[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 15033-15038]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there are two sides to every story. Before 
he leaves the floor, I would like to say to my friend from Texas--and 
he is my friend--I was at the World War II Memorial yesterday with an 
Honor Flight from Illinois. There were no barricades stopping them from 
going to the memorial, so the characterization on the floor that the 
veterans were stopped is not true, it is not accurate. I hope the 
record will reflect that.
  The reason there is any question about access relates to the shutdown 
of the U.S. Federal Government, the shutdown of this government. We 
have passed a continuing resolution, which is a spending bill, to allow 
the government to function for 6 weeks. We passed it here in the 
Senate. The House Speaker, Mr. Boehner, refuses to call it for a vote.
  There is a majority, Democratic and Republican, ready to vote for it, 
ready to reopen the government, no questions asked about the NIH, about 
the barricades at the World War II Memorial which were there 
originally. All these questions will be resolved. Three times this 
morning the Republicans have objected to bringing that measure up for 
another vote in the Senate. That worries me.
  Let me say one other thing about the Affordable Care Act, the 
insurance exchanges. This morning--I am sorry he has left the floor--
this morning, this is what the Republican leader, Mr. McConnell, said 
about the insurance exchanges:

       Embarrassing, embarrassing rollout over ObamaCare exchanges 
     on Tuesday. I mean, one of the folks the President had 
     standing behind him at the White House tried to log on and 
     sign on to ObamaCare, and after a couple of unsuccessful 
     attempts, the Post reports, she gave up.

  I have good news for the Senator from Kentucky. When you look across 
the United States of America at the exchanges that have been opened, he 
should hold as a matter of pride the fact that the Commonwealth of 
Kentucky is one of the most successful insurance exchanges in America. 
Listen to the report we just received this morning from the secretary 
of the Governor's Cabinet for Health, Audrey Haynes, in Kentucky. The 
Kentucky insurance exchange, which the Republicans want to close down, 
has had 117,000 unique visitors, 109,000 prescreenings to determine 
qualifications for health insurance, and 13,000 Kentuckians--already, 
in 2 days--already 13,000 have applied for health coverage and 8,000 
are now complete.
  This is great news. They are leading the country. Kentucky should be 
so proud. Mr. President, 122 small businesses have begun applications, 
3,500 new families have been enrolled, and there have been 15,000 calls 
to the call center.
  Apologize that we have not been able to process these as quickly in 
any State, but the overwhelming positive public response across America 
to what they call ObamaCare is an indication of pent-up demand in 
Kentucky, Illinois, and every State for people to finally get access to 
health insurance.
  I see others are on the floor to speak. I want to say to my friends 
on the other side of the aisle, please reopen this government. We can 
sit down and negotiate--we should--about important issues, the issues 
the Senator from Washington addressed in the budget. Let's address all 
these issues. Let's do it in a bipartisan, thoughtful, adult manner. 
Telling 800,000 Federal employees to go home is really unfair to them. 
It is unfair to this Nation. It doesn't speak well of us.
  The last point I will make is this. I left the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee hearing this morning. Wendy Sherman is Assistant 
Secretary of State. She is widely respected. We were talking about the 
threat of Iran as a nuclear power. She said to us--and she said it with 
some regret--that the government shutdown is hurting our efforts to 
stop the development of nuclear weapons in Iran. How? Ninety percent of 
the employees at the Department of Treasury office responsible for 
monitoring Iran so that the sanctions are there and tough and bring 
them to the bargaining table--90 percent of those Federal employees 
have been furloughed at the Department of Treasury because the 
government shut down; and 72 percent--almost three-fourths--of all the 
men and women at our intelligence agencies in a civilian capacity have 
been laid off as well because of the government shutdown. These are men 
and women charged with watching the enemy every minute of every day so 
we never have another

[[Page 15034]]

