[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 15242-15263]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thank the distinguished majority 
leader, not only for how he spoke out today, but also for the fact that 
he is strong on this issue. He also spoke about what this shutdown is 
doing to law enforcement.
  As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I am going to speak further 
on that. But I couldn't help but think, as I was asked by a friend in 
Vermont: What is going on?
  I said: Well, you know, we had hundreds of hours of committee 
meetings, votes, and all. We had hours and hours of debate in the House 
and the Senate, and we passed the Affordable Care Act.
  Even though it passed the House and the Senate and was signed into 
law by the President, however, the Tea Party continues to oppose the 
law. So they did two things that they thought would knock it out. One, 
they went to a Republican dominated U.S. Supreme Court and said let's 
knock out this law. The Supreme Court said no. They upheld the law.
  Then they ran a candidate for President of the United States, whose 
main argument was that he would get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
  He lost badly.
  Throughout all this time and after 40 votes to get rid of the 
Affordable Care Act, the Republicans have not offered what we would get 
as an alternative? Most parents like the fact that their children can 
stay on their insurance while they are in college. Are you going to get 
rid of that--and do they have something with which to replace that? 
Most people like the fact that if you have a preexisting condition, 
cancer, a heart condition, or something like that, they can still get 
health care. They want to do away with that. What do they have to 
replace this sort of care?
  After 40 votes, a Presidential election, the Supreme Court--they have 
lost everywhere. It makes me think of General Custer at Little Big Horn 
who came galloping in because he knew he was going to win.
  They have been handed the same kind of defeat that Custer was at 
Little Big Horn. And if they have a better idea on health insurance for 
America, then I think they should have the guts to bring it to the 
floor and vote up or down, not just shut down the government like they 
are doing now.
  Today marks the fifth day of the government shutdown, and by refusing 
to pass a continuing resolution to simply fund the continuing 
operations of the

[[Page 15243]]

Federal Government, Republicans are threatening the critical functions 
of all three branches of government. As chairman of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, I am acutely aware of the devastating impact that 
Republicans' treatment of Federal judiciary is having on our system of 
justice.
  The last time Republicans refused to pay the bills that we in 
Congress had already incurred, it undermined our Nation's credit 
rating. It also resulted in what is known as sequestration and the 
corresponding cuts to the Federal judicial branch have been 
devastating. But with the ongoing shutdown of the entire Federal 
Government, a handful of ideologues in the House of Representatives are 
holding the entire judicial system hostage and this threatens our 
entire democracy.
  Earlier this year, in the face of sequestration, a group of 87 
Federal district judges warned that sustained budget cuts ``have forced 
us to slash our operations to the bone, and we believe that our 
constitutional duties, public safety, and the quality of the justice 
system will be profoundly compromised by any further cuts.''
  Now, thanks to the Republican shutdown, according to a letter to all 
Federal courts from Judge John Bates, Director of the Administrative 
Office of the U.S. Courts, the judiciary will only be able to remain 
open for approximately 10 business days into October. What will happen 
after those 10 days? What happens when the operating funds run out 
completely? Will we be able to swiftly bring criminals and terrorists 
to justice? There is no court to bring them to. Will small businesses 
and individuals be able to have their claims resolved? Again, no court. 
Each and every Federal court in this country will soon have to start 
making decisions about what part of justice is essential and what can 
be delayed until funding is restored. If this shutdown continues, 
millions of Americans will not have access to the justice they deserve 
under our Constitution. Here in the United States, where we have the 
most open, transparent, honest, effective system of justice in the 
world, we are slamming the doors on everybody--Republicans, Democrats, 
and Independents alike.
  This coming Monday, the first Monday in October, marks the opening of 
the new term of our Supreme Court. On its first day, it will hear an 
important case about a worker's right to bring an age discrimination 
claim under the Constitution. On its second day, it will hear another 
significant case about whether there should be any limits on the amount 
of money wealthy individuals can pump into our elections. If the 
shutdown continues, it is unclear how our courts, including our highest 
court, will cope with the funding being withheld. Will the Court remain 
open to the public to hear arguments the following week if this 
shutdown continues? Will local courthouses have to shut down entirely 
for parts of the year? Will the guarantee of defense for the indigent, 
established under Gideon v. Wainwright, continue to be eroded by 
further cuts to our Federal public defenders? Or will we in Congress 
finally turn the page on our fiscal mistreatment of a co-equal branch 
of government?
  We must not take for granted that we have the greatest justice system 
in the world. Its cost is less than 1 percent of the entire Federal 
budget, yet we fail to support it. The New York Times, referencing 
Judge Bates's letter and the ongoing stress to our justice system, 
rightly noted this week that unless Congress ends this needless 
shutdown, ``the damage to American justice would be compounded and hard 
to recover from once the impasse is over.''
  I thank the men and women of the judicial branch of our Federal 
Government for their dedication under increasingly difficult 
circumstances and I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 1, 2013]

