[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 15038-15043]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.J. RES. 72

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate receives H.J. Res. 72, making continuing appropriations for 
veterans' benefits for fiscal year 2014, the measure be read three 
times and passed; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. MURPHY. Reserving the right to object, Madam President, my 
understanding is that the Senator is proposing to allow for 
appropriations to move forward for a portion of veterans funding. Let 
me just say a few things. It is clearly a hardship that the shutdown is 
going to result in a diminution of benefits to our veterans. I 
appreciate the Senator coming to the floor to try to address that 
today.
  But as my colleague from Connecticut just mentioned, it is also an 
unacceptable hardship that there is about to be 4,000 workers at 
Sikorsky Aircraft who are going to be furloughed on Friday because of 
this shutdown. It is also an unacceptable hardship that thousands of 
Head Start children are going to show up to their preschool being 
closed. It is an unacceptable hardship to millions of frail elderly who 
are going to have their nutritional benefits compromised.
  So I think we can all agree that the consequences of the shutdown are 
unacceptable to our veterans. They are unacceptable, though, to a 
panoply of other families and individuals across the country.
  I would note also that I believe the resolution the Senator is 
offering and suggested be passed provides only partial funding for the 
VA. There is no funding here to operate the national cemeteries. There 
is no funding for the Board of Veterans' Appeals. There is no funding 
for constructing VA hospitals and their clinics. There is no funding, 
actually, to operate the IT system that

[[Page 15039]]

the entire VA needs in order to continue going forward.
  So I would actually offer and ask unanimous consent that the 
Senator's request be modified; that an amendment which is at the desk 
be agreed to, that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a 
third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  This amendment is the text that passed the Senate. It is a clean 
continuing resolution for the entire government and something that is 
already over in the House and reportedly has the majority support of 
the Members of the House of Representatives. This would solve the 
problems I am sure the Senator is going to talk about with respect to 
certain veterans but would also solve all of those other problems and 
would make sure we continue to have funding for the national 
cemeteries, continue to build hospitals that need to be built for 
veterans, continue to service the IT needs that underlay the foundation 
of our veterans systems, and also make sure Head Start kids do not get 
turned away from their classrooms, make sure Sikorsky Aircraft workers 
get to go back to work, make sure our food still gets inspected, we get 
meals to our frail elderly.
  The CR is in front of the Senate. If the Senator would agree, I 
propose we move forward with this modification to his request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator from Utah so modify his 
request?
  Mr. LEE. I object to the proposed modification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original request?
  Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object, I just want to say I so 
strongly support my colleague from Connecticut. I so oppose what is 
going on here with the Republicans. Time and time again they have had a 
chance to open this government, and they say no. We have the votes in 
the House. The Senate passed it. We sent it over there. Let's make sure 
we do what is right for the people. That means opening this government. 
We show up to work. We have two things to do to earn our pay; one is 
keep the government open. Just because people are going to get health 
insurance and it bothers some Republicans, sorry you lost that battle 
3\1/2\ years ago and then in the election.
  So we have to keep the government running, and we have to pay the 
bills that we all incurred. They are threatening chaos. I am so 
appreciative the Senator from Connecticut came down and gave another 
chance to our Republican friends to let them join us and do our job.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. MURPHY. Again, the Senator having rejected my offer to modify his 
consent--we have an opportunity to pass a continuing resolution which 
enjoys the support of the Senate, which reportedly enjoys the support 
of the majority of Members of the House of Representatives should the 
Speaker simply call it. We could solve the problems the Senator is 
about to talk about, as well as all of the other problems presented to 
the people being affected today by the shutdown, if we would just move 
forward with a clean continuing resolution with no political riders 
attached to it.
  For that reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, what we are being told by the majority is 
that we have to vote for everything in order to fund anything. Moments 
ago, I proposed a unanimous consent request that if approved would 
provide for the immediate availability of mandatory funds generally 
controlled through the annual appropriations process for the Department 
of Veterans Affairs.