9/11. This is one of the aspects of the government shutdown that 
literally jeopardize the security of the United States of America.
  For goodness' sake, let's put this government back in business before 
the end of this day.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for 
reminding all of us of the many people and communities and the economy 
in this country that are being hurt today because of the tea party's 
insistence, in the House of Representatives, that this government 
remain shut until ObamaCare is defunded or eliminated. I am frustrated, 
as is every American today, thinking why can't our government work? Why 
can't people come together?
  As chair of the Budget Committee, I have been out here 19 times since 
last March saying: Let's go to conference committee and resolve our 
differences, and 19 times Members of the Republican Party have said no. 
They have not allowed us to go talk.
  Now we find ourselves in a mess. The government is shut down. 
Families are hurting and communities are hurting and our economy is 
hurting. What is the response now of the Republicans in the House of 
Representatives and here on the floor? Oops, we didn't mean to hurt 
everybody. We have a few friends we are going to take care of.
  I have listened to the debate this morning where our Republican 
colleagues came out and asked unanimous consent to take care of a few 
of their favorite parts of government so that they can say they helped. 
I am as passionate as anyone about our veterans. There is not one 
Member of this Senate who does not fully support our military and our 
veterans. No one questions that, but I take a backseat to no one in 
advocating for our veterans--as the former chair of the veterans' 
committee, as the daughter of a World War II veteran who earned a 
Purple Heart and was one of the first soldiers in Okinawa.
  As a young woman myself during the Vietnam war, I worked in the 
Seattle veterans hospital with men and women my age who were coming 
home from the Vietnam war. I have done so much work on this floor, as 
well as worked with hundreds of thousands of our veterans who are 
coming home from the current conflicts, and helped to pass legislation 
to make sure they have what they need, so we don't just say thank you, 
but we serve them well.
  I take a backseat to no one on veterans. I can tell you one thing 
about our military and our veterans that everyone here knows: They are 
the least selfish among us. They have volunteered to serve our country. 
They have given up for every American, and they have a motto that they 
leave no one behind. I can't imagine that our veterans are out there 
today saying: Take care of me with this small amendment and leave 
behind the children who are in our Head Start programs or the moms and 
dads who are dependent on nutrition programs in this country or the 
800,000 employees who are sitting at home today scared to death about 
how they are going to pay their bills because this government is shut 
down.
  We have an obligation and a responsibility to solve the problems in 
front of us. They are widespread in terms of our differences with our 
Republican colleagues, but we don't do them any favors by shutting off, 
closing our arms and saying: We are not going to talk about it. We do 
it by going to conference, and we do it by working together. We don't 
do it by shutting out the lights across this country on our government.
  In front of the House today is a solution. It is the Senate-passed 
bill that is supported by a majority in the House and a majority in the 
Senate as well and would pass today if it were brought up. With that 
vote, we could open our government, put people back to work, and then 
we would go to conference, work out our agreements in the way our 
children expect us to do.
  Let's be an example as adults to families and young people across 
this country that when there is a disagreement, all parties involved 
work together at a conference table and set aside their differences and 
find a solution for the country. It cannot be done by saying: I'm not 
going to let anybody go to work until I get my way, which is what the 
House of Representatives is doing.
  We can get this done. As I talked about yesterday, I am a former 
preschool teacher, and I have seen this kind of activity before. We 
have all seen our kids make a mess in their room, and then say: Gosh. 
How did that happen? That is what we are hearing from the other side 
today: Well, gee, how come we haven't passed any appropriations bills? 
Wow, if we had a budget done, we wouldn't be here.
  Why has that happened? Because time after time--and the chairwoman of 
the Appropriations Committee is here--when we have tried to get our 
work done, we have been blocked by the very same tea party Republicans 
who today have put us into this shutdown and said: My way or the 
highway; either repeal ObamaCare or this country hurts.
  That is not what we should be doing. Let's tell our veterans, our 
military, our Head Start moms, our 800,000 employees, and everybody in 
this country: We are a country that can work. We are at work. Let's 
open our doors, pass legislation in the House, and then we will work 
out our disagreements. As hard as it is, we can do that.
  I hope that is the focus we have today. I say to Speaker Boehner: 
Bring up the bill, pass it, and allow us to get back to work.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak in morning business. How 
much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Nineteen minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today in a twofold role. No. 1, I 
am here under my constitutionally designated responsibility as the 
Senator from Maryland, duly elected and duly certified. I love 
representing Maryland. We have 5\1/2\ million of the most wonderful, 
patriotic, hard-working, philanthropic, community-oriented people you 
can have.
  I also love representing Maryland because in my State we have one of 
the largest concentrations of civilian agencies in America. They have 
wonderful names such as the National Institutes of Health, and the 
National Institutes of Standards and Technology that helps to set the 
standards that enable the private sector to be able to develop the 
products they can sell around the world. We are home to the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. We are home to the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission that looks at a variety of things from children's toys to 
the safety of our mattresses to make sure they are not flammable. I 
could go on listing those agencies: the Census Bureau, the National 
Weather Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which helps to keep the 
seafood industry safe and operational.
  I have a lot of Federal employees, and they are asking me: What are 
they doing? What I am telling them is that the other side--one faction 
in one party in one House of government--is prohibiting a reopening of 
our government because of their failure to take up the Senate 
continuing funding resolution, which would reopen government for 6 
weeks while we work out our fiscal problems.
  Their solution is to do this piecemeal. Piecemeal does not work. We 
cannot do this one agency at a time.
  Weren't we proud of our World War II veterans and how plucky and 
spunky they were when they essentially broke the line to be able to see 
a memorial in their honor? Absolutely. When the National Park Service 
put that ban up around it, they were operating under the orders of what 
a shutdown is. Now, unofficially, that World War II museum is open. But 
while we say, aren't we proud of our veterans--Yes. Don't blame the 
National Park Service for closing the World War II memorial. Blame the 
others for shutting down government. Our veterans--who wanted to see 
the memorial which salutes them, the greatest generation who fought 
World War II--should not have to worry about their own government.

