[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14914-14924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, we find ourselves in a very predictable 
situation, and what is unpredictable is what our response to this 
situation is going to be. For some time I have talked about the box 
canyon that we were taking ourselves into, and I think it has now 
become very apparent to folks on both sides of the aisle that to 
overturn a central piece of legislation, it takes more than one-third 
of government to do so. When we have the presiding President over that 
piece of legislation, it actually takes two-thirds of each of the 
bodies to make that happen. I think people have realized that. It gives 
me no joy, but this is something I have obviously talked about for some 
time. Now we find ourselves in this box canyon.
  What was also very predictable was that my friend Tom Coburn, the 
great Senator from Oklahoma, laid out very clearly on the Senate floor 
that even if there was a government shutdown, the health care bill 
would continue. I think what Americans are waking up to and seeing--
even though Republicans have strongly opposed the health care bill at 
every turn--that even with government being shut down, the health care 
bill is continuing on and people around the country are signing up for 
what people call ObamaCare. So both of these were very predictable 
outcomes.
  What is now unpredictable is what our response to that is going to 
be. I am speaking mostly to my friends on this side of the aisle. There 
has also been a number of people on the other side of the aisle who 
have spent a great deal of time over the last 2 or 3 years trying to 
focus on ways to reduce spending in the government and making our 
country stronger in the process.
  I think to a person over here--as well as many on the other side of 
the aisle--we understand that our inability to deal with the fiscal 
situation in which we find ourselves in this country has hurt us 
economically. People have not been willing to invest in capital 
investments within their companies and around the world in many cases 
because they don't know what is going to happen in our country.
  I know first hand as the ranking member on Foreign Relations--and as 
I have traveled the world--there is no doubt it has affected us around 
the world. People really do not understand whether we are going to be 
able to meet the obligations we have made from a security standpoint.
  Again, where we are today is very predictable, and I don't want to be 
crass. Obviously, I know this is creating a hardship for some people 
who have been furloughed, and it is certainly affecting people around 
our country, and that is obviously not good. On the other hand, if 
there is some way for some good policy outcome that strengthens our 
country over the longer haul, which is why we are all here, then that 
is a good tradeoff. We will see what happens.
  Here is my concern: While the situation we are in is very 
predictable--and many people in this body predicted we would end up 
exactly where we are today in this box canyon--we knew people would 
still sign up for the new health care law, which some have tried to 
defund, in spite of the fact that government has shut down.
  What I am concerned about is this: We have made great strides as a 
nation, and in this body, to reduce government outlays we have control 
over. This has not happened in this Nation since 1955 and 1956. Two 
years ago we were at $1.43 trillion in annual outlays from a 
discretionary standpoint, and that is what we deal with in a CR. Last 
year we were at $988 billion, and this year--if we continue to uphold 
the law we put in place--we will be at $967 billion.
  That is a phenomenal result for us to have achieved in this body and 
for our country--to have achieved to strengthen our Nation. While there 
may be ways of changing the way those outlays are done--and maybe there 
is mandatory spending that is substituted for discretionary spending. 
Maybe there are ways of doing it to make it more sensible to people in 
this body. It is truly remarkable that Washington figured out a way to 
reduce the amount of spending that was taking place. I know we can 
figure out a way to do that even smarter.
  Let me get to the unpredictable point. Sometimes when people find 
themselves in a box canyon or in a place that is difficult, they begin 
doing things that are not in the interest of themselves, and certainly 
not in the interest of the body that they represent. What I am worried 
about is that while

[[Page 14915]]

so many people have been focused on this shiny thing over here and so 
much of the Nation's focus has been on this shiny thing over here, what 
people have not been focused on, in the way I would hope, is the gains 
we have made in controlling spending as a nation. What I worry about--
as it looks like we are now beginning to combine the continuing 
resolution process with the debt ceiling--is that people forget about 
the tremendous gains we have made in strengthening this Nation. While I 
am saying this to an empty Chamber, like most of us do when we speak on 
the Senate floor--and I know people are busy and have other things to 
do--my talk today is really focused on people in the other Chamber.
  I know there is a lot that is happening over there. What I am worried 
about is that as the leadership over there tries to cobble together 218 
votes to maybe do something relevant to the continuing resolution, and 
at the same time do something to the debt ceiling, that somehow or 
other--because we are in this boxed canyon that was very predictable--
they deal away what we have gained.
  What I hope we will do on this side--and to all of those--and there 
are many--on the other side who have fought so hard to try to get the 
momentum going so we will save our country from huge deficits down the 
road and do what we can to make sure we leave this country a better 
place for young people like these interns and pages here on the floor--
of the aisle is keep our focus on the fact that whenever negotiations 
take place around a debt ceiling, they traditionally and always have 
been about making sure we are trying to do those things to keep us from 
having more debt down the road. We need to keep our eyes focused on the 
reforms that are necessary to keep that process going.
  To be candid--and this is the first time I have said this publicly--
to look at a continuing resolution at $988 billion--I'm sorry. As it 
now is, the law says we would be spending--beginning a couple of days 
ago in this new year--at $967 billion. I know the discussions here on 
the floor have been: Well, in 6 weeks the sequester--by the way, the 
sequester is that mechanism that was put in place during the Budget 
Control Act to continue to put downward pressure on spending--will kick 
in according to all of the discussions that have taken place.
  I think most of us who have fought hard to try to save our Nation 
from these mounting deficits down the road were a little disappointed 
that we would be looking at extending last year's spending for 6 weeks, 
and really not taking ourselves down to $967 billion. I realize what 
has happened. But here is my point to the other side of the building, 
the House: Whatever you have to do to cobble together 218 votes to pass 
a bill over there relative to maybe the CR and the debt ceiling, please 
do not negotiate away the hard-won gains we were able to put in place 
to reduce spending and help make our country stronger for the young 
people like those sitting in front of me. That is my message.
  We are in a place that is very predictable. The outcome is 
unpredictable, but what I hope the outcome will be is an outcome that 
causes us not only not to deal away the gains that have been put in 
place, but to maybe put in place mandatory reforms that we all know 
need to occur to make this country stronger. There is tremendous 
bipartisan support.
  In April the President laid out a budget that had a number of 
mandatory reforms that he was in agreement with. So what I hope will 
happen is we will keep the discretionary levels at levels we have 
already agreed to and we will take up some of those mandatory reforms 
that the President has already said he thinks are in the interest of 
our Nation and use those to help us raise the debt ceiling. As a 
result, we will have an outcome that causes this country to be 
stronger, causes this economy to grow, and over time causes us to 
continue to be able to honor the commitments we have made around the 
world.
  With that I note absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I had a great honor this morning, and it 
will change the nature of the remarks I intended to make on the Senate 
floor.
  I just returned from the World War II Memorial. We had a group of 90 
World War II veterans who flew here on an Honor Air flight. Honor Air 
is a national program. The funds for it are raised by friends, 
neighbors, and community individuals to help bring their World War II 
veterans to the Nation's Capital.
  I have probably visited the World War II Memorial dozens of times--
maybe 40 or 50. I visit it every time there is an Honor Air flight from 
my home State and I am in Washington, DC, I like to be there to say: 
Welcome and thank you. It is an honor to have you at the memorial that 
was built for you.
  I visited the World War II Memorial. It is especially meaningful to 
me personally. My dad is a World War II veteran. My dad has been on the 
Honor Air flight. My dad will be 98 in November.
  A few days before the World War II Memorial opened, I walked down 
there--I was a House Member then, not a Senator--and got a glimpse of 
what it was going to be like. It is a wonderful place and it reminds us 
of many things. That day, I stepped away from the memorial and used my 
cell phone to call my dad at home in Plainville, KS. I was fortunate I 
got the answering machine, because these are difficult things to tell 
your parents. So I said: Dad, I am at the World War II Memorial. Thank 
you for your service to our country. I respect you and I love you. It 
was great to be able to say that to an answering machine instead of to 
your own parent.
  My dad actually one-upped me. A few moments later my cell phone rang 
and he said: Gerald, I couldn't understand what you said.
  So I repeated it in person.
  The great thing about the memorial is it causes us to reflect and say 
things and express ourselves in ways that we otherwise would never do. 
So that memorial, as do others that honor our service men and women, is 
one that calls us to say we thank you for your service, we respect you, 
we love you. That was my experience again this morning.
  Again, I try to be there every time a group of veterans comes from 
Kansas, and I was hoping today wouldn't be any different. With the 
shutdown of our government, with the funding on hold for the National 
Parks, there was some concern about whether these veterans would be 
able to actually get to the memorial. It all worked fine. I appreciate 
the way the morning's events transpired and there was no confrontation 
and no one wanted to deny those veterans their chance to visit their 
memorial for the first time.
  In addition to those sentiments about these individual veterans, I 
think what may be of value as we approach today and tomorrow and try to 
find the solutions that are necessary to solve the circumstance we find 
ourselves in is a recognition that our veterans--I have had this 
thought every time I have walked to the Vietnam Wall or to the Korean 
War Memorial and now to this newer memorial, the World War II 
Memorial--not a single person represented on that wall or memorialized 
in the World War II Memorial or the Korean War Memorial, not one of 
them--I cannot imagine that a single one of them--volunteered or was 
drafted for purposes of a fight between Republicans and Democrats. No 
one went to serve our country, no one volunteered to serve our country 
because they believed in Republicans or they believed in Democrats. 
Knowing veterans as I do, my view is they answered the call to duty. 
They were willing to serve because they believed in America. They 
believed in the United States and our principles and the freedoms