                      The Courts and the Shutdown

                        (By Dorothy J. Samuels)

       The opening of a new Supreme Court term on the statutorily 
     prescribed first Monday in October is always surrounded by a 
     fair amount of drama having to do with the momentous legal 
     issue the justices will be taking up. The government shutdown 
     has imbued the start of the 2013-2014 term this coming 
     Monday, Oct. 7, with a different sort of suspense.
       A notice posted on the Supreme Court's website says the 
     court ``will continue to conduct its normal operations'' 
     through this Friday. It is silent about what will happen if 
     the ``lapse of appropriations,'' as the notice delicately 
     describes the madness, continues beyond that. The court will 
     be announcing its plans a week at a time.
       It is expected, though, that the term's first oral 
     arguments will proceed as scheduled, shutdown or no, and that 
     the court will conduct business as usual, much as it did 
     during the Clinton-era shutdowns. How long Supreme Court 
     operations could remain unharmed if the shutdown drags on is 
     unclear.
       For lower federal courts, a prolonged shutdown could be 
     disastrous. Sufficient reserve funds are on hand for normal 
     court operations for just 10 business days, through Oct. 15, 
     according to a memo recently circulated by Judge John Bates, 
     director of the Administrative Office of the United States 
     Courts.
       Once those funds are depleted, there would need to be 
     extensive furloughing of staff, and reductions in probation, 
     pretrial and courthouse security services to comply with the 
     federal Anti-Deficiency Act, which allows only ``essential 
     work'' to continue during a government shutdown. Coming on 
     top of the devastation to the nation's court system caused by 
     the maniacal across-the-board budget cuts known as 
     sequestration, the damage to American justice would be 
     compounded and hard to recover from once the impasse is over.

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thank the men and women of our judicial 
branch who have stood up for this. But you know, our courts have been 
forced to run on fumes for far too long, and soon, they will be running 
on empty. I call on the House of Representatives to stop playing games 
with our co-equal branch of government, the judiciary.
  This government shutdown is having a real impact on our lives and our 
country. Recently, there was a terrible bus accident and tragically 
people were killed. Yet the NTSB cannot even go down and investigate 
what happened so it doesn't happen again because they are closed. There 
are businesses in Vermont that have invested in their business and are 
prepared to open--one in particular, and I will speak later about this 
one next week--and all they need is a certificate from the Department 
of Agriculture in order to open. The business is poised to open and 
start making money, especially during tourist season, but the 
Department of Agriculture is closed and they can't get the certificate.
  We also take for granted that our open and transparent government is 
a cornerstone of our democracy and a shining example of civic 
involvement. Even the public's right to know is compromised because of 
this shutdown. Every Member of Congress, regardless of political party 
or ideology, should be alarmed.
  Right now, Americans seeking help with Freedom of Information Act, 
FOIA, requests encounter closed for business signs at many of the 
Federal offices that facilitate them. The National Archives and Records 
Administration Office of Government Information Services--a critical 
office established by the Leahy-Cornyn OPEN Government Act to mediate 
FOIA disputes--is not operating due to the shutdown of the Federal 
Government. And according to several press reports, the Department of 
Justice has also sought stays in several important FOIA cases--
including FOIA litigation seeking information about the government's 
use of the PATRIOT ACT to collect data on Americans' telephone calls--
due to the lapse in Federal funding.
  This shutdown has impacted other agencies, too. The Center for 
Effective Government reports that the processing of FOIA requests has 
been suspended at the Social Security Administration, the Federal Trade 
Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. The National 
Security Agency, an agency facing a public trust deficit in light of 
revelations detailing its sweeping surveillance of Americans' emails 
and phone calls, has also ceased the processing of FOIA and Privacy Act 
requests. Many other Federal agencies have either taken their websites 
off-line or stopped updating their

[[Page 15244]]