[[Page 15035]]

  Then the other side says: Well, we are going to fund veterans' 
benefits. We cannot fund veterans' benefits without reopening Social 
Security and the IRS. I have looked and investigated and worked with my 
committee on why the veterans had a backlog for disability benefits. 
One of the ways claims are processed is they not only have to get what 
the veteran says, but they have to get paperwork from the Social 
Security Administration and from the Internal Revenue Service to be 
able to process the claim.
  They can beat the drum, raise the flag, sound the bugle all that they 
want, to say they want to fund veterans' benefits, but unless the 
Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are 
reopened, they are still placing our veterans at a disadvantage. We 
need to reopen the whole government.
  While they are doing their piecemeal approach, they are so busy 
showing off and trying to show their pro-defending America stance--they 
passed a bill to make sure the military gets paid. Sure, what American 
would not want our troops in harm's way to get paid? We are for that. 
But they were so fast and so facile and so showbiz, they forgot the 
National Guard.
  Now they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to add the National 
Guard. I love the National Guard. We are the home of the fighting 29th. 
They were heroes in World War II, and they have been heroes in every 
war since then. I want to see the National Guard helped, but they are 
kind of Johnny-come-latelies to the piecemeal approach because in their 
fast-track, showbiz, showoff approach, they forgot the National Guard. 
Oh, wasn't that a cool thing to do.
  I support what Senator Reid just did on each and every one of those 
piecemeal bills, to add the continuing funding resolution to open all 
of government. Over the last few days we have shamed them into thinking 
about the National Institutes of Health. I love the National Institutes 
of Health. It is in my State. Every day people go to work there to find 
cures for the dread diseases, such as Alzheimer's and autism, not only 
for the American people here but also around the world. In a few weeks 
we will be racing for the cure. Let's race to open government.
  In their disdain for civilian agencies, NIH was closed down, but now 
they are coming up with a piecemeal approach to reopen NIH. Do I want 
NIH open? Absolutely. Over 70 percent of the people who work there have 
been laid off. Last year NIH announced--because of its research and 
work with wonderful academic centers and our private sector to develop 
biotech and pharmaceutical products--that cancer rates in the United 
States were reduced by 15 percent. With all of that work, they have now 
been furloughed.
  Some might say: Senator Barb, do the piecemeal. I would love to. But 
if NIH workers were here, they would say: If you reopen us, it is a 
hollow opportunity unless you open the FDA. We do the basic research at 
our institutes, but somebody has to take that research and make use of 
it in other medical devices, biotech products, or pharmaceuticals. They 
then go through clinical trials because in this country we want to be 
sure that whatever you put on your body or in your mouth to help you is 
safe and effective. The Food and Drug Administration does that.
  We can do lots of research, and have brilliant ideas that could lead 
to new and credible solutions for people in pain, agony, and suffering, 
but unless we can put it into clinical trials and have it go to the 
FDA, it is a hollow opportunity. If we're going to reopen NIH, we have 
to reopen the FDA. And guess what. The Food and Drug Administration is 
furloughed. We pay a good part of the FDA through fees, such as 
pharmaceutical fees and medical device fees. But guess what. During the 
shutdown, the government is prohibited from collecting the fees that it 
is owed.
  What is this? This is showbiz politics. This is not pragmatic 
solutions.
  We need to reopen government--reopen the entire government--so it can 
do the job we have authorized them to do, and have the men and women 