  I thank the Republican leader for making similar requests earlier 
today and other Republican colleagues for joining him. I look forward 
to making other similar requests in the coming hours. Frankly, I am a 
little stunned at some of the things we are hearing from the other side 
of the aisle. It is difficult for me to understand the objection to 
bills the House passed last night and the ones Senate Republicans are 
trying to pass today.
  First, this legislation does not fund anything that is controversial. 
None of the pieces of legislation being worked on and passed by the 
House right now and last night can be considered controversial. These 
bills provide funding for things such as veterans' disability benefits, 
the GI bill, and cancer research. These bills keep our national parks 
open and they make sure our National Guard personnel get paid.
  There are many things on which Republicans and Democrats do not 
agree, but whether to take care of our veterans should not be among 
those things. Second, the President himself has asked Congress to do 
this. I remind my friends exactly what he said a few days ago, speaking 
to what might happen during a government shutdown.
  He said:

       Office buildings would close, paychecks would be delayed. 
     Vital services for seniors and veterans, women and children, 
     businesses and our economy depend on would be hamstrung . . . 
     Veterans who've sacrificed for their country, will find their 
     support centers unstaffed . . . Tourists will find every one 
     of America's national parks and monuments, from Yosemite to 
     the Smithsonian to the Statue of Liberty, immediately closed. 
     And of course the communities and small businesses that rely 
     on these national treasures for their livelihoods will be out 
     of customers and out of luck.

  The Republicans in the House of Representatives took the President of 
the United States at his word and started acting immediately to draft 
bills that would make sure these priorities received funding. In 
response, Senate Democrats have said this plan to fund things such as 
veterans, national parks, and others was fundamentally unserious. They 
said Republicans were playing games. The biggest head-scratcher of them 
all, the President issued a veto threat for bills that fund the very 
things he said he wanted to fund, that he would like Congress to fund.
  It makes me wonder, why is it that the President of the United States 
and the Democrats in the Senate are having such a hard time taking yes 
for an answer. The fundamental objection, as I understand it, has been 
that because these bills, passed by the House of Representatives last 
night, and those being passed today, within the next couple of hours, 
because those bills do not fund everything, they are objectionable; in 
other words, we have to fund everything or we may fund nothing.
  I have to remind my colleagues that normally, under regular order, 
Congress will vote on and ultimately approve a dozen or so separate 
segmented appropriations measures, making sure we address each year 
within our Federal Government what it is that we are spending money on. 
This is a big government, one that expends between $3.5 trillion and $4 
trillion a year. It is appropriate that we break this up into pieces.
  But over the last 4\1/2\ years or so, we have been operating on the 
basis of back-to-back continuing resolutions, measures that basically 
require us to fund everything or fund nothing. So what this proposal 
does, what the Republicans in the House of Representatives are quite 
wisely doing is saying let's start with those areas as to which there 
is the most broad-based bipartisan consensus, and let's keep government 
funded at current levels, as the continuing resolution would do within 
those areas, and let's build consensus and let's start funding the 
government in those areas where there is not significant objection.
  What I do not hear from my colleagues is a substantive objection to 
what it does fund. What I hear is they are objecting to what it does 
not fund. So let's pass those things we can agree should be funded, and 
let's move forward. I think we can get most of this resolved fairly 
quickly.
  Two of the bills in the House of Representatives that have been 
passed in this fashion have, quite significantly, received substantial 
bipartisan support. I expect that the rest of them will receive 
bipartisan support as well. In the middle of an unfortunate government 
shutdown, surrounded by all of this diverse rhetoric, Republicans and 
Democrats came together in the House, overwhelmingly, to approve these 
bills.

[[Page 15040]]

I think we owe it to the country to show we can do the same in the 
Senate, acting upon the advice of our better angels and acting in the 
spirit of bipartisan cooperation to keep our government funded.