[[Page 14916]]

and liberties it provides, and they knew their service would make a 
difference in the lives of their kids and grandkids. They knew their 
service would help make America a better place for everyone, but 
certainly for people they knew--their family members.
  I hope I can portray to my colleagues here in the Senate and here in 
this Capitol building and down Pennsylvania Avenue that the battles we 
engage in need to be a lot less about Republicans and Democrats and 
much more about what is good for the country. We ought to use the 
veterans we met with this morning and those who are memorialized on the 
National Mall in every circumstance to remind ourselves that there is a 
higher calling to what we do in our Nation's Capital. There is 
something more important than political skirmishes.
  I don't say this in any Pollyanna way. I don't say it in a way that 
doesn't acknowledge partisan differences. I always assumed and believed 
that America sent a variety of people to Washington, DC, to represent 
their interests and my State of Kansas will probably send somebody 
different than some other State. We all come here with a philosophy, a 
background of the way we grew up, the way we think about things, the 
instructions our constituents have given us, and all of that is 
reflected in the way we vote, the issues we pursue, the priorities we 
have. So it is not that we are all supposed to agree, but surely there 
ought to be a recognition that when there is disagreement, as there 
often is, there is a desire, just as our service men and women had to 
serve the country, much more important than the desire to serve our 
political party.
  Today's trip to the World War II Memorial, while it is a common 
experience for me, was especially useful and meaningful because it 
happened at a time when these veterans came not knowing whether they 
would be able to gain entry to the memorial. Being there to encourage 
them and seeing them welcomed and greeted was important but, perhaps 
equally as important, it served as a reminder to me that what we do in 
the Senate is motivated by the best of intentions and the greatest of 
goals; the idea that America is a special place and we who serve here 
have a special responsibility. We have a chance to try to do something 
good for the country.
  One of the things that has always inspired and pleased me about 
Kansans--and I assume it is true elsewhere--most of the conversations I 
have with folks back home are a lot less about what they want me to do 
for them but more about what decisions they want me to make, to make 
certain their kids and grandkids have a better life. There is something 
very great about how we have an interest--as human beings, as parents--
in the well-being of the next generation and not just the well-being of 
ourselves. So my efforts in trying to find resolution to the 
circumstance we find ourselves in is strengthened, the resolve I have 
to try to work with others here in the Senate is one that is 
highlighted by my experience this morning at the National Mall.
  I think about where we are and where we need to go. Again, having 
decried the high partisanship nature of this place, I don't want to 
detract from that, but we need to be able to have leaders who are 
willing to have discussions, conversations, and a coming together. It 
is true of Republicans and it is true of Democrats and it is certainly 
true of whoever is the President of the United States. We need to make 
certain we have the ability to recognize that not all of us agree on 
everything, but with the efforts we make to find a solution to a 
problem, there is a coming together. It seems to me we have now gotten 
ourselves in this entrenched position. And while I was pleased moments 
ago to learn that our President has called congressional leaders to the 
White House, it is disturbing to me that the message is: But we are not 
negotiating. I am not certain what the purpose of the White House visit 
will be. I hope it results in movement, in success.
  It is my understanding my colleagues on the Democratic side of the 
aisle have agreed this morning to ``not negotiate.'' All I know about 
that is what I have read in the press. I don't--again, in an attempt to 
make certain this doesn't sound partisan and detract from what I was 
attempting to convey moments ago, we need to make certain Republicans 
understand we can make progress in the positions we hold even without 
getting everything we want.
  So this experience I described of being a Senator--a Member of this 
great deliberative body--hasn't been my experience in the short time I 
have been a Member of the Senate. The idea that we can't negotiate 
seems to me to be contrary to the purpose of this historic body.
  I hope the attitude and approach changes and every Senator recognizes 
it is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It is an opportunity for us to 
resolve differences and each find some satisfaction in moving in a 
direction or preserving the status quo, if that is one's position; that 
because America is a diverse place and that people care differently 
about different issues and have different opinions, we certainly have a 
responsibility to represent those views of the folks back home, but 
recognizing that the country doesn't always agree with us. Surely, 
there is that common ground, that opportunity to find solutions.
  My call is for leadership--and by leadership I mean broadly all 100 
of us; not leadership in the sense of someone who occupies a position 
of leadership beyond being a Member of the Senate but all of us--to 
find the leadership to find the necessary resolve to solve our 
country's problems.
  The Affordable Care Act is a very controversial piece of legislation. 
It has been said here on the Senate floor: It is the law, it is not 
negotiable. That position doesn't make sense to me. In fact, the 
President has delayed, excluded, found exemptions for what is the law. 
So, surely, if the President can, for example, delay the implementation 
of the employer mandate, it is not outside of the realm--in fact, I 
would say it is the constitutional responsibility of Congress--to have 
the debate, discussion, and consideration of whether to delay the 
individual mandate. It is the law of the land, but if the President can 
make changes to the law of the land, surely the body created by article 
I, the legislative branch, has that opportunity to do so as well. So it 
ought not be nonnegotiable.
  It is time for the Senate to function. It is time for us as 
individual Senators to provide the leadership to resolve our problems.
  In my view, we desperately need leadership from the President. While 
I have serious policy and philosophical disagreements with President 
Obama, my greatest complaint about his Presidency is his lack of 
leadership. We need somebody to rally us, to come together and find 
solutions to those problems, to better resolve our differences. Again, 
I don't want to detract from the observations about how partisan this 
place has become by talking about President Obama. In this case, he is 
a Democrat and I am a Republican, but regardless of who is the occupant 
of the White House, in order for the Congress to resolve difficult 
issues, it takes the leadership of a President.
  My call is, as it was earlier to my colleagues in the Senate to 
provide leadership--I hope the President, in his meeting with the 
leadership of the Senate and House today, will provide the leadership 
necessary to help us move in the right direction and step back from the 
statement that while we are meeting, nothing is negotiable.
  I appreciate the opportunity to address the Senate and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. First, I wish to apologize to the people of West 
Virginia. I am embarrassed and ashamed as a Senator and Member of 
Congress by how we are acting. I have been answering phones in my 
office. They are upset. I said: Well, you are not as upset as I am. I 
have a front-row seat, and it is not pretty.
  This is not what we were sent here to do. It is not what I signed up 
for. It is not why I asked the people in West Virginia to allow me to 
represent what I consider to be the greatest State in the

[[Page 14917]]