who do that job be able to come back to work. That is why Senator Reid 
has--instead of cherry-picking individual items--offered the 
comprehensive solution that would reopen our government.
  This is not only affecting government workers because government 
workers actually affect the economy. Right this very minute, the 
President has been in Rockville, MD. I would have loved to have joined 
him this morning, but I wanted to be here at my duty station. The 
President was at Rockville Pike, which is a road in Montgomery County 
that has some of the greatest civilian agencies in the world clustered 
around it.
  He was going to visit the Luis family. They are a minority, woman-
owned asphalt contractor. They are a wonderful family and an American 
success story. They came to this country with just a little money in 
their pocket but with big dreams in their hearts to have freedom and 
the opportunity to open a business. They opened an asphalt contracting 
business which gets most of its business from local, State, and the 
government for roads. They are the infrastructure people. Not coming up 
with a way to keep our government open, cancel sequester, and move 
legislation to fund our physical infrastructure is dramatically 
affecting them.
  Around Rockville Pike, there are several agencies, and I have already 
said their names: The National Institutes of Standards and Technology, 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission. That is affecting businesses up and down Rockville Pike. 
People aren't buying their groceries, they are not buying gas. I am 
going to say more about that in a little while.
  Remember that Social Security agency I talked about? It is in a 
neighborhood called Woodlawn in Baltimore. Nine thousand--nine 
thousand--Social Security workers in Baltimore and around the country 
have been furloughed. Right near them is the CMS agency which also 
looks out for our Medicare.
  A few blocks from Social Security is the FBI field office. Those FBI 
agents are on the job--on the job--but they are being paid with IOUs. 
Do my colleagues know that because of what we have had to do with our 
budget they don't even have gas for the FBI cars? In a recent book 
called ``Voices From The Field,'' the FBI agents have spoken out about 
what is happening to them; that when they get in their car to chase a 
bad guy or gal, they have to pay for their own gas. What kind of 
government is this, with all that pomp and strut, the ridicule of our 
Federal employees? Now this shutdown is humiliating our country and 
humiliating the people who work for our government, and so on.
  Across this Nation and in my own State, because of thousands of 
Federal employees being furloughed or paid in IOUs, businesses are 
hurting. I am the daughter of a small business owner. My father owned a 
small grocery store. I am the granddaughter of a woman entrepreneur--a 
wonderful woman of Polish heritage who opened a Polish bakery to be 
able to help her family. Every day they said, ``Good morning, can I 
help you?'' I know what it is like to be in the retail food business, 
and I understand what it is like when your customers are facing the 
fact that they are unemployed. All of these, mom-and-pop stores to the 
larger agencies, are being affected.
  The government shutdown threatens our progress. We know in 1995 and 
in 1996, it cut our gross domestic product. The shutdown can cost our 
economy as much as $10 billion a week.
  Every week the Small Business Administration, because it is shut 
down, can't process loans or give technical assistance to small 
businesses. The International Trade Association, which helps our people 
sell products around the world--and what is left of our manufacturing 
sector in Maryland has told me how important our foreign commercial 
service officers are--is shut down.
  The Department of Labor processes applications for visas, for farms, 
for seafood processors as in my own State. Businesses typically file 
for visas 2 or 3 months in advance. Because of the shutdown, it is 
going to affect everybody from citrus farmers in the South

[[Page 15036]]