  Fourth, this is a path forward that was first introduced by none 
other than the distinguished majority leader himself. On Monday 
afternoon, Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, the Senate majority leader, 
asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that ensured our Active-Duty 
military would be paid in the event of a shutdown. In a matter of 
minutes it was done.
  So I ask my friends across the aisle: Was Senator Reid playing games? 
Was that unserious? We did that then. Monday, just a few days ago, we 
passed something that did not fund everything, but it did fund 
something. It funded the government to the extent necessary to allow us 
to continue paying our Active-Duty military personnel.
  Was that unserious? Well, of course not. Why is it unserious when we 
try to fund veterans' disability payments, cancer research, or our 
National Guard?
  Why is it all of a sudden trying to play games trying to keep our 
national parks open?
  What exactly has changed since Monday? Why can we come together to 
pass a bill funding military pay but not to fund veterans' benefits?
  Finally, none of these bills has any connection to the implementation 
of ObamaCare.
  I understand that my friends across the aisle support that law 
despite its numerous failings and indications that it is harming the 
American people and the economy, that it is hurting jobs and 
threatening the affordability of health insurance.
  I understand that some of my friends across the aisle want to protect 
that law.
  We are going to continue to have that debate about that law, 
especially in light of all of the problems people are having signing up 
with the exchanges, not to mention the ongoing problems of job losses, 
wage reductions, hours lost, and people losing their health coverage 
because of ObamaCare. Especially in light of all of those problems, we 
should continue having that debate, but that debate isn't essential to 
every aspect of our government's funding.
  Let me be clear. We will do everything in our power to protect the 
American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare. That fight will 
most certainly continue.
  My friends across the aisle are welcome to join that debate, as I am 
sure they will. But none of these bills, none of the bills that we are 
considering today relate in any way to the implementation of ObamaCare.
  For this moment, at the very least, we should focus on keeping our 
promise to the people, those who have sacrificed the most to keep this 
country free.
  I applaud the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. 
I applaud the Republicans and the Democrats who have supported 
legislation to help keep our government funded in these critical areas. 
We can come together if we act in a step-by-step process, if we pursue 
a step-by-step process for funding our government.
  It more closely resembles the way we should have been appropriating 
in the first place. This is the best way forward. It is the way to help 
minimize the pain that Americans are experiencing as a result of this 
unfortunate shutdown.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to talk about the need to reopen 
government--and not to reopen government in a piecemeal way, one bit 
this week and then another bit next week, which seems to be the newest 
gambit on the table. We need to reopen the government because the 
government of this country should have never shut down in the first 
place.
  Few States are feeling the impact of the shutdown more than Virginia. 
I wish to tell two stories, a personal one and then a story about one 
community in my State.
  In my State many Federal employees live in Virginia. About 150,000 
Federal employees are jeopardized currently by the shutdown, and 70,000 
of them are DOD civilians who were already furloughed earlier this 
year. One of the employees who is jeopardized is a major in the Air 
Force Reserve by the name of Erik Brine. He lives in northern Virginia, 
is married, and has four children.
  Erik had a distinguished career in the Air Force, left active duty, 
became a civilian, rejoined the Air Force Reserve, and is currently 
working at the Pentagon. At the Pentagon as a civilian, he is currently 
furloughed with a wife and four children to support.
  Erik is a Presidential Management Fellow and has been loaned to my 
office for a period of time. He showed up at the Pentagon Tuesday to 
get furloughed, and then he came to my office to hear me deliver my 
furlough speech to all of my employees. He got the double dose that 
day.
  This afternoon I have the honor of going and participating in the 
promotion ceremony for Erik Brine from major to lieutenant colonel. I 
am going to talk about him and his qualifications, but it is going to 
be a bitter moment for all of us as I engage in that promotion for this 
wonderful person. He first served this Nation by flying dozens of 
missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and now serves the Nation in a new 
way, but has now been furloughed twice this year, once because of the 
sequester and next because of the shutdown. We have tens of thousands 
of veterans such as Erik Brine who are going through the furlough 
experience.