Nation, and I am sure each Senator feels the same way about their State 
and its wonderful people. I have always looked at public service as an 
opportunity to fix problems, to make life better, to be able to use the 
wisdom and skills we have obtained through our experiences in life and 
watching people and the compassion we have for people to try to make it 
better.
  Shutting down government is simply unacceptable. I don't care what 
way a person looks at this, it is unacceptable.
  This is the first time in 17 years that our government is not open 
for business--the first time in 17 years we are not open. This is self-
inflicted. This did not happen by any outside forces. This has all been 
self-inflicted. It not only hurts the people of West Virginia deeply, 
it hurts people all over this country, and they are feeling the 
effects. This is only the second day, but it is 2 days too long.
  Most of you know I am pretty moderate. I am very conservative on 
fiscal issues. This is how we were raised. We were expected to pay our 
bills, to take care of our debts, and take care of ourselves and our 
families. So I have watched that very carefully.
  When I became Governor, the first thing I did was I tried to put our 
financial house in order in West Virginia so that basically we could 
take care of our values. That was our priority, based on what we 
wanted--our children to have opportunities. We never cut any services 
during the recession. We took care of our seniors with the dignity and 
respect and pride they should have. We took care of our veterans. We 
could not be everything to everybody, but we really watched our dollars 
and got our financial house in order. So I look at it from that 
standpoint, where I come from, as a proud West Virginia Democrat, but I 
am also very compassionate on social issues. Watching my grandparents 
and watching my family in the little town of Farmington, WV, where I 
grew up, people expected you to do things. They expected you to really 
chip in and help people, but they expected you to help yourself also, 
and they expected you to take care of those who could not, the less 
fortunate. I have always taken that with me in every aspect of public 
service.
  I think I am reasonable and willing to compromise and work with 
anybody on any issue. I have always put my State's interests ahead of 
my party politics. I do not make any excuses. I really believe I am an 
absolutely privileged person to be living in the greatest country on 
Earth and to be a member of a great family in the great State of West 
Virginia. But I am an American, I am a West Virginian, and then I am a 
Democrat in West Virginia, and I have dear friends who are Republicans 
from West Virginia and from all over the country.
  So when I looked at the cause of this problem we have right now, it 
is about finances, strictly about finances. Can we continue to pay? I 
also looked at the way I felt Democrats truly looked at this. They 
said: Fine, we will agree to the $986 billion number--$986 billion. 
That was the Republicans' request, to keep that spending level. The 
Democrats would have loved to have $1.058 trillion. They reduced it $90 
billion. To me, that was a good compromise. We can live with that $986 
billion number. We have to tighten our belts a little bit, but we are 
good at that in West Virginia. And we did it.
  Then, all of a sudden, the Affordable Care Act--or ObamaCare, as 
people have referred to it--becomes the issue. There are a lot of 
things in that piece of legislation that I do not agree with. I do not 
know how I would have voted if I had been here. I would have tried to 
make what I would have thought were constructive changes. But do you 
know what. It is the law. And I said: I am in a mode that I would call 
for a reform, repair, and then repeal parts of it we cannot fix. I do 
not know that yet. We have to get in there and do it.
  I am probably part of the problem and caused some of this because I 
made a statement. We were talking to some people, and they asked me: 
What do you think is going to happen?
  I said: Well, for my colleagues and friends on the other side of the 
aisle--my Republican friends--I would think they would look, and if 
they really want to talk about health care, can it be extended for 1 
year before it takes effect as the law.
  I did not mean to postpone it. I did not mean to stop and don't start 
it until next year. I meant the fines and the penalties.
  Think about this. I am very much opposed to the individual mandate, 
but I understand it is part of the process. But I would have thought, 
why wouldn't we have a transition year?
  So the law took effect as of yesterday. It has. We have people trying 
to find the best opportunity they have. In my little State, we do not 
have a lot of options, so I want to make sure the people who have good 
insurance are somehow able to keep that. There has to be a way we can 
work through that. I want to make sure the people who have no insurance 
and have never been able to buy insurance can now be able to afford it. 
I want to make sure of that. I want to make sure people who had a 
preexisting condition or had a child who was born with a condition are 
able to keep the insurance they now have that they could not have 
before. I want to make sure that basically the senior citizens in West 
Virginia, who basically are filling the doughnut hole out of their 
pockets, which they cannot afford, are taken care of. They can go get 
an exam on an annual basis and not have to pay a copayment from their 
Medicare. Those are all good things, and I know my good friends on the 
Republican side feel the same way about some of this. Why would you 
want to throw the baby out with the bathwater when all you have to do 
is maybe change the water every now and then and we have a little clean 
water we can bathe the baby in again? These are sensible solutions, 
like how I was raised, looking at how do you fix it?
  I can assure you this: I have never fixed a problem by calling 
somebody else a name. I have never chastised somebody for their 
beliefs. I really have not. I have tried to think, OK, if I were in 
their shoes, how could we fix this?
  When I was Governor, I used to sit down with people on the opposite 
side and think, OK, in the profession we are in--public service--how do 
I allow them to go home to save face? How do I allow them to have some 
comfort that they are going to be able to bring constructive ideas to 
the table that basically make it better? I have always thought of that.
  So you are not going to hear me saying that we are right and they are 
wrong. In this case here, I will say: Please, don't have this self-
inflicted pain on the people of my State of West Virginia or your State 
or this country. There could be a time when we might not be able to 
stop what might be happening. The market forces might push us in a 
direction that we cannot control. This is something we can control, and 
all we are asking for--please, let government continue. If you want to 
talk about a big, grand plan, which I hope we do, which is fixing the 
financial condition, getting our financial house in order, I have been 
a big supporter of Bowles-Simpson. It is the only bipartisan package 
that has been on the table since I have been here. There are an awful 
lot of things of which people say: Well, I don't like this, I don't 
like that. None of them have said it is not what needs to be done. It 
is a three-pronged approach. That is the big fix we have talked about. 
But we are not talking about any of that. We are talking about things 
we do not like. We are talking about people we do not like. We are 
calling people names. And it just does not fix things. It does not make 
it right. So you will hear me continue to talk about the grand bargain. 
This is the time, between now and the debt ceiling.
  I will say this about the debt ceiling: Raising the debt does not fix 
the debt. We need to have a path to fix it. We should not be going 
through this political fight every 3, 6 months. This is the fifth time 
I have been in a debt ceiling debate. How many times have we voted on 
the so-called ObamaCare? It is ridiculous to continue to fight the same 
fight over and over.
  I hope we are in a reform or repair, and then repeal when you cannot 
fix it.

[[Page 14918]]