to those people who have New England ski resorts. People might say, Oh, 
that is a Gucci job. A Gucci job in a New England ski resort? I don't 
think so. It is very important to Vermont and New Hampshire and the 
citrus farmers down South.
  We have to reopen the government. The way we reopen the government is 
not by a piecemeal approach but by the House taking up the Senate 
resolution.
  I have a lot more to say, and I will say it during the day today. I 
know my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, is on the floor. He 
is a member of the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Defense 
authorization committee. He is a staunch defender of people. He has 
been so outspoken on the need for student loans. He has also been so 
outspoken on the need for energy assistance for poor people with the 
coming winter. He is a defender of America, a graduate of West Point, 
and he has been a defender of the little guy and the little gal who 
should have a government on their side. I want to make sure he has a 
chance to speak, and I will be back later on to speak on the floor 
again.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, first let me commend the chairwoman for her 
extraordinary leadership in so many different ways, including her 
articulate explanation of the crisis we face at the moment and her 
compelling argument that a piecemeal approach to resolving the 
government shutdown will not work, since the pieces are so critically 
interrelated.
  I rise to speak about this government shutdown as well. Today is day 
three of the Republican government shutdown, and it seems increasingly 
clear that Speaker Boehner is trying to drag this out long enough to 
merge the shutdown with brinkmanship over whether to pay our Nation's 
bills. This attempt to gut existing law and put the full faith and 
credit of the United States at risk is no way to run a country. If we 
are dragged into the commingling of the Republican government shutdown 
and the Republican proposals to default on our debt, we could be facing 
a catastrophic financial situation that would affect not just 
government operations but markets worldwide, and that is not something 
we should even contemplate. So we have to move very quickly to a 
resolution of this manufactured crisis.
  When I hear a discussion of what is going on, the words I hear used 
are words such as ``reckless,'' ``irresponsible,'' and, indeed, words 
much worse than these all across this country. The bottom line is the 
average American is fed up. They expect government to open, to serve 
them, to perform its basic function--not selective functions but its 
full range of functions.
  Survey after survey notes two simple things: No. 1, the government 
should be reopened for business. No. 2, the effort by some to connect 
the Affordable Care Act to funding the government should be ceased. 
These aren't the views of one particular political party; they are the 
views of a very, very large majority of Americans, and I share their 
sentiment. The government should not be closed. The Affordable Care Act 
should not be tied to reopening the government.
  There is a very simple solution here: Pass the short-term, continuing 
resolution at current levels of spending so then we can begin the 
process of resolving the budget impasse. Let me say that again: Pass 
the bill that funds the government at the current level of spending. 
Doing so means keeping, in effect, the sequester--something that many 
on the other side of the aisle have demanded. Frankly, I would hope 
that having done that, we could then seriously get into discussions 
with the leader and with the chairwoman on our side about how we create 
a budget for 2014 that does away with the sequester. This was inherent 
in the budget resolution which I supported last March.
  Regrettably, the tea party has refused to allow negotiations on the 
budget, even though we heard day in and day out complaints by our 
colleagues in a previous session of Congress that we need a budget, we 
need a budget, we need a budget. Well, we produced a budget, and now we 
are being blocked.