  The second is a community story. If you were to ask where in Virginia 
would you feel the impact of the sequester, I think most people might 
think the neighborhoods around the Pentagon or Hampton Roads, where 
there is naval power. But the effects are being felt everywhere.
  I wish to speak about one community, Chincoteague, the barrier island 
off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the subject of the famous children's 
book, ``Misty of Chincoteague.'' It is a beautiful community, a tiny 
small town.
  Chincoteague's economy is fundamentally about visits to the national 
seashore, Assateague and Chincoteague Islands. But those parks and 
national resources have been closed.
  I got a call Tuesday morning right away from friends in Chincoteague 
saying: Chincoteague is motels, restaurants, grocery stores, gas 
stations, and people who sell suntan lotion and sunglasses. Because of 
the closure, the entire economy has had its guts pulled out during the 
Federal shutdown.
  Moreover, there is a historic lighthouse at the wildlife refuge that 
has been restored. It has taken 6 years to restore. This week was the 
opening and celebration of the lighthouse. They expected visitors to 
come from everywhere. That has been cancelled.
  Chincoteague has one other industry that is very important. They 
didn't only want to be about tourism, so over the last 15 to 20 years 
they have worked to build up the capacity of NASA at Wallops Island, 
which is 5 miles from Chincoteague Island.
  Kids who graduate from high school and are interested in science and 
math don't have to move away and never come home. They can get a 
science and math degree, come back, and work as rocket scientists. 
Eighty percent of the NASA employees at Wallops near Chincoteague have 
been furloughed as a result of this shutdown.
  The experience of Lt. Col. Erik Brine, who works in my office, and 
the experience of this small community on the Eastern Shore of Virginia 
demonstrates how serious these effects are.
  The good news is we can solve this if Speaker Boehner would only 
allow a vote to reopen government.
  The Presiding Officer knows this because we sat through it together. 
It bears a little bit of repetition.
  The Senate passed a budget on March 23 that funds all of these issues 
at the level that the Senate thinks is right. The same week the House 
passed a budget funding government at levels they think is right.
  Under the Budget Control Act of 1974, the right strategy at that 
point was to

[[Page 15041]]

put the two budgets in conference and let conferees figure it out. For 
folks who aren't familiar with it--and there may be some who are 
listening--a budget conference is a pretty simple thing.
  When I was Governor of Virginia, we had them all the time. The two 
Houses would pass different budgets. Each House takes their budget, 
goes into the negotiating room, sits down, and compares. One side wins 
on this issue, one side wins on the other, and on a third issue they 
might split it 50-50. The House budget and the Senate budget are very 
different.
  But that is what we do. We sit down, listen, dialogue, compromise, 
and we solve the problems of the country. Nineteen times since March 23 
we have stood on the floor of this body and said we want to go to 
conference with the House on this budget. Nineteen times, the last of 
which was yesterday, a small handful of Senators--and that was the 
phrase that the Senator from Utah used once on the floor in blocking 
this: We are a small handful of Senators--and the House Republicans 
have blocked a budget compromise.
  For the last 6\1/2\ months we have not had the opportunity to sit 
down and dialogue. For folks who don't know how a budget conference 
works, if, in a conference a compromise is reached, it doesn't just 
become law like that. The compromise has to come back to both Houses. 
Both Houses debate the compromise, both Houses vote on the compromise, 
and everyone's interests are protected. They can look at the compromise 
and decide whether they like it or don't.
  For 6\1/2\ months we have been blocked in an effort to go to budget 
conference. Imagine our amazement. In this body on Monday night, after 
the House shut down government, 3 hours later they passed a bill and 
said: We have an idea. Let's have a conference. Finally, 6\1/2\ months 
after they shut down government. But let's have it be a really 
particular kind of conference, not a conference about the budget of the 
United States. Let's have a conference about whether the Government of 
the United States should be open or closed.