websites. We literally have a closed government.
  All of us--whether Democrat, Republican or Independent--have an 
interest in making certain that our government is fulfilling its 
responsibilities to its citizens. Yet, right now, House Republicans are 
choosing to debate again the nearly 4-year-old Affordable Care Act on a 
critical spending bill. Again, let us not forget that the act has been 
upheld by the Supreme Court and was a key issue in a Presidential 
election where the electorate in this country voted against the person 
who wanted to do away with it. They are forcing us to choose whether 
even the most fundamental parts of our government are ``essential.'' 
Rather than picking and choosing, we in Congress must commit ourselves 
to upholding all of our democratic principles and ensuring the 
government's ability to work for every American. The House of 
Representatives can end this stalemate today by taking up the Senate 
passed CR, sending it to the President, and reopening the government, 
so we can get back to the business of finding a reasonable way to 
balance our budget and get our fiscal house in order.
  It is important for that business owner in Vermont that the 
Department of Agriculture be open. It is important for our communities 
affected by criminals that our FBI remain open and fully functional. It 
is important to those who may have their children riding on a bus that 
we find out why this other bus accident happened and is it something 
that is going to happen again with a busload of children. But instead 
we have something akin to General Custer riding to Little Big Horn, 
claiming this is going to be victory, and I suspect that this will 
result in the same sort of defeat for those who seek to shut down the 
government for ideological reasons.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Madam President, this has been an interesting discussion 
for the last 37 minutes. It lacks a little bit of a preamble.
  The reason we are in the situation we are in now is because Congress 
didn't do the spending bills when they were supposed to do the spending 
bills. We have 12 spending bills. There is no reason we didn't spend 12 
weeks, 1 week doing each of those for a period of 12 weeks. It is the 
second most important job we have. I think the most important job we 
have is national defense, but budgeting--spending--is the next biggest. 
If we had done one bill each week for the 12 weeks we needed to and had 
open amendments on them, there wouldn't have needed to be any of this 
discussion. Most of the things would have been resolved by now. They 
would have either won or lost, and that is what happens around here.
  Except we are busy dealmaking instead of legislating. We don't allow 
amendments now. When a bill comes to the floor, there is a discussion 
between the two leaders to see how limited they can make the 
amendments. I try to only do relevant amendments. I wouldn't mind if 
that were the law around here. That is the law in the Wyoming 
legislature. Whatever the title of the bill is, your amendment has to 
be relevant to that. It helps to get through a lot of the process in a 
hurry. But we don't even bring them up.
  I take that back. The leader did come to the floor and chastise me 
for forgetting we had the Transportation bill brought up on the floor. 
We didn't get to do amendments on it, and when we didn't get to do 
amendments on it, our side said nuts to finishing that right now. The 
leader could have brought it right back and showed we were not 
interested in doing transportation. He talked about us not being 
interested in transportation, but that was not the case. There were 
amendments that needed to be done to the Transportation bill.
  That is 1 bill out of 12. What happened to the other 11? If we had 
done the bills timely, we wouldn't be in a continuing resolution. What 
is the matter with a government that can't operate like a business and 
have a preplan for what is going to happen if this tragedy does happen? 
We don't have any plans like that. What we do is stand and chastise 
each other for not having plans for what is happening. That is wrong. 
We shouldn't be doing that. We should be getting our work done in a 
timely manner, and we should be doing it through legislation, which 
means allowing amendments on the floor.
  Yes, I know there are some amendments I wouldn't want to vote on. 
There are some amendments the other side wouldn't want to vote on. But 
that is what we signed on for. We have to vote on the amendments and 
get the process done, but we are not doing that.
  As to the shutdown, I wish to share what actually wound up as a guest 
editorial from a guy named Bill Johnson who lives in Pinedale, but he 
got his guest editorial in the Powell Tribune, which is quite a ways 
away from there. He is an old truckdriver, and he said he is tired of 
pulling the load; that it is time for a producers' shutdown. Whoa. I 
wouldn't verify his math, but this is the way he sees it.
  He sees that there are 11 people taking money out of the pot and thus 
riding on the wagon. That leaves nine people paying the taxes into the 
pot and thus pulling the wagon. ``A bad ratio indeed!''
  He says: Now government people ``will tell you they pay taxes, but 
let's not forget that all their wages first come out of the pot.'' 
Government people ``don't create wealth. They spend the wealth!'' Now 
these same government people ``are enjoying quite a party.''

       We hear them bragging about the following:
       ``We have better pensions and wages.
       ``We have paid sick days, cheaper medical insurance, free 
     vehicles. . . .''

  We get paid when the government shuts down and we come back to work 
without having worked.

       ``Some States pay $15 an hour on welfare, so why work?''
       They say a government agency's success is measured by the 
     size of its budget. There's no incentive to cut a budget!

  ``They say if a tax-paying `person' is successful, it's because `the 
government people' have helped him!''

       They ask, ``How can we raise the tax-paying `people's' 
     taxes again?''
       We need more money for raises and Obamacare. Work harder, 
     please! We'll take care of the rules and the regulations.

  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this entire 
article.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Powell Tribune, Sept. 26, 2013]

                       Tired of Pulling the Load?


                      time for a producers' strike

                           (By Bill Johnson)