When you have given it your all for the betterment of your country and 
it is just not fixable or doable, then you change. We have not gotten 
there yet. We have all naysayers and people basically who just do not 
want change. I have too many people who need the services of 
government. I have too many people who depend on it--not that I believe 
people should be dependent. I hope people would be independent. But 
government is so intertwined in all of our lives, and to just say you 
want to stop it all is wrong.
  So I would ask my dear friends and my colleagues on the Republican 
side to please think about a continuing resolution. Please. We have 
come to the agreement on the number that you wanted of $986 billion. 
Health care--if you wanted to bring up the Keystone Pipeline, I am a 
total supporter of the Keystone Pipeline for energy independence. I am 
an ``all energy'' person--use whatever we have. It is not the place for 
it. As much as I would like to see it, it is not the place for me to 
draw the line to inflict so much pain on so many Americans, so many 
West Virginians, just because of one issue I like or do not like. There 
is a time for that. There will be a time for this health care bill, 
ObamaCare. It will either succeed or fail on its own. But we ought to 
try to make it better if we can. If we cannot, then come to the 
conclusion we cannot, but do not shut down government because you do 
not think it will work--or maybe you are afraid it will work. That 
could be it too.
  With all that being said, I say to my friends, you will never hear me 
say anything derogatory about you. You can always reach across the 
aisle to me. I am always going to sit down and talk to you. I am 
willing to compromise and work on any issue that betters the position 
we have, that betters the quality of life, that creates opportunities, 
that makes us the strongest and most powerful Nation on Earth. I will 
continue to fight for that. But I am asking you for this time, do not 
allow this self-inflicted pain to continue. This is not fair to my 
State, it is not fair to the people of West Virginia, it is not fair to 
the Presiding Officer's State of Wisconsin or to anybody in this great 
country of ours.
  With that, Madam President, I say thank you for allowing me to say 
what has been on my mind. I am a proud American, and it is about this 
country first, and it is always going to be about this country first. 
If the United States of America does well, I will guarantee you the 
great State of West Virginia is going to be just great, we are going to 
do fine. But we have to work together and put our priorities in place.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, first of all, I want to commend the words 
of my colleague from West Virginia about, first of all, the frustration 
that so many Americans feel that we share and also his words about 
trying to come to a resolution. I think it bears repeating.
  The main purpose of my remarks today will be focused, really, on one 
central theme; that is, in the House right now Speaker Boehner could 
put a bill on the floor that would open the government after a House 
vote. I am holding in my hand the bill that would do that. This is the 
bill that passed on Friday. It is amendment No. 1974 to H.J. Res. 59. 
This is the bill that, if the Speaker were to put it on the floor, 
would pass overwhelmingly. But you would get not just one side of the 
aisle, it would be a bipartisan vote to pass that bill, and upon 
passage, then, of course, getting the bill to the President for 
signature. So within however long it takes for the House to complete a 
vote--a rule and maybe two votes--and then getting it to the President, 
this could be over. And it should be over.
  We should open the government. This is the way to do it--a bill that 
does not have anything attached to it. It just funds the government. I 
would hope the Speaker at long last would put that bill on the floor. 
We are hearing voices that are bipartisan today asking for the Speaker 
to do just that. We have also heard a lot of talk about negotiation and 
compromise, and it is good that people are talking about that. But I 
hope some of our Republican friends talk about it with a degree of 
faithfulness to the facts or add adherence to the facts about what has 
happened over the last couple of months.
  In an effort to reach an agreement that would avoid the shutdown--
going back now a number of weeks and even months--Democrats here in the 
Senate and in the House as well accepted some of the very difficult so-
called sequestration cuts. What do I mean by that? I mean the across-
the-board indiscriminate cuts that went into effect in 2013 and were, 
unfortunately, a carryover from a battle and a fight in the summer of 
2011. So we have accepted those difficult cuts in this budget 
negotiation in the so-called continuing resolution--meaning the bill 
that would keep the government operating, the one I just held up--as a 
compromise. This happened a while back.
  I mentioned that last Friday, September 27, the Senate passed the so-
called clean continuing resolution, which is just a fancy way of saying 
a budget bill without add-ons--nothing about any other issue, just a 
bill to fund the government. That bill--the one I referred to earlier 
that passed the Senate on the 27th and is sitting over in the House--
would open the government and continue funding for the government until 
the middle of November so we get past this crisis, we do not have this 
as a problem in the next debate about paying our bills, and we can have 
a big debate in November about making sure we can pay for government 
operations.
  What we should do as well, as we are debating in November--I hope we 
can get there, but as we are debating that, we should figure out a 
way--this is a bipartisan concern--to shut off, to turn off at least 
for 2 years the across-the-board cuts with which I think both parties 
have real disagreement. But the key is passing this in the House, this 
measure that will end the crisis, open the government.
  When we passed it here in the Senate, we accepted those levels of 
spending, which are significantly less than Democrats would have hoped 
for, would have wanted. We accepted those despite the fact that we 
reversed the sequester in the budget we passed this spring. So we had a 
long budget debate here and, some might remember, last spring voted 
well into the early morning hours. I think our last vote was at 4 or 5 
in the morning.
  That was a higher number than we have agreed to already. So Democrats 
have compromised substantially already on the spending level. That does 
not seem to get reported very often. The bill that passed the Senate 
last Friday is a $70 billion cut from the last fiscal year, 2013, the 
levels that were enacted spending levels--enacted fiscal year 2013 
before the across-the-board cuts went into effect.
  To restate, this legislation which is in the House right now and they 
could pass with overwhelming bipartisan support, and it would open the 
government and end this crisis--they could do it this afternoon. They 
could do it this evening. They could do it without a lot of trouble if 
they put this bill on the floor. It does not mean all Republicans have 
to vote for it. The Speaker himself could vote against it. But putting 
it on the floor and having an up-or-down vote I think would be good for 
everyone.
  It would end this crisis, open the government, and then we could 
begin to work on what I think the American people want us working on. 
They expect us to keep the government open. That is fundamental. But I 
think they expect us as well to work on strategies to create jobs or at 
least put into effect strategies that will lead to job creation.
  I will say it again: This bill that is sitting in the House is not 
just a bill that will open the government, it will have overwhelming 
bipartisan support there. The bill is $70 billion less than what we 
wanted. To say that is a compromise is an understatement. On the main 
issue before us, how do you fund the government, how much in terms of 
dollars do you direct toward the operations of the government, we have 
already compromised a long time ago to reduce that number by $70 
billion.

[[Page 14919]]