  I know I can speak for my colleagues who are here. Our view is we 
will negotiate, compromise, and listen to any policy issue. Budget 
negotiation is exactly how you do this or policy debates are how you do 
it. But what none of us in this body or in the House should ever 
negotiate is whether the United States exists or not, whether it is 
funded or not, whether it is open or closed.
  I believe it has to be open. That is essentially what our oath of 
office says we have to do when we say we will faithfully discharge all 
the duties of the office to which we have been elected.
  We also won't negotiate whether the United States should pay its 
bills because the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in Section 5 makes 
very plain that the public debt of the United States and its validity 
shall not be questioned.
  There is a way forward here, and it is such a simple way forward: 
that is, Speaker Boehner needs to allow a vote in the House. It is 
simple. Allow a vote and not only allow a vote, but allow a vote on a 
budget number that he has already agreed to.
  The continuing resolution the Senator from Connecticut talked about 
that is currently pending, funds government for an interim period of 
time at a budget level that was the House's number. It is not a number 
I liked. We had a different number in the Senate, a higher number we 
want to fund it to. But we accepted the House's number for the short-
term spending bill out of a spirit of compromise.
  We sent it back to the House and we said: We are compromising. We are 
not even going 50-50. We are compromising by accepting your budget 
number. This is not as if the Senator from Utah said we want to fund 
everything or nothing, no. We have other things we would like to fund 
that we are not funding in this bill because we accepted everything the 
House wants to fund in their CR.
  They only need to accept yes for an answer. The good news is this is 
not a partisan issue because many Senate Republicans want to do exactly 
what I am suggesting.
  Based on current reports in the House, there are numerous House 
Republicans--four of whom are from Virginia--who are publicly on the 
record. They wish to do exactly as we are suggesting.
  Speaker Boehner, bring your own spending bill up for a vote. If you 
do it will pass. If it passes, government will reopen. Once government 
has reopened, we can have a budget conference and talk about any issue 
the House wants to talk about, any issue that we want to talk about. 
But it is time to end hostage politics and reopen the doors.
  The Speaker has it in his hands to do that, simply and immediately.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, people all around this country--and 
Montana is no exception--are looking at the actions in Washington, DC, 
and they are shaking their heads in disbelief. They are shaking their 
heads in disbelief because the government has shut down, but yet a bill 
has passed the Senate. If the Speaker of the House would offer it on 
the House floor, it would pass the House and the government wouldn't 
have to be shut down.
  Then all the resolutions put forth on the other side, and some on 
this side, quite frankly, about opening different areas of the 
government, would all be settled because government would be open.
  A previous speaker this morning said: We shouldn't be dealing with 
overall government. We should be dealing with this in piecemeal 
fashion.
  Really? Who determines who gets help and who determines who doesn't? 
The fact is the government provides some pretty essential services to 
folks across the board. To stand on this floor and cherry-pick certain 
pieces of the government to fund and not to fund is totally unfair. 
Quite frankly, those groups know they are being used as political pawns 
in this process.
  We started out these negotiations with a CR that was at $1.58 
trillion. We compromised that down to a point of $986 billion, 
somewhere around a $70 billion reduction. This is real money, a 
significant compromise.
  The House came back and said: No, that is really not good enough. We 
want that $986 billion figure, and then we also want to defund the 
Affordable Care Act.
  Why? Because, my goodness, it is the most terrible thing. There are 
all sorts of reasons given on the floor why the Affordable Care Act is 
so terrible.
  For example, I had a flat tire on my truck last week--it was the 
Affordable Care Act. I ran out of fuel in my fuel tank--that doggone 
Affordable Care Act.
  Let's get the Affordable Care Act implemented and all of these bogus 
excuses about why it is so bad will go away. People will get the 
advantage of affordable insurance once again, not government health 
care, but affordable insurance so they can afford to get sick.
  Aside from that, the repeal of it was turned back. Then they came 
back with a delay of 1 year and said: Oh, by the way, if you work for 
Congress or you are a Member of Congress, we are going to take away any 
sort of insurance benefits you get whatsoever.