       We now know that there are 11 mules taking monies out of 
     the pot and thus riding on the wagon. That leaves nine mules 
     paying taxes into the pot and thus pulling the wagon.
       A bad ratio indeed! Now government mules will tell you they 
     pay taxes, but let's not forget that all their wages first 
     come out of the pot. Government mules don't create wealth. 
     They spend the wealth!
       Now these government mules are enjoying quite a party. We 
     hear them bragging about the following:
       ``We have better pensions and wages.''
       ``We have paid sick days, cheaper medical insurance, free 
     vehicles, blah, blah, blah.''
       ``Some states pay $15 an hour on welfare, so why work?''
       They say a government agency's success is measured by the 
     size of its budget. There's no incentive to cut a budget!
       They say if a tax-paying mule is successful it's because we 
     government mules have helped him!
       They ask, ``How can we raise the taxpaying mules'' taxes 
     again? We need more money for raises and Obamacare. Work 
     harder please! We'll take care of the rules and 
     regulations.''
       If this were a 30-year-long football game, the score would 
     be about 99-7. Heck, the taxpaying mules can't even get their 
     feet on the ball!
       Our once great Uncle Sam is like Humpty Dumpty sitting on 
     his wall. He's waiting for an earthquake, war, or market 
     crash to cause his great fall!
       So what can we do? The non-violent answer is simple! When 
     the time comes, just quit pulling on the wagon. Take a three- 
     to five-day vacation instead.
       This means: Truckers don't truck. Trainmen don't train. 
     Pilots don't plane. Miners don't mine. Marketers don't 
     market. Bankers don't bank. Groceries don't go and pipelines 
     don't flow!
       This scheduled vacation for our nation's producers, the 
     taxpaying mules still pulling

[[Page 15245]]

     the wagon, ought to be nationwide. That will never happen.
       However, our friends in Utah, Idaho and Montana might join 
     in. So might Moffat County and the seven other counties that 
     wish to secede from Colorado. Same goes for Nebraska, Kansas, 
     Oklahoma and Texas. Get the picture?!
       It is amusing to listen to all the hoopla about potential 
     government shutdowns. Big deal! Remember the scene in 
     ``Crocodile Dundee'' when the would-be robbers pull a knife? 
     Mr. Dundee says, ``That's not a knife, this is a knife!''
       That's what a producers' strike would look like!
       This is the way to cut government spending, lower your tax 
     rates, and shove some government mules off the wagon. We 
     would score a few touchdowns and give them a list of the 
     peoples' demands.
       The path we are presently taking will only lead to the 
     death of our country. Our intentions are to save the USA. We 
     all want government of the people, by the people and for the 
     people!
       ``All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good 
     men do nothing''--(Edmund Burke.)

  Mr. ENZI. Continuing from Mr. Johnson's article, he asks, ``So what 
can we do?'' Here is his answer:

       The nonviolent answer is simple! When the time comes, just 
     quit pulling on the wagon. Take a three- to five-day vacation 
     instead.

  Take as long a vacation as the government takes. This means that 
farmers will not farm, stores will not open, manufacturers will not 
manufacture, powerplants will not produce power--and continuing his 
article:

       Truckers don't truck. Trainmen don't train. Pilots don't 
     plane. Miners don't mine. Marketers don't market. Bankers 
     don't bank. Groceries don't go and pipelines don't flow!

  That is what would happen if we had a shutdown of the private sector, 
the ones that are carrying the load. He says this scheduled vacation 
for our Nation's producers, the taxpaying people still pulling the 
wagon, ought to be nationwide.
  Of course, he knows that will never happen, but he hopes people get 
the picture.
  Continuing his article:

       It is amusing to listen to all the hoopla about potential 
     government shutdowns. Big deal! Remember the scene in 
     ``Crocodile Dundee'' when the would-be robbers pull a knife? 
     Mr. Dundee says, ``That's not a knife, this is a knife!''

  And, remember, he pulls out his near machete? He says:

       That's what a producers' strike would look like!

  ``This is the way to cut government spending, lower your tax rates, 
and shove some government'' people ``off the wagon.''

       We would score a few touchdowns and give them a list of the 
     people's demands.