  What is happening instead of moving to meaningful, comprehensive 
budget negotiations is that we are in a government shutdown, and now 
the Republicans are trying to extricate themselves from this 
manufactured crisis, created by their own hands, by sending over 
piecemeal bills to fund preferred and selected agencies of the 
government. As the chairwoman pointed out, it doesn't work, because the 
government is related. NIH can make discoveries, but if the FDA is not 
authorized and operating so they can approve their use by people, it 
doesn't work. We can't disassociate these things.
  We saw today in Rhode Island about 26,500 women and children might 
lose their WIC benefits, their nutrition benefits, their support. 
Ignoring them and helping others is not going to benefit this country. 
In fact, it will contribute, I think, to decline.
  We have looked at the National Guard, veterans' benefits, and 
national parks. Those are all worthy elements, but they are not the 
entire range of elements we must perform. I believe the other side is 
trying to come up with some type of coherent argument for their 
actions. Is this about the debt? We have made progress in reducing our 
deficit. Because of actions we have taken, we have reduced projected 
deficits over 10 years by $2.4 trillion. Do we have to do more? Yes. 
But we have to do it in a current, thoughtful way.
  Is it about the sequester? Well, let's talk about the sequester. 
Let's talk about it in the context of a budget and appropriations bills 
for 2014.
  Is it about the Affordable Care Act? Well, it has begun. There has 
been a huge demand in the first few days and it is working through 
problems. And there will be problems. There is no major initiative of 
this kind that is rolled out by any business or any government that 
doesn't have issues, and those issues will be dealt with.
  What is very clear, though, is closing the government and then, in 
sort of an ad hoc way, opening up parts is no way to operate. It is 
unfair to the American people who aren't getting services they expect 
and deserve. Also, it's unfair to furloughed Federal employees at the 
Defense Department and elsewhere--not just the Defense Department but 
all Departments--some of them are working without the certainty that 
they indeed will be paid.
  There is a simple way to avoid this situation. The House should stop 
preventing an up-or-down vote on the Senate's continuing resolution and 
open the government. The Speaker can call up that vote in less than an 
hour, get it on the floor, and go ahead and reopen our government. Then 
reopen the thoughtful, careful, collaborative discussions about where 
we are going in terms of our budget, in terms of our deficit, in terms 
of serving the American people.
  I have heard a lot of talk such as: Oh, we have to have a lot of 
negotiations and compromise, et cetera. I have supported legislation I 
believe in strongly. I have opposed legislation, but I don't think I 
have ever stood up and said it is either my way or nothing happens. 
That is not the way to responsibly represent the people of America. It 
is the give-and-take of principled compromise. Sometimes there is 
legislation that reaches this floor that I can't support, but I think 
in a democracy it is the majority, ultimately--after we go through our 
procedural convolutions--it is the majority ultimately that prevails.
  There is a strong sense, as reflected in the newspapers, that the 
majority of the House of Representatives wants this situation resolved. 
They want all government agencies opened. And through the procedural 
votes on this side, it is very clear that our colleagues were willing 
to allow a majority vote to come to this floor, which carried. So the 
majority of the House and the Senate are with the American people. We 
just have to get the leadership of the House to get with the American 
people.
  We have to talk about some of these serious issues, but I think the 
best place to do so, in my view, is in the context of budget 
negotiations, and we have been repeatedly blocked from bringing the 
budget to conference. In