  This was interesting. Because, quite frankly, if Members of Congress 
don't want that benefit, they will turn it back, and I anticipate some 
will after the Affordable Care Act is put into place. I doubt that very 
much.
  Instead, what happened was we turned that back, and now we are in a 
situation where we sent back a clean continuing resolution at $986 
billion. In the House, if the Speaker would put that bill on the floor, 
it would pass and we could start doing the business of this country 
once again rather than sitting here in a government shutdown where 
things aren't working and we are not addressing the issues that need to 
be addressed.
  But when we take a look at whether we are going to fund certain 
programs, I want to talk about a few very briefly before I kick it over 
to the Senator from Colorado.
  We have intelligence folks who are not on the ground, but we have 
folks fighting in theater right now who need

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that intelligence. Whether they get it is up in the air. The folks who 
protect our clean water and air are off the job. Clean water is our 
most important resource, and they are not there to make sure it remains 
clean. Kids on Head Start, food inspectors, research into energy so we 
can have a 21st-century economy and affordable energy in that 21st 
century--they are all off the job. Domestic violence and folks who are 
impacted by domestic violence--there are shelters that are determining 
right now whether they will turn away those victims of domestic 
violence.
  The list goes on and on and on. Whether we are talking about the 
Centers for Disease Control or we are talking about logging and salvage 
sales or talking about allowing wells to be drilled in the Bakken--that 
has all stopped. Why? Because of a Speaker of the House--who, by the 
way, a previous speaker just said they were very proud of. But why has 
it stopped? It is because of a Speaker of the House who doesn't have 
the internal guts to put this on the floor and let it pass the House of 
Representatives. That would put this country back to work so we could 
start doing the things we need to do in the halls of the Senate and the 
halls of the House that are important for this country, whether it is 
the farm bill or housing reform or a defense authorization bill--the 
list goes on and on. Instead, we are dealing with a totally self-
inflicted crisis supported by people who want to shut this government 
down. Regardless of what they say on this floor, they are very happy 
because this government is shut down.
  It is time, Members of the House of Representatives, that you demand 
that the Speaker put that bill up so you can vote on it and we can get 
back to doing the business of this country.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I would like to first say how much I 
appreciate the words of the Senator from Virginia and the words of the 
Senator from Montana. They are known to be commonsense people, to work 
in a bipartisan way day after day in this Congress, against all odds, 
to actually try to make something work around this place. So I thank 
them for their leadership and their comments this morning.
  For 4 years I have come to this floor at about this time of the year 
and talked about how Washington has become the land of flickering 
lights where the standard of success is not how we are imagining the 
future and what we are doing for the next generation of Americans but 
that we are managing, after a little bit of aggravation and hostility, 
to keep the lights on for 1 more month or for 6 more months. Well, this 
time we are not the land of flickering lights. The lights are out in 
Washington. They have managed to shut down the government.
  No mayor, no school superintendent, no city council in Colorado would 
threaten the shutdown of their government over politics. Whether they 
are a Democratic mayor or a Republican mayor or a tea party mayor, we 
wouldn't stand for it in Colorado. They certainly would never threaten 
the credit rating of their community over politics. In fact, it is 
exactly the opposite. We just had these terrible floods in our State, 
and people are struggling to do everything they can to keep their 
governments open to provide people who have been displaced by the 
flood, who have lost everything they own, the services they need.
  This shutdown is already hurting the U.S. economy and Colorado's 
economy, and it is not surprising why. There is a lot of rhetoric 
around this place about uncertainty and the damage it does to our 
economy. Nothing could create more uncertainty than shutting this 
government down and threatening the credit rating of the United States 
by saying: We are not going to pay our bills. We have an ideology that 
is so far outside the mainstream of American political thought that we 
can't find a way to actually win elections that align with our 
ideology, so we are going to use these kinds of tactics to bring this 
government to its knees.