  So when our friends are saying Democrats are not negotiating or 
compromising, my goodness, we compromised on day 1. They prevailed in 
that debate. We decided it is better to compromise in that number and 
keep the government operating and move the process along in terms of 
the budget, rather than shutting the government down to get our way.
  Some Democrats may have said to us: You know what. You should have 
taken this part and not accepted those cuts, and maybe even take it as 
far as some Republicans want to take the debate on health care and shut 
the government down. We said: That does not make any sense. It is bad 
for the economy. It is bad for vulnerable people. It is bad for 
national security and a whole host of other reasons which I will 
mention in a minute, to shut down the government.
  So from the beginning, we were not only willing to compromise and 
negotiate, we have already done it in a very substantial way on the 
core issue, which is the budget and the number. For them to say: Well, 
we are not going to insist that the government stay open, and then they 
want to have some negotiation about that does not make a lot of sense, 
does it, when you consider the compromises we have already made?
  I think the fundamental thing the American people want us to do is 
open the government. The key to opening the government is not only 
sitting in the House, the key is already in the lock. All the Speaker 
has to do is turn it ever so slightly--turn that key. The turning of 
the key is this bill. If this bill goes on the floor of the House of 
Representatives today, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tonight, 
whenever, it will pass with overwhelming bipartisan support.
  I will come back to that in a moment. But I think the question of 
compromise is, frankly, weighted to our side. I think we have already 
made a substantial and significant compromise in the negotiation, and 
that was done a long time ago. I think at this point, when it comes to 
the question, some Members of the House have tried to do, to bring us 
to this point where there is a shutdown, I think their actions are, in 
a word, irresponsible. I think a lot of Americans expect they would act 
in a more responsible manner. By pushing an agenda that has now led to 
a government shutdown, in addition to being irresponsible or a 
dereliction of their duty, is also reckless.
  This is a reckless step to take just to make a point about health 
care, about anything else. There are a lot of us who would like to have 
our arguments litigated or debated in a way that gets a lot of 
attention paid to it. But to take it this far, where you are literally 
willing to take an action which leads, as this has done, to a 
government shutdown, is both irresponsible and reckless.
  I think we are just beginning now, in these hours--and now 
unfortunately we are into the second day--we are now just beginning to 
understand the impact this is having on Americans. But in the case of 
Pennsylvania, we are just beginning to hear the impact on individual 
Pennsylvanians.
  This morning I learned that Bushkill Outreach, a food pantry located 
in the Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area, is closed because it is on 
Federal land operated by the National Park Service.
  When you close a national park area or a national park itself, you 
are not just impacting what happens there and the opportunity for 
people to tour a national park or to recreate, you are actually having 
an adverse impact, in this case on a food pantry. This particular food 
pantry, Bushkill Outreach, feeds 30 families per day, amounting to 120 
people per day and 1,200 people per month. Imagine that. You have a 
group of Members of Congress in Washington who believe their 
ideological point of view on one issue is so compelling and so 
important to the country that they are willing to shut the government 
down and deny those 30 families the opportunity to have the benefit of 
a food pantry in a still tough economy.
  We have had, fortunately, a lot of job growth over the last several 
years. We are happy about that. We are happy that the economy is moving 
in the right direction on job growth. But it is not moving fast enough 
for Pennsylvania. In this sense, we have hovered around half a million 
people for too long. It was well above 500,000 people. Fortunately, it 
came down below half a million. But it has begun to creep up again. 
Once again, Pennsylvania has an unemployment number which is just at 
about 501,000 people.
  In my home area, northeastern Pennsylvania, we saw data today--
unfortunately in my home county, Lackawanna County, and the county next 
door, Luzerne County, at least one, maybe two more, in that region of 
the State, including the region where Bushkill Outreach is--the 
unemployment rate in several of those counties is more than 9 percent.
  So there a food pantry is not just a place for people who are 
particularly vulnerable; those are people who have been vulnerable, 
because of job loss, because of the economy. The shutdown has two 
adverse impacts on those families. It has a direct impact on their 
ability to access food every day. That is horrific enough. Talk about 
direct and substantial pain, physical pain on an individual or family. 
But it also has another impact when they shut the government down, 
certainly over a long period of time for sure--and this is 
irrefutable--you injure the national economy. When you injure the 
national economy, you make it less likely that those people who have to 
access food banks can actually get a job in northeastern Pennsylvania 
or anywhere else in the country.
  This is about real life. This is not some Washington theoretical 
debate. There are thousands of reasons to open up the government. I say 
to the Speaker of the House: Get this bill on the floor, and the food 
pantry will no longer be adversely impacted. Our national security will 
no longer be adversely impacted if we can open the government up again. 
A lot of the folks who access this food bank are on fixed incomes, so 
it has a detrimental effect on them.
  How about national security? The shutdown is having a direct and 
substantial impact on national security. Our colleague Senator 
Feinstein was on the floor yesterday and spoke of the critical impact 
the shutdown is having on the intelligence community. As many Americans 
know, intelligence gathering is not just the CIA, it is a whole range 
of agencies that gather intelligence which arms us with information to 
protect ourselves and to be able to protect ourselves from terrorist 
threats.
  In the intelligence community, meaning all of the Federal agencies 
that gather intelligence to protect us, 72 percent of the civilian work 
force is furloughed. It is hard to comprehend the adverse impact of 
that. This means the bulk of Federal employees who gather critical 
intelligence and work with law enforcement agencies are not working 
during the shutdown.
  You have to ask yourself at this point--if you are a Member of the 
House or the Senate who believes that the point you want to make on 
health care or anything else that has led to this shutdown--do you 
really want to maintain that position, that your point is so important 
and so compelling that you are willing to allow a shutdown to take 
place and to continue and allow the number I read, 72 percent of the 
civilian workforce in the intelligence community, to be furloughed? It 
puts at risk our soldiers, the fighting men and women on battlefields 
around the world or in danger zones, it puts at risk our diplomatic 
personnel, and at some level at some point in time puts Americans at 
risk because you cannot stop terrorism. You cannot arm yourself against 
terrorist attacks unless you have information. You do not get the 
information unless you have the full means of intelligence gathering. 
So I hope folks would ask themselves: Is my ideological point of view 
on this or that issue important enough that we should have a government 
shutdown in place which injures our ability in gathering intelligence 
for national security? I hope people would ask themselves that question 
and see what the answer would be.

[[Page 14920]]

  I have also heard, when you tell people about the furloughs, I have 
heard some Republicans--not all, a few--make the argument that somehow 
the President is making the decision about furloughs that adversely 
impact national security and he is making a mistake when he does that, 
he or his administration, or that maybe Members of Congress are somehow 
part of the decision on furloughs that would adversely impact national 
security.
  Look, every Member of Congress is exposed to intelligence. Every 
Member of Congress has an opportunity to take action on national 
security and intelligence. Every Member of Congress has an opportunity 
to say things about decisions that impact national security. But I 
would say this to my Republican friends: If the charge is the President 
and his administration are making decisions about furloughs that 
somehow compromise our national security, if you are going to assert 
that--you are free to do it; it is a free country--but if you are going 
to assert that, you should have proof. If you are going to make a 
charge like that against any President, or, frankly, any Member of 
Congress, Democrat or Republican, you have got to have proof there. So 
I would hope the media--when someone makes that charge against the 
Commander in Chief, I would hope that Member of Congress would have in 
their hand the proof, a document, a statement, something they can put 
on the table and say that is the proof. Because if you are going make a 
charge which is that serious, in such a grave matter of national 
security, you have got to prove it. If you cannot prove it, you should 
keep your mouth shut and not make that charge. So I hope when people 
say somehow this furlough number--I have heard people say: That is 
support personnel in the intel community; you really do not need those 
folks. If you are going to contest the number and say our national 
security is okay during the furlough, during a shutdown, you have got 
to prove it.
  A lot of things people say in Washington are part of the political 
debate, but if one is going to accuse someone of taking an action that 
would undermine national security, one should have to prove it.
  Why do I say that? I spent 6\1/2\ years on the Foreign Relations 
Committee. I have traveled to the Middle East several times, to 
Pakistan three times, to Afghanistan three times, and to Iraq twice. In 
regions of the world where our national security interests are directly 
at stake, we have personnel--either uniformed or diplomatic personnel. 
I have seen directly how much people can be at risk at those postings 
in embassies, consulates, and how dependent they are on having marines 
or literally soldiers to protect the embassy or a consulate, but how 
dependent they are on good intelligence.
  There are a lot of reasons to open the government. There are a lot of 
reasons for the House to vote on this today and open the government, 
but there are few as compelling as national security and intelligence.
  I wish to go through a list of impacts that the shutdown is having.
  We know that the shutdown has an impact on small businesses. Why do 
we know that? Well, the SBA on a weekly basis provides help to many 
small businesses across the country. We know that more than 1,000 
businesses a week could see their critical financial support deferred 
until the government opens again. It is bad for small business for the 
government to be shut down.
  A shutdown would end nutrition support for pregnant women and 
children, the Women, Infants and Children Program, WIC. WIC is the 
acronym we frequently hear. It is a great program. In the event of a 
shutdown such as we are living through now, WIC will only be able to 
continue serving participants for 1 week. We are in day 2 of the 
shutdown. After 1 week, they would have to stop serving participants.
  What are the numbers here? The basic numbers from fiscal year 2012 
are that the average monthly participation totaled more than 8.9 
million people. Of that 8.9 million, 4.7 million are children and 2.1 
million are infants. This is another good reason to pass this bill in 
the House today with a quick vote. It would be overwhelmingly 
bipartisan. In addition to national security and intelligence, this 
would make sure that the WIC Program will serve people who need it.
  A government shutdown would compromise public health. Why do I say 
that? In the shutdown, 70 percent of NIH employees would be furloughed. 
This is the National Institutes of Health which does research on all 
kinds of diseases and ailments. It is the envy of the world. No other 
country in the world has anything equivalent to the National Institutes 
of Health, but a shutdown will lead to the furlough of 70 percent of 
their employees. That is another reason.
  As we heard on the news this morning, there is a lot of reporting 
about the Centers for Disease Control. It is also adversely affected in 
the shutdown.
  A shutdown also compromises school readiness for young children. A 
government shutdown delays funding for 22 Head Start providers across 
the country, jeopardizing early childhood education care for the 18,000 
children and families those programs serve. We are speaking about 22 
providers for Head Start not being able to provide services for 18,000 
children and families.
  Finally, a shutdown endangers benefits owed to our veterans. The 
Veterans' Administration will run out of money to pay mandatory 
benefits for existing beneficiaries by the end of this month. I know we 
have heard people saying: Well, this check or that check will not be 
stopped. Ultimately, there is going to be a direct impact if the 
shutdown is continuous.
  I would say to our friends in the House they can take action right 
now to prevent this from happening. How may they do that? It is very 
simple. All they need to do is take the bill sitting there and put it 
on floor. A lot of people can vote against it, but the vote for it 
would be overwhelming.
  If Speaker Boehner puts that on the floor today, tonight or 
tomorrow--he should do it tonight--we can be beyond this. According to 
a new report in the National Review there are potentially more than 100 
House Republicans who would be open to a so-called clean CR. When we 
hear that, this is a clean bill to fund the government. It doesn't have 
anything attached to it. It includes the $70 billion compromise 
Democrats have already agreed to by reducing the overall cost of the 
funding of the government.
  I hope we could end the shutdown today by having the House adopt this 
legislation. I urge the Speaker to put the bill on floor for a vote in 
the House today.
  I wish to conclude with some separate remarks related to the 
shutdown, but they are also related, unfortunately, to a lot of other 
budget items. I wanted to do this the other day and want to put it on 
the record.
  In addition to everything else I have spoken about, during the 
shutdown over 30,000 correctional officers in our Federal prisons 
report to work not knowing when they will receive their next paycheck. 
These are officers who put their lives at risk every day and deserve to 
know when they will be paid. During the last shutdown in the 
midnineties, some guards went well over a month without being paid. 
These men and women are literally putting their lives on the line every 
day. Yesterday, I was scheduled to be at an event with a number of 
families who have been directly impacted by the violence that is 
perpetrated against corrections officers, but I couldn't be there 
because it was at the same time as our 9:30 vote on the budget trying 
to reverse the shutdown.
  I was supposed to meet with Don and Jean Williams, the parents of 
Eric Williams, who lost his life as a corrections officer. Officer 
Williams lost his life performing his duties at a U.S. penitentiary in 
northeastern Pennsylvania, my home area. I was able to meet his parents 
briefly at his viewing. That is real life for the Williams family.
  Unfortunately, they were not the only family represented at the event 
yesterday. There were several other families who had lost loved ones in 
that way.
  I am not sure I had a full appreciation for this before I was elected 
to the

