not like what we are sending you. Let's sit 
down and see if we can work this out. Let's have a conference and see 
if we can work out our differences. That was tabled by the majority 
leader earlier today.
  What is coming out of the White House, what is coming out of the 
Democrat majority is: Sorry, we don't negotiate. We are not going to 
sit down. We are not going to try to find common ground. We are not 
going to try to find a bipartisan solution to this. We are going to 
have it our way, and you can take it or leave it.
  I don't think that is what the American people sent us here to do. I 
think they sent us here to do the people's business. I said before, 
when I started my remarks, I believe the American people overwhelmingly 
dislike ObamaCare and the effect it is having. I think they 
overwhelmingly believe the government should stay open. I think we can 
accomplish both of those objectives, hopefully sooner rather than 
later, if both sides will sit down in good faith and actually try to 
work out a solution.
  That is certainly not going to happen as long as the President 
continues to stay dug in. It appears he has drawn a line in the sand. 
That seems to be the tactic and the approach that is being taken by the 
Senate majority, by the Democratic leader. That is not going to get us 
to an answer. That is not going to get us to a solution. All that is 
going to do is to provide even more frustration, even greater disdain 
and cynicism from the American people when they see the in-fighting 
that is going on here and a lack of a willingness on the part of the 
Democratic majority to sit down with House Republicans and figure out 
what is in the best interests of the American people as we move 
forward.
  I hope we can do better. The American people deserve better. Future 
generations deserve better from us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, this government shutdown is 
disappointing to me. It's disappointing to those who are affected by 
it, and I'm sure it's disappointing to the American people. Because 
they're seeing their government not function in such a visible way.
  What is especially disappointing to me is the unwillingness of the 
President and Senate Democrats to make a reasonable effort to resolve 
the real differences of opinion that exist here.
  It's not unusual, Madam President, that we have differences of 
opinion in Washington, DC. In fact, the Founders created a government 
here with the expectation that it would kick up to the Nation's Capitol 
the disputes we couldn't resolve in our own families, disputes we 
couldn't resolve in our city councils, in county commissions, and our 
State legislatures and State government. And the Founders intended that 
those disputes, which are in this body, not be resolved easily by 
creating a system of checks and balances: A Supreme Court, a 
Presidency, and a Congress.
  And by creating, in this body, the rules that make it very difficult 
to come to a result.
  The idea was that we didn't want a king.
  A king is efficient. Tyranny is efficient.
  Our Founders didn't want that.
  They didn't want a despot. They wanted a way to get, eventually, to a 
result. They sought to avoid the tyranny of the majority by creating 
these

[[Page 14824]]

checks and balances and these rules in the Senate. They sought to 
create a situation where the majority couldn't ride roughshod over the 
minority.
  But I do not think the Founders envisioned a system of checks and 
balances that produced a permanent stalemate on issues that are 
important to the American people. Even in the most contentious of 
issues--and there have been many issues in our history much more 
contentious than anything we are dealing with today.
  They didn't envision that the government would simply shut down or 
stop operating or stop trying to come to a result. That is why I find 
the attitude of the President and the Senate Democrats so 
disappointing.
  By any fair measure, the proposals by the Republican House of 
Representatives to bring this to a solution are reasonable proposals. 
Let's look at what they've proposed.
  They proposed that we continue funding the government. Every single 
proposal the House has made to this body is that we continue funding 
the government. And they've proposed that we also, at the same time, 
No. 1, be fair to the middle class by delaying the individual mandate 
in the new health care law for a year.
  Now, the President has already himself delayed seven major provisions 
in the new health care law that is supposed to take effect today. These 
include the employer mandate, which is $12 billion over 10 years for 
corporations. Yet the President and Senate Democrats are saying we can 
give the employers a $12 billion break by a 1-year delay, but we're 
going to stick it to the middle class of America by fining them $95 if 
they do not buy health care and sending the IRS out to collect it next 
year if they fail to do it.
  What we suggested was, since the President himself has already 
delayed seven major provisions, since the regulations aren't written, 
let's also delay the individual mandate for a year. That would be fair 
to the middle class.
  No. 2, the House has suggested that we can continue funding the 
government and be fair to those who are ill by repealing the medical 
device tax. Seventy-nine senators have voted for the medical device tax 
repeal, including a large number of Democratic senators.
  No. 3, the House Republicans have said, let's continue to fund the 
government and be fair to the American people when it comes to health 
care. Treat the American people the same way Congress is treated.
  And finally, most recently, the House Republicans have said, let's 
continue to fund the government and can we not just sit down and talk 
about it? Have a conference?
  Which is the way, under our rules established by the Constitution, 
we're always supposed to resolve disputes. And the answer has been no 
from the Senate Democrats.
  No, to giving the same consideration to the middle class, the people 
who are required to buy health insurance; no, to giving fairness to 
those who are ill by repealing the medical device tax; no, to giving 
fairness to the American people by treating them the same way Congress 
is treated; and no, to giving fairness to the system in saying can we 
not just sit down and talk in a conference, which is our way of 
resolving disputes.
  And the answer by the President and the Senate Democrats is no, no, 
no.
  The President's role is to bring us together. He said that during his 
campaigns. He has a great capacity for persuading the American people 
that he is right. He seems to be able to talk with the Iranian rulers, 
but not to the congressional leaders.
  Our goal is fairness for the middle class, fairness for the taxpayer.
  Our latest offer from the House of Representatives was, let's keep 
the government running and let's sit down according to our rules and 
have a conference and talk about it.
  This stubbornness in the face of reasonableness will not be good for 
our country, will not be good for either political party, it will not 
help us to achieve the kind of result on this and other issues that the 
Founders intended by creating a system of checks and balances in our 
democratic form of government.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak as in morning 
business for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. I yield first to the majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, the Speaker of the United States House of 
Representatives holds the key to reopen the Federal Government. It is 
an easy key to use. In fact, it is very simple. The key is to allow 435 
Members of the House of Representatives to vote to reopen the 
Government, and do it now. It is not too late to avert the worst 
economic problems that this shutdown relates to. But you see, I am not 
the only one calling for the Speaker to open the government. I am not 
the only one calling on him to do the right thing.
  This is what Republican Congressman Scott Rigell, from Virginia said. 
He said it this morning. It is a direct quote:

       We fought the good fight. It is time for a clean CR.

  That is a Republican Congressman. If the House votes to reopen the 
government, Democrats will gladly go to conference. Unfortunately, I 
read that Speaker Boehner and House Republicans are engaging in silly 
political stunts instead. What he is going to do is have some 
Republicans, Members of the Congress, sit down for a photo op across 
from empty chairs. That is really unique. Has that ever been done 
before? Maybe only five or six thousand times since I have been in 
Washington. What they are really sitting down to instead of empty 
chairs is an empty stunt. I say to the House Republicans, it is time 
for the photo ops and those silly stunts to end. Shutting down the 
government is not kid stuff. That is kid stuff. Shutting down the 
government is deadly serious.
  The business community has warned of the economic consequences of the 
shutdown. It is now being proven. For every day the Speaker refuses to 
use the key to reopen government, it costs the American economy 
billions of dollars--every day. The solution is as clear this morning 
as it was last night: Reopen the government. He holds the key to 
putting millions of public servants back to work. Once that happens we 
are happy to go to conference. But only if the government is reopened.

                          ____________________