  The AP reported that the U.S. and European stock markets fell 
yesterday as investors and world leaders worried about the threat to 
the global economy. According to the Denver Post, the shutdown may cost 
the United States at least $300 million a day in lost output during a 
1-week shutdown. What good is that doing anybody? How is that helping 
any American? Economists have estimated that a 3-week closing would cut 
economic production by 1 percent. It would cut our GDP by 1 percent. 
How does this self-inflicted wound help anybody?
  In Colorado, to be clear, just as in the other States we have heard 
about today, it is not just the families who rely on Federal programs 
or Federal workers who are suffering because of this shutdown. The 
Denver Post reported that in a neighborhood near the Denver Federal 
Center, Rick Koerner, who owns Stack Subs sandwich shop in Lakewood, 
estimates he has lost about 5 percent of his normal business since the 
shutdown began on Thursday. He says he can't afford to lose any 
customers because, in his words, ``it's a thin-margin business to begin 
with.'' How are we helping him? In the same story, Deborah Giovingo, 
who owns a restaurant called Paradise Cove on West Alameda Avenue, just 
east of the Federal Center, said she is also witnessing a loss. ``We're 
not getting our regular lunchers. I think they're really trying to 
conserve their money.'' Right now, how are we helping these people?
  One city perhaps hardest hit in our State is Colorado Springs in El 
Paso County. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the furloughs 
at our military bases include more than 1,000 workers at the Air Force 
Academy, 400 workers at Schriever Air Force Base, 2,200 at Peterson Air 
Force Base, and 700 at U.S. Northern Command. At Fort Carson another 
1,000 workers are off the job. Is our job more important than their 
job? Is the job they do to protect this country, to defend this 
country, less important than the job of these elected representatives 
in Washington who are still taking a salary? I don't think so. Are 
these jobs less important than the people who are actually in theater 
right now in Afghanistan? I don't think so.
  After 1 week of shutdown, the WIC Program--the Women, Infants, and 
Children Program--will have no funds for clinical services, food 
benefits, and administrative costs. Roughly 100,000 women and children 
in Colorado participated in the WIC Program last year and will lose 
their benefits.
  The shutdown will delay SBA loans for Colorado's small businesses. 
Last year SBA processed 1,300 applications, for a total of $559 million 
in loans, and they are on the ground right now, thank goodness, working 
with people who have suffered through these floods.
  Our national parks, wildlife refuges, and recreational lands--major 
drivers of Colorado's economy--are closed. They are shut down. 
Approximately 13,000 people visiting national parks in Colorado will be 
turned away each day this government is closed. It will result in 
nearly $800,000 of revenue a day for our local communities, which are 
already suffering because of the floods. Estes Park is one of the towns 
that have been terribly affected, and this is one of their peak times 
of the year for tourism because of the changing leaves. They are losing 
that opportunity, and we are making it worse because the government is 
shut down.
  Thousands of Federal employees are out of work during this economic 
recovery. There is a delay in Social Security services. There will be a 
delay in veterans' benefits by the end of October. Colorado is home to 
almost 400,000 veterans. That is almost 10 percent of our State's 
population.
  At risk is the funding for Head Start agencies and the Export-Import 
Bank's support for small companies.
  But what is just so insulting at this moment is that we are trying to 
recover from this flood. The recent flooding damaged at least 17,000 
homes and other structures, several thousand of which were outright 
destroyed. Millions of dollars' worth of public infrastructure has 
literally been swept away. More than 200 miles of Colorado roads and at 
least 50 bridges have been damaged or destroyed. Nine Coloradans lost 
their lives in the floods. The floods consumed an area of Colorado that 
is twice the size of Rhode Island. The devastation defies belief. 
Houses have been

[[Page 15043]]

leveled and reduced to piles of debris, and some of these communities 
lie in ruins.