[[Page 15037]]

fact, many of our Republican colleagues--and I will give them credit; 
many of them have stood up and said we have to go to the budget 
negotiations in the conference. Senator McCain said, for example, 
``It's not the regular order for a number of Senators, a small number, 
a minority within a minority here, to say they will not agree to go to 
conference.'' That is what is happening. It is happening in terms of a 
minority of Republican Members in the House who are demanding that this 
Speaker not relent on this government shutdown, and it is happening 
here to a degree with respect to the conference committee on the 
budget. We have to go ahead and do our job.
  We have had colleagues on the other side talk about how the closure 
has detrimental effects. The Member who represents Yosemite National 
Park was very sad it was closed. I am also distressed that it is 
closed. I chair the subcommittee that appropriates funding for our 
national parks. We do our best to maintain the parks, to make sure we 
support those individuals who work for the Park Service. I understand 
the impact is not just within the confines of the park, it is the 
businesses all around the park. That is what we said a week ago. That 
is what I said a week ago, asking, in terms of our deliberations, that 
we pass a continuing resolution. So this should come as no surprise to 
those people who voted against keeping the government open.
  But this is not just about the value of a national park. It is about 
all the functions the government performs. It is about those women and 
children who receive benefits through the WIC Program. It is about 
those Federal workers who are furloughed who cannot perform their 
duties. We have to go ahead and open up our government. We have to 
recognize what a democracy ultimately is all about: It is the will of 
the American people--the majority of the American people--that has to 
be reflected, ultimately, by the Representatives and the Senators.
  Again, I think it is very clear, except for the bottleneck at the 
House leadership, that the majority of the House and the majority of 
the Senate want this government to open up. Let's do it. We need a 
vote. We have to stop relitigating the Affordable Care Act. It passed. 
It was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. It is open for 
business starting on October 1, with significant interest by the 
public. There were 3,000 page-hits per minute in Rhode Island as it 
opened up on October 1, which I am told by the technologists is an 
amazing number. There were 2,000 calls to our call center--people who 
were looking for insurance, to buy it in a private marketplace, which 
is the core of the Affordable Care Act.
  So we have to move forward. If we do not move forward, SBA lending is 
effectively cut off, so small business men and women, who are 
struggling to get their businesses going, to keep them going, and hire 
Americans, will not have that ability to receive support from the SBA.
  We need, as they say--and everyone has become familiar with this 
term--a clean CR that opens everything up. If we do not, then we know 
the impact is going to be dramatic.
  In 2011, economists estimated that a shutdown would cost the economy 
0.2 percent of GDP each week. And it accumulates.
  Looking back to 1995 and 1996, when a Republican House also shut down 
the government for 27 days, it reduced GDP growth by roughly 0.5 
percent. Those are jobs, not just statistics. Those are lots of jobs 
and confidence in our economy. If we do not have jobs and confidence, 
then we are not doing our job and we are not fulfilling what we were 
sent here by the people to do: grow the economy, give us work, give us 
confidence that you can at least perform the basic functions of 
government.
  Now we have to move forward. I am uncertain as to how long this will 
continue to fester. We should do this immediately. As I said, 
procedurally the House--and I had the privilege to serve there for 6 
years--can bring this continuing resolution up on very short notice and 
get, which I believe they have, the majority votes they need to pass 
it. That should be done. Then we can sit down and work again--work hard 
on those issues that face us in the context of budget negotiations and 
a conference and also recognize that while we are here involved in this 
manufactured crisis, the world is moving. The world is moving in ways 
in which we cannot be so preoccupied that we do not sense: foreign 
affairs issues in Syria, foreign affairs issues across the globe; 
international economic issues; future competitive issues with other 
economies. While we are fixated and focused on this manufactured 
crisis, which is completely unnecessary, we are not doing the important 
work, we are not anticipating the problems that are developing right 
now in the world or in our economy, we are not investing in jobs and in 
job creation, we are not looking ahead. We have to do that also.
  I would urge a quick, decisive vote on a continuing resolution so we 
can get back to the business of leading America.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, let me second the very powerful and 
eloquent remarks just made by my colleague from Rhode Island: that we 
must vote, we need to have a vote in the House of Representatives to 
give moderate Republicans the opportunity to put the Federal Government 
back to work in the service of Americans and keep America--in the 
private as well as public sector--at work so they can meet the 
obligations of their families.
  We have developing a situation in America where more and more the 
ripple effects of this shutdown will affect private employees, not just 
the Federal and government workers who are told to go home and told 
they cannot do their jobs.
  As I have said repeatedly, we need to end the hostage-taking tactics 
by one small faction of one party in one House of this branch of 
government. The ripple effects of this shutdown are beginning to grow 
across America.
  Last night, United Technologies, the largest employer in Connecticut, 
announced it has been forced to furlough thousands of employees, 
starting initially with more than 1,500 at its Sikorsky facility in 
Stratford, which makes Black Hawk helicopters for our Army, Navy, Air 
Force, Marines, and Special Forces. Thousands of other jobs may be at 
risk at Pratt & Whitney and at defense manufacturers all across the 
Nation.
  This political gamesmanship and budget brinkmanship has stopped 
production of the Black Hawk helicopters, an iconic symbol to all our 
servicemembers that help is on the way. They are the ones that 
transport troops into combat, rescue the wounded, and deliver supplies 
to the most inaccessible and inhospitable parts of the Earth. Black 
Hawk helicopters are vital to our national defense. Why is the 
production line at Sikorsky being shut down? Because 45 Federal 
employees who work for the Defense Contract Management Agency have been 
sent home as a result of this shutdown--sent home by one small group of 
rightwing extremist ideologues in the House of Representatives, one 
part of this Congress, one branch of the government--and those 45 
employees who work for the Defense Contract Management Agency cannot 
certify and inspect the work of the Sikorsky employees. So there is no 
way the U.S. military can take delivery of those helicopters.
  My hope is this situation can be resolved quickly and that we can 
find a way to get these DCMA employees back doing their vital jobs that 
contribute so directly and importantly to the success of our military 
operations. They are civilian employees. They should be back at work 
certifying and inspecting and making sure those helicopters are the 
best in the world, as they have always been, and that they can be 
delivered to our military; that the military can pay Sikorsky, and 
Sikorsky can keep its people at work rather than furlough them, and so 
that those Sikorsky helicopters are available to help our troops in the 
toughest challenges they face all across the