[[Page 14921]]

Senate. We have corrections officers in Pennsylvania in our State 
system. I had some exposure to their work, but it wasn't until I spent 
a lot of time talking to corrections officers at the Federal level that 
I learned the gravity of this problem. It is a problem with multiple 
elements.
  One, of course, is an erosion of support for corrections officers 
over time, so that over time the ratio of one corrections officer to 
inmates has grown. To say they have grown to dangerous proportions is 
an understatement.
  One of the reasons Officer Williams lost his life is because often 
these officers are in situations where they are outnumbered, sometimes 
by hundreds of inmates. They, of course, can't carry a weapon. The 
tragedy officer Eric Williams suffered, and the tragedy others have 
suffered, serves as a stark reminder of the risks that corrections 
officers and staff face every day.
  Budget cuts over time, with across-the-board-cuts from sequestration, 
plus a shutdown leads to a very dangerous situation for corrections 
officers. We need to address their concerns and these issues as part of 
this overall debate about the budget.
  In conclusion, I reiterate that I hope the House will take up the 
bill that can end this crisis and open the government.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, today we continue to find ourselves in 
the unfortunate position of a partial government shutdown. Following a 
veto threat from the President, last night Democrats in the House of 
Representatives killed three spending bills that would have funded 
parks and monuments, veterans programs, and the DC government. Senate 
Democrats have already rejected four House-passed proposals that would 
have provided Americans with relief from ObamaCare while ensuring that 
government operations continued. Senate Democrats even rejected one 
proposal that would have sent the two Chambers to conference--the House 
and Senate--to work out some sort of a solution to this standoff we 
find ourselves in, but they haven't even been willing to talk. In fact, 
when that request from the House came to the Senate to create a 
conference that would allow the House and Senate to come together to 
try to find a solution, it was tabled. It was soundly rejected--
tabled--by the Democrats here in the Senate.
  So we are continuing in this holding pattern as the House continues 
to send proposals over and they continue to be rejected by the Senate, 
with Senate Democrats not even wanting to sit down and talk with the 
House about how we might resolve this.
  I am happy to hear the President has, after a week of essentially 
ignoring congressional Republicans, called the leaders to the White 
House tonight. I am a little confused, however, about the purpose of 
the meeting, as the White House continues to say they are not going to 
negotiate. I hope the President does change his mind on that, that he 
is evolving on it, and that he will at this meeting express a 
willingness to work with Republicans because it really is important for 
the President to be engaged in this process.
  I can't imagine a scenario where we have consequences such as these, 
with a continuing funding resolution still not approved, a partial 
government shutdown, a debt limit coming up in the middle of the month, 
and the President essentially saying: I am not going to negotiate. I am 
not going to negotiate on any of this.
  I think that is a position that is completely unreasonable, and I 
think the American people find it to be completely unreasonable as 
well.
  In the meantime, we have an opportunity now to address some of the 
concerns that have been raised by people about various parts of our 
government that as a result of this unnecessary shutdown are not open. 
So Republicans continue to try to work to open government and at the 
same time to provide ObamaCare fairness for all.
  I have said this before, but I get the sense some of our colleagues 
on the Democratic side and the President seem to be content with 
shutting down the government. Well, we Republicans are not. We are 
consistently trying to come up with solutions.
  The House of Representatives will be meeting today, and they are 
going to be voting again on some of the same proposals that were voted 
down last night by House Democrats. They are commonsense spending bills 
that would ensure that important functions of government can resume. 
These bills would ensure that benefits for our Nation's veterans 
continue uninterrupted, they would allow our members of the National 
Guard and Reserve to be paid, and they would provide funding for the 
National Institutes of Health to ensure this senseless shutdown does 
not prevent patients from receiving lifesaving treatments.
  I will explain briefly what some of these bills would do that are 
going to be coming over later today from the House of Representatives 
to the Senate, where, at least to date, none of the proposals that have 
been advanced by the House of Representatives have been accepted here 
in the Senate. They have been tabled by the majority leader. That is 
unfortunate because it is the essence of what the American people 
believe we ought to be doing, which is working together, coming 
together to find a solution to some of these big problems. 
Unfortunately, as I said before, when the request came over to go to 
conference with the House, that was tabled as well. So there has been 
no discussion, no willingness to talk, no willingness to think and 
cooperate in a way that would help us get the fundamental operations of 
government up and running again.
  Anyway, these bills are going to come over from the House today, and 
they follow, as I said, the same track they tried to get approved last 
night. One deals with the availability through the annual 
appropriations process of the Department of Veterans Affairs to 
continue to serve veterans--namely, veterans' disability payments, the 
GI bill, education and training, and VA home loans--under the same 
conditions that were in effect at the end of the just-completed fiscal 
year. In other words, it would take all those programs that benefit 
veterans and make sure they continue uninterrupted and are funded just 
as they were at the end of the fiscal year until such time as Congress 
can come up with a longer term solution. That might be an 
appropriations bill--which, frankly, should have been passed much 
earlier this year and wasn't because none of the appropriations bills 
were moved here in the Senate--or another temporary funding measure, 
such as a continuing resolution, that is put forward. A similar 
proposal was introduced by a number of Senate Democrats. So when it 
comes over from the House of Representatives today, I hope we will have 
broad bipartisan support in the Senate for making sure veterans 
programs are continued and are funded.
  There is also going to be a bill coming over that deals with national 
parks and museums, and it would provide immediate funding for National 
Park Service operations, the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, 
and the U.S. Holocaust Museum at the same rate and under the same 
conditions as were in effect at the end of the just-completed fiscal 
year. So the same thing I mentioned with regard to the veterans 
programs--these functions of government would be funded at the same 
level they were at the end of the year we just completed until such 
time as an appropriations bill is passed or a temporary funding measure 
is put in place.
  That was something the House voted on yesterday, and it was defeated. 
I shouldn't say Democrats universally defeated it, but almost so when 
that measure was brought up yesterday. Hopefully, today they will get a 
different outcome in the House. I think they will, and it will come 
over to the Senate.
  Another bill the House will move today will provide for the immediate