  FEMA has pledged to go to great lengths, and they are working very 
hard to ensure that crucial disaster response and recovery services are 
not interrupted. To be clear, so far, emergency funds are still flowing 
and emergency workers are still in place. They are doing a phenomenal 
job, and I want to say on this floor, on behalf of everybody in 
Colorado, how grateful we are for their work. FEMA is going to make 
sure this work gets done, but nevertheless a number of FEMA employees--
both based in Washington and at the FEMA Region VIII office 
headquartered in Denver--are vulnerable to furloughs if this shutdown 
continues.
  Our economy is recovering in Colorado, and we are being led by 
innovative businesses that have been growing jobs despite the 
dysfunction in Washington. This year I visited many of them--companies 
that, in the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression, 
were actually creating jobs by inventing our future. That is what 
innovators do, and that is what Coloradans do. We are letting them down 
profoundly here by failing to exercise our most basic responsibilities 
as legislators, as people who receive a salary from the taxpayer. They 
do not send us here to shut it down, they send us here to improve it. 
They send us here to come to agreement and to compromise and to imagine 
a better future for our children and for our grandchildren. That is 
what we are here to do.
  Instead, a very radical faction in the House and some of their 
colleagues here in the Senate have shut this government down in support 
of an ideology that, as I mentioned earlier, is far outside the 
mainstream of American political thought. They are entitled to their 
opinion. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. But they are not 
entitled to shut the government down if they don't get what they want, 
and that is where we find ourselves.
  It has been a privilege for me to work in this place, and the moments 
I have enjoyed the most have been the ones where we have worked in a 
bipartisan way, with colleagues on the other side, to dramatically 
improve the way the Food and Drug Administration works so that new 
drugs could be approved more quickly and so that the 600 bioscience 
firms in Colorado that came to me and said they could no longer raise 
venture capital because it was all going to Europe and Asia because of 
uncertainty with the FDA and to please help them fix that--with 
Republican colleagues, we were able to get that done.
  In working the immigration bill we passed, with the Gang of 8--four 
Democrats and four Republicans--we solved each other's political 
problems to bring a product to the floor that actually could pass with 
nearly 70 votes--a supermajority of the Senate--and we still need to 
pass that bill in the House.
  That bill, in stark contrast to the government shutdown we are going 
through right now, actually will drive GDP growth. The Congressional 
Budget Office tells us that immigration bill adds 3 points of GDP 
growth in the first 10 years and 5 points in the second 10 years.
  By the way, at a moment when these people are saying they are 
shutting the government down, mostly because of the health care bill 
but also because of their concern about a growing government and 
widening deficits, the immigration bill reduces the deficit by $900 
billion over a 20-year period. That is real money even in Washington, 
DC. They could be passing that bill over there. Instead, the government 
is shut down, and it has been a catastrophic failure of leadership that 
has brought us to this place.
  I have absolutely no doubt, from all the press reports I have read 
and what I hear from my Republican colleagues in the Senate, my friends 
in the Senate who are Republicans, that if Speaker Boehner put on the 
floor of the House the Senate version of the so-called continuing 
resolution, it would pass with a broad majority of Democrats and 
Republicans, and the American people would cheer because that is what 
they want. They want us working together. And the standard of success 
needs to be something greater than that we kept the lights on, which in 
this instance we haven't. We haven't even done that. What is the signal 
we are trying to send to this complicated world in which we live by 
shutting this government down? Why is it that people here get away with 
things that no local elected official would ever get away with?
  So we have to continue to fight to get this government open. We are 
going to have another fight to make sure that, for the first time in 
the United States, we don't fail to pay our bills and blow up the full 
faith and credit of the United States--which is one of our most 
important assets, right up there with the rule of law, right up there 
with our capitalist economy. From our founding, the full faith and 
credit of the United States has been a bulwark for us.
  But once we get past that, what we need to fight for is the next 
generation of Americans. That is why we have been sent here. Whether we 
are Democrats or Republicans, that is why we are here. And they are 
waiting to see whether we are willing to be the first generation of 
American leadership to provide less opportunity--not more--to the 
people that are coming after us.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Connecticut.

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