[[Page 15038]]

globe. They need and deserve those helicopters.
  But even if we put those Sikorsky workers back at their jobs 
tomorrow, the needless chaos and confusion caused by the shutdown is an 
outrageous and inexcusable dereliction by those small, rightwing 
extremists who have insisted on ideology over country and fearmongering 
over job creation.
  The ripple effects of Sikorsky shutting down its assembly line will 
be felt by the suppliers who provide parts and components used in those 
helicopters. I have visited them, and I have seen those parts and 
components used on those assembly lines by those Sikorsky workers. If 
Sikorsky is not using those parts and components, workers in those 
suppliers will be furloughed as well, or worse.
  We are talking about men and women who live--many of them--paycheck 
to paycheck. They do not have huge savings. They may well, in fact, 
probably will not be paid for the time they are furloughed. The ripple 
effect on consumer demand will be felt across Connecticut and, as a 
result of similar situations, across the country.
  All too often, we tend to think of the Federal workforce as a 
nameless and faceless group, but this shutdown is bringing home what 
the real impact of their work is--from the NIH employees who do cancer 
research and provide treatment to people who need it and now will go 
without it; to the Head Start workers and programs across the country 
that provide for educational readiness to children who now will go 
without it; to the Social Security recipients who encounter problems 
with their check or payment and need someone to guide them or help them 
receive those checks that they need to survive and now will go without 
those checks; and resolving veterans' benefits, other kinds of issues 
all across the country. The chaos and confusion will ripple and 
accumulate. These effects are cumulative, and they will multiply.
  The damage done by these wounds to our workforce are, tragically, 
self-inflicted and they dramatize how that cumulative effect will, in 
fact, increase exponentially.
  I warned of the effects on job creation and economic growth 
repeatedly before and after the shutdown occurred. In addition to the 
vital services that are imperiled and impacted, these economic effects 
on job creation and recovery are irreparable. They affect people's 
lives. They are real consequences to real people.
  I have called on this body to let compromise and cooler heads prevail 
and end those ripple effects, end the shutdown, end this self-inflicted 
wound before it becomes an economic tsunami.
  I hope everyone in this body, everyone in this Congress, will use 
every ounce of their energy, every minute of this day and the days to 
come to cause this inexcusable shutdown to end, to fix the train wreck 
before it leads to other wrecks of other trains that may collide.
  We have spent a lot of time in this body talking, and it is time we 
started listening. We ought to be listening to the American people, who 
are telling us: Get the job done. Get back to work. We ought to be 
listening to voices of our local communities which are seeing the harm 
of this shutdown.
  Jim Finley, for example, the CEO of the Connecticut Conference of 
Municipalities, said yesterday:

       Our poorest communities. They're the ones who are going to 
     feel the hit first.

  That is because the Women, Infants and Children's Program and housing 
vouchers for low-income families are just two of the programs that make 
the social safety net work and help people most in need. The WIC 
Program provides food assistance to more than 58,000 low-income 
pregnant women, mothers, and children in Connecticut.
  Listen to Mayor Pedro Segarra of Hartford, who said:

       After 30 days it becomes very difficult. We've already been 
     under pressure from the feds because of sequestration to 
     reduce expenses in several categories.

  Recently, Newtown and Monroe, along with other Connecticut 
communities, received Federal grants to hire local police officers. So 
listen to Monroe First Selectman Steve Vavrek, who said he has no idea 
whether that money will ever arrive, and he has no way of checking on 
it, and, of course, he has no way of planning for future law 
enforcement in his community.
  Students from Sandy Hook Elementary School were relocated to a school 
in his town of Monroe. Let's listen to those kids. Let's listen to 
their parents. They have no one to speak for them here, unless we 
listen to them.
  Similar to children across the country, they need those Federal 
grants for their schools. If we listen to our local leaders, if we 
listen to America, we will put the Federal Government back to work. We 
will avoid that train wreck and tsunami that will result from the 
spreading ramifications and ripple effects of the loss of income and 
service that results from this shutdown.
  Finally, let me just emphasize one of the very important unintended 
consequences of actions that we have taken or failed to take. When 
Congress passed the resolution to pay our troops, we intended to cover 
all of the men and women who wear the uniform, all who serve in our 
military forces, including all categories of National Guard service.
  Unfortunately, some are not covered in actual practice. I am 
committed to ensuring that everyone in uniform is paid for their 
service and sacrifice. Regardless of the numerous diverse categories of 
service that may exist in the National Guard or in other branches of 
service, every man and woman who wears the uniform, every man and woman 
who serves in our military should be paid and paid on time now.
  I am committed to making sure our Department of Defense and our 
government recognizes that obligation. So let's think about them. Let's 
keep in mind the brave men and women who are serving and sacrificing to 
keep us free, to make sure our democracy functions in the service of 
people. Let's keep faith with them as well as with the American people. 
Let's do our work by making sure we put the American Government back to 
work and make sure the country is at work. Let the House vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

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