[[Page 14922]]

availability of local funds--which are subject to the control of 
Congress through the annual appropriations process--for the District of 
Columbia, again under the same conditions as were in effect at the end 
of the just-completed fiscal year.
  Finally, there will be a bill that comes over from the House that 
provides funding for the pay and allowances of military personnel in 
the reserve component who are in active status. So it will fund the 
Guard and Reserve. Those funds would be made available at the same 
level as the just completed fiscal year until such time as Congress 
takes more formal action.
  Finally, there will be a fifth bill coming from the House that will 
provide immediate funding for the National Institutes of Health at the 
same rate and under the same conditions as in effect at the end of the 
just completed fiscal year. So the important work done by the National 
Institutes of Health will continue--if the bill is enacted here in the 
Senate--and go on even in the midst of a partial shutdown.
  What I am saying is Republicans are trying to address all of these 
concerns that we have about various elements of our government that are 
not functioning today because of this partial shutdown. Last night they 
were met with resistance in the House of Representatives and they were 
voted down by Democrats. We are hoping for and I think we will have a 
different outcome today in the House of Representatives, at which point 
those bills will come here to the Senate.
  So if the Senate is interested in going on the record and making sure 
there is funding available for veterans programs, for the museums and 
our monuments, for our Guard and Reserve, for the National Institutes 
of Health, and for the District of Columbia--which is under the 
jurisdiction of the Congress when it comes to funding--the Senate 
should vote affirmatively and actually ensure that those important 
functions of our government are addressed and funded.
  What I am simply saying is that time and time again the House of 
Representatives has sent to the Senate legislation--measures--that 
would continue to fund the government, and in earlier cases when they 
came over here addressed what I think the American people have said 
they want to see addressed in ObamaCare.
  The President of the United States has granted a 1-year delay to 
employers in this country from the employer mandate. So essentially he 
gave a delay--a waiver--to big business. The House of Representatives 
in one of the bills they sent to the Senate said we ought to in 
fairness give the same break to individuals. There is an individual 
mandate in the ObamaCare law that kicks in, and we ought to be able to 
give individuals in this country the same treatment that we give to big 
businesses. So as a matter of fairness that was proposed by the House 
of Representatives.
  When that bill came over, it also included a provision that would 
ensure that Members of Congress and their staffs and the staffs at the 
President's office and in the executive branch of the government are 
all subject to the same law and to the same provisions--that the 
ObamaCare law is applied in the same way as to other Americans. So we 
had a 1-year delay--a temporary relief from the individual mandate--
included in that, and a provision that ensured that those of us here 
and our staffs and members of the executive branch are treated the same 
way as are other Americans. That too was tabled in the Senate.
  It strikes me that as we think about the impact of this law, we ought 
to ensure that middle-class Americans deserve the same relief that the 
President and Democrats here in the Senate have already given to 
Members of Congress and to their staffs, as well as to big businesses 
in this country.
  We had an opportunity to do that the other night. That was rejected 
by the Senate. I think the question that every American ought to be 
asking is, Why wouldn't Democratic Senators give the same break to the 
American people that big businesses have received? I would again argue 
this is an issue of basic fairness. We think it ought to be delayed for 
all Americans, not just for the favored few.
  There is bipartisan support for this. I mentioned before that we have 
a Democratic Senator in the Senate who has said a delay in the 
individual mandate is a very reasonable and sensible approach. I hope 
at some point that view will start to spread to others, and we will be 
able to actually provide some relief to the American people from the 
harmful effects of ObamaCare.
  But at least while we are in this period, as this continues to be 
discussed and hopefully, eventually a solution reached, we ought to be 
protecting those Americans who are being hit by the shutdown.
  When these bills come over from the House of Representatives today, I 
hope the Senate will pick them up quickly and act on them.
  We had an example or incident yesterday where a number of World War 
II veterans came here to Washington, DC, as Honor Flight guests. This 
is an organization that brings World War II veterans here to see their 
monument--the World War II monument--here in Washington, and they 
couldn't get access to it because of the shutdown. That should be 
unacceptable to every American. We need to ensure that never happens 
again.
  There was even reporting that they had made a request of the 
administration to be able to go there and they were turned down. I 
can't imagine turning down a group of World War II veterans who simply 
wanted to see and have access to the very memorial for which they 
fought and defended our country.
  So those are the types of things that action taken by the Senate here 
could prevent, if in fact when these bills come over from the House of 
Representatives the Senate will act in an expeditious way, pick up 
those bills and pass them, so we can ensure that people have access to 
those types of monuments and memorials. We can ensure that veterans 
programs continue to be funded and operational. We can ensure the 
National Institutes of Health and the important work that it does 
continues, and we can ensure that our National Guard and Reserve also 
are funded through this time. It strikes me that is a very commonsense 
way to approach the situation in which we find ourselves today.
  I hope that at the end of the day we can come to some resolution that 
would allow the government to be funded on a more sustainable basis. I 
think when we continue to do these things on a short-term basis, it is 
not a good way to govern a country as large as ours. We can do better. 
The American people deserve better. But at least, at a minimum, until 
we get that broader issue resolved, we ought to work and ensure that 
veterans and members of the Guard and Reserve, people who are visiting 
our country wanting to see the memorials and museums and that sort of 
thing have the opportunity to do that. We can do that today by picking 
up and passing the bills coming over from the House of Representatives.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, let me review where we are.
  Listening to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk about the 
effects of a government shutdown, I will admit I am pretty sensitive 
about this. My State of Maryland that I have the honor of representing 
is home to 286,000 Federal workers--124,000 furloughed today. We have 
172,000 Federal workers who work in the State of Maryland. So I am very 
much aware of what the consequences of this government shutdown have 
been to our local economy. But let me review where we are, because I am 
one who wants to get together and get government open as quickly as 
possible. I hope we can reach agreements and move forward, pay our 
bills, get rid of sequestration, and get a budget that makes sense. But 
let me just review how we got to this point, because it has been 6 
months since the Senate passed a budget. That is the blueprint for our 
committees to work.
  The House passed a budget, which was different than the Senate 
budget.

[[Page 14923]]

Then it was important for both sides to negotiate well before October 1 
to get a budget we could agree on so we could pass the appropriations 
bills. But one party--and one party alone--refused to meet. That was 
the Republican Party. They refused to meet.
  Then we got to October 1. This is not the first time in American 
history that Congress hasn't been able to pass appropriations bills by 
October 1. It happens too frequently. But what we do if we can't reach 
agreement is that we keep government open while we continue at last 
year's funding level. That is called a continuing resolution. That is 
what this body did. We passed a continuing resolution so the government 
would stay open at the funding level the Republicans wanted. We didn't 
want to get into that fight because of the importance of keeping 
government open.
  Then we had the votes to pass that. We passed it here. We had the 
votes in the other body. But for one person--the Speaker of the House--
not bringing that up for a vote in the House of Representatives where 
we could have had a bipartisan majority--the government shut down at 
midnight on September 30.
  I know people say it is a Democrat speaking or a Republican speaking. 
So let me read from the Baltimore Sun today and what they said about 
the negotiations.

       It would be tempting, of course, to write that this 
     impasse--the inability to agree on a continuing resolution to 
     fund government past the end of the fiscal year--was the 
     fault of Democrats and Republicans alike. But that would be 
     like blaming the hostages for causing the perpetrator to put 
     a gun to their heads. As President Barack Obama noted, he and 
     Congressional Democrats put forward no agenda other than 
     keeping the government operating temporarily at current 
     levels.
       House Republicans set conditions, not Senate Democrats. 
     It's not even clear how many in the GOP truly wanted this to 
     happen. Conventional wisdom is that a so-called ``clean'' 
     resolution funding government would have passed on a 
     bipartisan vote if it had been allowed on the floor by House 
     Speaker John Boehner--

  The editorial goes on and I continue to quote.