  So that's the view of the trucker in Wyoming, and he gets to think 
about this a lot as he drives miles and miles and miles and miles. It 
is a long way between towns. But he is pointing out that our government 
is being weighted down with a lot of different things, not just 
people's salaries with growing government--each of those adds to the 
need for a tax increase--but we are also weighted down with the 
interest load. If the interest rate goes up, that wagon load is going 
to get mired in mud.
  He mentions the rules and the regulations. Paperwork alone kills 
jobs. It eliminates people who could pull the wagon, and government 
growth and benefits add to the weight of the wagon.
  So we are in a shutdown, and what has happened? The government has 
shut down some of its revenue centers--the national parks. People drive 
through those and they pay to drive through those. There are hotels and 
restaurants and things. There are concessionaires in there, and they 
pay a fee for the right to do that, and they collect money for the 
Federal Government. They are not having any customers. It is hard to be 
a business and not have a customer. But we have forced that on them 
with supposedly shutting down a revenue center for us. People actually 
pay for that.
  The sequester. We made it hurt because there was no preplanning. Now 
we have the shutdown and we are making it hurt with the barricades and 
closing the national parks and all the other things that got mentioned 
out here, but it is because of no preplanning.
  Incidentally, when we talk about ObamaCare and no plan, I had a plan 
before President Obama became a Senator, a 10-step plan that would have 
done more than the present bill does.
  I worked with Senators Coburn and Burr on a substitute bill which 
would have done what the President promised would be in the bill but is 
not in the bill. But there were 60 votes on the other side of the 
aisle, and with a few special deals the 60 votes carried the day and we 
are stuck with what will be a train wreck--and then we will get what 
the Democrats have always wanted, which is single-pay, universal 
service through the government.
  But I have a plan for fixing this debt load, pulling the wagon a 
little easier. It is called the penny plan. Originally when I 
introduced the penny plan, which is eliminating 1 penny out of every 
dollar the Federal Government spends, it had to work for 7 years in 
order to balance the budget. We need to be on the downtrend. Seven 
years wouldn't be so bad. But with the sequester, that turns out to be 
2 years and we would have a balanced budget. We go a couple more years 
and pay down some of this debt we have. The debt keeps me awake nights. 
That is less than a 10-percent total decrease in what we are spending 
right now. Businesses have to make that kind of a change sometimes in 
less than 1 year, and sometimes it is painful the way they have to do 
it. If we have more time--and 2 years could be quite a bit of time--we 
ought to be able to plan our way out of it.
  So let's quit spending, let's cut up the credit cards. That is the 
debt limit we are coming up with, that is the credit cards. We could 
allow for a little bit of use of the credit cards--as long as there is 
a plan for how we are not going to need the credit cards anymore. And 
that would be the penny plan. So I hope we would all take a look at it.
  I do feel sorry for the 8 million Federal employees who I know work 
hard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.
  Mr. ENZI. That is a lot compared to the ones pulling the wagon.
  I will have some more comments on this later because it is a major 
crisis, but it didn't need to be a major crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that an extra 5 minutes be added to 
our side later.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we need to bring this government 
shutdown to an end, and the way to do that is for the House of 
Representatives to pass the bill for a $986 billion budget to run the 
government for 1 year which John Boehner and the Republicans in the 
House of Representatives asked the Senate to pass. That is the number 
they wanted. That is not the number the Democrats in the Senate wanted.
  They wanted $986 billion to run the government for 1 year. That is 
the budget we sent over. They will not pass that budget. So now we have 
a situation where we should be negotiating over health care, over 
environmental issues, over other issues because the budget has been 
passed--but, no. They are going to hold the entire country hostage.
  Consider where our country stands right now. When George W. Bush left 
office, the Dow was at 7,900. It is now above 15,000. At the height of 
the great Bush recession, unemployment peaked at 10 percent. It is now 
at 7.3 percent. Our deficit has been cut in half. We are making 
progress. But we are not there yet. Many Americans continue to 
struggle.
  As our country climbs back from the worst economic crisis since the 
Great Depression, the tea party Republicans are sending America into 
reverse. The tea party Republicans shut down the

[[Page 15246]]