       Do House leaders think they can push the blame on President 
     Obama? Some have already tried, but it sounds suspiciously 
     like shoplifters blaming store owners for having so much 
     tempting merchandise lying about. National polls show the 
     public isn't buying it--most Americans didn't want the 
     government to shutter over ObamaCare, and Congressional 
     Republicans have a double-digit lead over the White House 
     when it comes to the public's choice for who most deserves 
     the most blame.
       Even the unusual anti-government crowd can't find much 
     comfort in this, as sending federal workers home isn't saving 
     anybody any money. The last time the federal government had 
     an extended shutdown--for 21 days in late 1995 to early 
     1996--it cost something on the order of $2 billion. What an 
     extraordinary waste of money, particularly at a time when 
     conservatives claim to be worried about the deficit.

  So it is hard to negotiate when one side has put on the table where 
we should be--allowing government to stay open using last year's 
numbers--and the other side brings in issues that are totally unrelated 
to the continuation of government.
  Having said that, we have got to find a way to get government open. I 
am pleased the President is meeting with the leaders this afternoon. I 
am pleased they are also talking about making sure we pay our bills, 
which is at jeopardy in just 2 weeks.
  I mentioned earlier that I am a little sensitive about this because 
of the impact it has on the economy of my State. It has an impact on 
the entire country. In my State, it is $15 million a day in revenue 
that we lose directly as a result of the government shutdown. It has 
been estimated by Moody's Brian Kessler that if the shutdown went 3-4 
weeks, it would cost our economy $55 billion. This is no small impact 
on our economy. It is a major impact on our economy.
  It is not just Federal workers who aren't going to get paychecks. It 
is the shop owners who depend on business that is going to be cut back. 
It is contractors who depend on the contracts being honored by the 
Federal Government, and the list goes on and on of the impact it has on 
our economy. As I quoted from the Sun paper, it is the taxpayers who 
will pick up the tab. They are not going to save any money. It is going 
to cost them money--not a few bucks. It is going to cost a lot of 
money. And every day we wait, it costs the taxpayers of this country 
more money. So we are interested in dealing with the deficit and 
keeping government operating. It is a huge waste of resources to shut 
down the government.
  We are going to lose some vital services. Earlier today I held a 
conference with Senator Mikulski, Senator Warren, and Senator Boxer 
where we went over some of the real impacts that occur, and we were 
joined by Federal workers that wanted to be at work, doing service to 
this country, but because of the government shutdown they were 
furloughed.
  This is not the first attack against Federal workers we have seen. We 
have seen freezes on their budgets in the last couple of years. We have 
seen them furloughed as a result of sequestration. We have seen freezes 
on hiring so they are asked to do more with less. We have the fewest 
workers per capita in modern history, asked to do more work. Let me 
relate some of the stories, some of the accounts by people who came to 
Washington today so their stories can be told.
  Marcelo Del Canto works for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration. He works in Rockville. He lives in 
Poolesville, MD. He has been a Federal employee for 8 years. He does 
vital work to help prevent substance abuse. He has work on his desk 
that he could do today to help keep people healthier. Instead, he is 
furloughed, sitting at home--can't go in to work.
  We heard from Amy Fritz, a meteorologist and physical oceanographer 
at the National Weather Service. She works in Silver Spring, MD. I have 
been there. This is the agency that tracks the storms. Thank goodness 
we had reliable information about Hurricane Sandy. That work was done 
not on the weather channel, it was done by Federal public servants. Amy 
has a double degree. She is a national expert in this area.
  Do you know what she said today? ``How do I know we should not be 
tracking a storm right now, getting additional information to keep our 
country safe?'' That is what is at stake. We have seen incredible 
weather episodes of late. Every person should be on board, doing their 
work. NOAA had to furlough, same as a layoff, 55 percent of their 
workforce, 6,633 employees furloughed as a result of the government 
shutdown.
  We heard from Carter Kimsey. She works for the National Science 
Foundation. She has been there since 1976. She works with young people, 
getting them involved with science, awarding grants for the basic 
research that is critically important for economic growth and this 
country's competitiveness. She tells us she has work on her desk that 
is critically important to young people continuing in science. She 
can't work today because of the government shutdown. That is going to 
affect America's competitiveness. We are going to lose scientists. We 
are going to lose a great deal as a result of government being shut 
down.
  I heard from Steve Hopkins, Office of Pesticide Programs at the 
Environmental Protection Agency. EPA had to furlough 94 percent of 
their workers; 15,181 workers were furloughed at EPA. What is he not 
doing today that he could have been doing? Helping keep our environment 
safe from the overuse of pesticides, making it a little bit safer for 
our children as they breathe the air and drink the water of this 
country. That is what is at jeopardy here.
  I could tell you about their individual stories. When I talked to 
Marcelo Del Canto, he told me he recently purchased a home in 
Poolesville, MD. We are happy about that. But he has a mortgage 
payment. He is married. I asked how is his spouse doing? She is also 
furloughed. How are they going to make their mortgage payment?
  Carter Kimsey was telling us about the ethics they use in scientific 
experiments. She talked about how they treat the animals they use. She 
said: You know, we make sure they get the

[[Page 14924]]

resources necessary. They are fed, they are taken care of. How about 
our Federal workers? Shouldn't they have their paycheck to pay their 
food bills?
  This is outrageous as far as being wasteful, as far as being against 
economic growth in this country, but it is also wrong. It is wrong to 
the people who have been victimized by this, who do not know if they 
are going to get a paycheck. We have people working who do not know if 
they are going to get paid. We have people who are not working who do 
not know where they are going to get the money to pay their bills. 
Where is the empathy here for what you are doing? This is outrageous.
  My colleagues already talked about the National Institutes of Health 
located in Maryland; 73 percent of their employees are furloughed. Do 
you know what they do? Just the most incredible research in the world 
so we can stay healthy, we can find out the mysteries of incredible 
diseases. They are working on a vaccine now to deal with influenza to 
save millions of lives, and what do we do? Tell them to go home and not 
work? This is not a game. We are affecting people's lives by what we 
are doing here.
  Two hundred patients will be denied care this week at NIH as a result 
of the shutdown. Who knows for one of those individuals whether it is a 
question of life or death? That is what is involved.
  At the FDA, 45 percent of their employees are furloughed. They will 
not be able to conduct the inspections for the compliance and 
enforcement of our food laws, our food safety laws.
  At the Department of Interior, 81 percent of their employees are 
furloughed. What an embarrassment.
  I was talking to a reporter from another country.
  What an embarrassment, the iconic national parks of America are 
closed, but it also affects the businesses all around those parks as 
well as inconveniencing the public.
  At the Small Business Administration, two-thirds of their employees 
are furloughed. Suppose you are a small business person depending on a 
loan. You do not have the officer there to process that loan. What do 
you do?
  The list goes on and on. I could go through every agency. There is 
only one answer to this: Keep government--not one agency, two agencies, 
three agencies--keep every agency open. That is the responsible thing 
for us to do. We should do that. We should make sure we pay our bills, 
and yes, we should negotiate a balanced way to move forward with a 
budget.
  I have been talking on the floor many times about that. There is a 
give and take that we have to make on the budget moving forward. We 
have to balance our books. We need the revenues necessary to do it. We 
have to look at all spending, not just discretionary domestic spending. 
We have to look at all spending. We have to do that in a bipartisan 
manner because, guess what, the Republicans do not control the House, 
the Senate, and the White House, and the Democrats do not control the 
House.
  The public expects us to work together on a budget. That is not what 
this debate is about. This debate is about whether we are going to keep 
government open, whether we are going to pay our bills. We must do that 
for the sake of the people of this country.
  I want to mention one other issue. I filed yesterday legislation with 
many of my colleagues to make it clear that those Federal workers who 
are furloughed, we are going to fight to do what we did in the 1990s 
when we went on government shutdown, and pay all Federal workers. They 
are innocent. They should be made whole. My legislation is cosponsored 
by many of my colleagues. We have bipartisan support in the House of 
Representatives. We have to make sure we get that bill passed so every 
Federal worker is made whole as a result of this shutdown that is not 
their fault.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________