government. They are putting our economic recovery at risk. They are 
signaling to the world that America cannot perform the most fundamental 
job of government--passing a budget.
  In the alternative, the tea party Republican universe they have 
created here has the tea party demanding that we fund health care 
research while simultaneously trying to end health care coverage for 
millions of Americans; to pay for our troops but sideline the 
intelligence agents who keep us safe from terrorist attacks; and claim 
to defend the Constitution but shut down the building where it lives 
and breathes. This tea party Republican logic is tying our country in 
knots, and it makes no sense.
  Although the government shut down at midnight this past Monday, the 
seeds of the shutdown were sown years ago. This shutdown is the product 
of more than a decade of disdain for the democratic process waged by 
the tea party Republican party that is increasingly out of the 
mainstream. When the Republican Party started losing congressional 
seats, they redrew electoral maps in their favor and passed laws to 
suppress American voters they had alienated. And when a historic bill 
was signed into law to finally make health care a right for millions of 
low-income Americans, a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, a law 
that opened for business on Tuesday, the response of the tea party 
Republicans was to shut down the entire government.
  At the core of this tea party Republican ideology is the idea that 
the democratic processes our country runs on can be dismissed, that 
they can be manipulated, that they can be contorted to cater to the 
privileged at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable, and the 
disenfranchised of our country.
  This isn't about the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party. 
This is about tea party Republicans versus democracy itself. The 
essence of American democracy has been our ability to govern by 
majority rule while respecting minority rights. Our system is 
inherently designed to enable compromise and avoid the divisiveness of 
ideological extremists.
  I know about these tea party extremists. I served in the House of 
Representatives with them. They live by the Republican tea party 
paradox: They hate the government so much that they have to run for 
office in order to make sure the government doesn't work. And now there 
is a new Republican tea party paradox: They want to pay Federal 
employees not to work while blocking the legislation that will put them 
back to work. The Democrats are fighting to open the government so 
Federal employees can return to work and can earn their pay, not pay 
them for not working. That is the new Republican paradox.
  The tea party Republicans have a three-step plan. No. 1: Deny 
democracy. Tea party Republicans ignore the fact that the Affordable 
Care Act passed the Congress, was signed by the President, and upheld 
by the Supreme Court. Tea party step No. 2: Manufacture a crisis. The 
tea party Republicans shut down the government and put our country on 
the brink of default, because they refuse to accept the fact that the 
Affordable Care Act is the law of the land and the American people 
reelected President Obama. Step No. 3: Turn out the lights. Just shut 
down the government.
  What is at stake if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? Without the 
Affordable Care Act, for women everywhere in America the agenda will go 
back to being a preexisting condition. They could be charged higher 
insurance rates because they are women. For families everywhere in 
America, the threat of personal bankruptcy will return, caps on 
insurance benefits will be reemployed, and medical bills will once 
again lead to personal bankruptcies. For a young college graduate 
struggling to find a job, their parents' plan is no longer an option. 
For a low-income family who has spent years taking their kids to the 
emergency room instead of regular doctor appointments, it will mean 
more late nights in emergency waiting rooms.
  Who else will be harmed if the tea party Republicans continue to 
refuse to expand the Medicaid Program in their respective States, the 
expansion that is a key part of the Affordable Care Act? The answer is 
two-thirds of the country's poor, uninsured African-Americans and 
single mothers, and more than half of the low-wage workers in the 26 
States where Governors have turned down Federal funds to expand 
Medicare.
  Let's take Texas, for example. Texas currently has the highest 
concentration of uninsured Americans in our country--6 million people. 
Many live in poverty. Under the Affordable Care Act, every State has a 
choice: It could give the poor and sickest and neediest of its citizens 
health care coverage through expanded Medicaid paid for entirely by the 
Federal Government or it could say, no, thanks, and leave these poor 
people, these uninsured people, in a state of uncertainty. Texas turned 
down cold more than $100 billion in Federal funding over the next 
decade, denying health care coverage for the 1.5 million Texas 
residents who live in poverty.
  That is what the tea party Republicans are fighting for--to not take 
the money to ensure that the poorest people get health insurance. That 
is what it is all about. That is what they are fighting for. They 
believe they have a right to say, no, we are not going to cover these 
poor people. No, we are not going to give them insurance. That is their 
right--they should have the freedom to deny all these people that 
health insurance. And 26 other States, all with Republican Governors, 
did the very same thing. Every State in the Deep South but Arkansas 
said no.
  There is an ancient Greek proverb that says the world will know true 
justice when those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who 
have been harmed. You can see all across America people are angry. 
People who have not been harmed are angry about those who are being 
harmed by what the Republican tea party is doing here in Congress. That 
is why everyone in America wants this shutdown ended. They know that 
eliminating the Affordable Care Act would gravely harm the poor in our 
country, the children, the working families. Not since the Great 
Depression have so many Americans suffered from such severe economic 
problems. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty today. That 
is $23,000 a year for a family of 4. The poverty rate for African 
Americans is 27 percent, for Hispanics it is at 23 percent. There are 
almost 50 million people in our country at risk of not having enough 
food. Sixteen million children live in poverty in the United States as 
we stand here today. There are more than 11 million Americans out of 
work, 13 percent unemployment for African Americans, 9.2 percent for 
Hispanics, and it is too high for Whites, for Asians, for Native 
Americans--for everyone in our country.
  Behind each of those numbers is a name, each of those statistics is a 
story, each of those figures is a face and a future that is at risk.
  Behind each furlough is a Federal worker who has a vital job not 
being done. Somewhere in Georgia in the midst of the flu season there 
is an employee of the Centers for Disease Control who is at home 
instead of stopping a flu outbreak at a local elementary school. 
Somewhere in Florida is an FDA employee who was shut out of his job 
inspecting fish imports for toxic contamination while a mother shops at 
the local grocery store picking up salmon for dinner. Somewhere in the 
gulf coast there is an oil rig safety officer catching up on their 
chores at home instead of stopping the next potential BP spill before 
it happens. Somewhere in Boston a doctor has now put on hold a clinical 
trial to bring a new treatment to children born with a rare form of 
heart disease while a mother in Milwaukee holds her sick newborn, 
wondering if a cure could ever be found. Somewhere in Massachusetts a 
civilian military employee tasked with developing the best in 
protective gear for our soldiers is barred from entering his military 
base while abroad a soldier takes fire on the front lines. And here at 
the Capitol there are police officers who threw their bodies in between 
the public and a threat just this week, doing so without even receiving 
a paycheck.

[[Page 15247]]

  This government shutdown is just a preview of coming attractions. If 
Republicans force us to default on our debt, millions of jobs could be 
destroyed. We could go from a shutdown of our government to a meltdown 
of our entire economy.
  We won't be blackmailed, we won't be threatened, we won't back down, 
we won't give up. We will stand and we will fight. We will fight for 
the families who have dreamed of the security of health care, we will 
fight for the Federal workers who deserve a paycheck, we will fight for 
the working families reaching for the American dream. Because--make no 
mistake--what is at stake here isn't just health care, it isn't just a 
functioning government, it isn't just the stability of our economy. 
What is at stake is the future of our democratic system. Because you 
can shut down the government, you can engage in revisionist history and 
revise the rules to fit your ideology, but the American people will 
rise up--and they are rising up--to say put America back to work. They 
will not let the tea party Republicans stop the progress of our 
country. They are going to demand justice. They are going to demand 
that the shutdown end and the spirit of the American people be 
recognized.
  What we need to do is to get the government back to work for the 
American people. The Senate has to send the House a bill that will end 
the shutdown. The House should schedule the vote for this bill 
immediately. It will pass. We should not be cutting the National 
Institutes of Health, which is working to find the cure for cancer, for 
Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's and other diseases that devastate.
  We should not be keeping our civilian defense workers off the job. We 
should be coming together to create jobs to build better futures for 
all Americans. We should make sure America pays its bills and does not 
default on its debts. We need to raise the debt ceiling. Now is the 
time. Let's get to work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, someone wisely declared: After all is said 
and done, much more is said than done. A lot has been said in the well 
of this Chamber this week. Unfortunately, not much has been done. On 
the other hand, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the 
Members of the House of Representatives, including Members of both 
political parties, have done much to end the shutdown and to protect 
the American people. The House has passed bills that would fund 
veterans' benefits and fund the National Institutes of Health. The 
House has also approved measures to make sure our National Guard gets 
paid and to keep our national parks open. The House funded WIC, the 
program that provides health care and nutrition for low-income women 
and their children. The House has funded FEMA. Moreover, all of these 
bills have been passed with significant bipartisan support in the House 
of Representatives.
  At the risk of overstating it, I am still frankly stunned at what we 
are hearing from some of my colleagues. It is difficult for me to 
understand their objections to passing these bills in the Senate.
  First, none of these bills is controversial--not one of them. The 
bills provide funding for noncontroversial things such as veterans' 
disability payments, the GI bill, and cancer research. These bills keep 
our national parks open and make sure our National Guard personnel get 
paid. There are many things on which Republicans and Democrats 
disagree, but whether to take care of our veterans should not be one of 
them, and the last I checked it was not one of them.
  Second, the President himself asked Congress to do this. Republicans 
in the House took the President at his word and acted immediately to 
draft bills that would make sure his priorities and the Nation's 
priorities would receive funding. In response, Senate Democrats said 
that this plan to fund veterans, national parks, and other priorities 
was 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 funded. 
Why will the President and why will Senate Democrats not take yes for 
an answer? Why are they demanding that we fund everything? They tell 
us: You have to fund everything or we will allow you to fund nothing.
  Third, all of these bills received significant bipartisan support in 
the House. In the middle of a government shutdown, surrounded by all 
this divisive rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats came together in the 
House overwhelmingly to approve these bills. I think we owe it to the 
country to show we can do the same in the Senate.
  Fourth, this approach, the approach that has been advocated by the 
House of Representatives, represents a path forward that was first 
introduced by none other than the distinguished Senate majority leader 
himself. On Monday afternoon Senator Harry Reid asked for unanimous 
consent to pass a bill that ensured that our Active-Duty military 
personnel would be paid in the event of a government shutdown, and in a 
matter of minutes it was passed. I ask my friends across the aisle: Was 
Senator Reid playing games? Was that unserious? Of course not. So why 
is it unserious when we try to fund veterans' disability payments or 
cancer research or the National Guard or national parks? Why is it all 
of a sudden playing games 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' disability payments?
  Finally, none of these bills have any connection to the 
implementation of ObamaCare. I understand my friends across the aisle 
support that law despite its numerous and harmful failings. I 
understand they want to protect it. But none of the bills we are 
considering relate in any way to the implementation of ObamaCare.
  I am concerned that my friends across the aisle cannot see this law 
for what it is and what it is already doing to American families all 
across the country. Now the government is shut down because Democrats 
have refused to work with us to do anything to protect the American 
people from the harmful, potentially devastating effects of ObamaCare. 
They will not even consider passing bills to fund veterans' benefits, 
cancer research, or national parks unless ObamaCare is fully funded and 
fully implemented. We have an obligation to address the negative 
effects of this law, but the Democrats refuse to negotiate.
  The President has issued a veto threat on funding for things that he 
himself asked Congress to fund because the bills do not include 
ObamaCare funding, even though the programs funded in these bills have 
nothing to do with ObamaCare. I fear that the Democrats are now simply 
the ObamaCare party. It is the only thing that matters to them even 
though it is hurting people throughout the country already and 
threatens to do so far more in the coming months.
  A recent report included a story of a man named Tom, Tom from 
Seattle, who signed up with the exchanges only to find out that his 
health care costs were going to skyrocket under ObamaCare. I will quote 
from the story.

       Tom of Seattle, who is self-employed, said, ``My premiums 
     would increase approximately 61 percent. I went from $891 a 
     month to $1,437 a month. And also my deductibles all 
     doubled.''
       The letter from his insurer said his current deductible for 
     his family of five would double from $4,000 a year to $8,000.
       Even though that is for the Bronze Plan, the least 
     expensive option under ObamaCare, he says his additional 
     payment of $550 a month will give him a plan that is no 
     better than what he already has.
       What's more, it also carries a benefit his family does not 
     need: maternity and newborn care.
       ``My wife is 58 years old and our youngest child is soon to 
     be 18,'' says Tom. ``We'll be having no more children. That 
     is not a benefit that we would ever purchase nor need or be 
     able to use.''

  These are the kinds of people we are trying to protect from this law. 
This is just one story among many stories.
  I ask my friends: Join us in ending the shutdown. Join us in 
protecting the country from ObamaCare, and let's do

[[Page 15248]]

the right thing for the American people. Leadership is not about what 
is said; leadership is about what is done. So I invite my colleagues to 
join House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the other 
House Members who are leading. They are leading by doing. We can and 
must lead. We can end the shutdown and simultaneously protect the 
American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare. We can do this. 
We must do this. If we stand together in support of the American 
people, we will do this.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LEE. Yes.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Through the Chair, I inquire whether, in evaluating 
the relative activity of the Senate and the House in trying to bring 
this shutdown to a conclusion, the Senator would not concede that the 
Senate has repeatedly voted on House-passed measures? We have taken 
them up, stripped out extraneous language, and sent them back. We have 
tabled them. We have over and over done our constitutional duty and 
voted. The Senator might not like the way the vote came out, but does 
he concede, A, that we voted on House-passed measures, and B, that the 
Speaker of the House has never yet called to the floor a Senate-passed 
measure and had a fair vote on the House side of the aisle?
  Mr. LEE. In response to the question posed by my distinguished 
colleague, my friend from Rhode Island, yes, I will acknowledge that we 
have taken votes--some votes in response to many of the pieces of 
legislation enacted within the House of Representatives.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And that the House never reciprocated by taking up a 
Senate-passed bill?
  Mr. LEE. The House has not voted on all the things passed by the 
Senate just as the Senate has not voted on all the things passed in the 
House.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. My question was not whether the House voted on some, 
not all. I think the fact is that the House voted on nothing the Senate 
passed; they have done nothing but tee up political votes to send over 
to us.
  Mr. LEE. That is not accurate. The House of Representatives has voted 
on things, sent them back in the form of messages, with some of those 
messages carrying two amendments that we considered. I see the 
Senator's point. It is a valid one in that we have had action taken in 
both Houses. We have had votes cast in both Houses.
  It is important, however, to recognize that Republicans have offered 
significant elements of compromise in all of this. Republicans started 
from the standpoint that what they would like is repeal of the law. 
Understanding that is not possible under the current circumstances, 
they sought first to defund ObamaCare indefinitely. They sought that 
first. That was stripped out. That went back to them. They responded 
with a significant compromise offer in the next go-around to defund it 
for a period of 1 year. That was sent back, that was rejected.
  There have been other elements since then that have been passed to 
fund parts of government. Recognizing there are a lot of areas in 
government spending as to which there is broad bipartisan, basically 
unanimous consent in both Houses, in both political parties, that we 
ought to be continuing to fund those things at those levels, they have 
acted in those areas, and the Senate has so far refused to go along 
with those. So, in the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if we 
act on those. In the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if the 
Senate would act on those aspects of legislation as to which there is 
broad-based bipartisan support.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Madam President, my intention coming here was to help solve 
problems, to find common ground, to work together with colleagues from 
both sides of the aisle. That is my history, and, in fact, that was my 
primary motivation for running, for stepping into the shoes of my 
illustrious predecessor, Olympia Snowe of Maine. In fact, that is what 
we did this summer on student loans when a small bipartisan group of 
Senators worked together to find a compromise, work it through both 
sides of this body, both parties, then through the House and then get 
the signature of the President. We got 81 votes in the Senate and 392 
in the House. That is what I want to try to do. That was a validation 
of what I am here for.
  This situation we are in now cries out for resolution. It cries out 
for finding common ground, for compromising, getting everybody back to 
work, getting the government shutdown over. So why are we not doing it? 
Why aren't we out cutting a deal? Why are we not out compromising?
  I talk to my colleagues here in the Senate on both sides of the 
aisle, talk to House Members, both Republicans and Democrats, and there 
are lots of options. In fact, the House has sent us a series of 
options. The first one was essentially to defund--effectively repeal 
the Affordable Care Act, then it was to delay the Affordable Care Act, 
then it was to delay a part of the Affordable Care Act. But the 
important thing about these options and this discussion is that it is 
all taking place in the context of a government shutdown. That is not 
where negotiations should be made. That is not where negotiation and 
discussion should be had, when essentially the government has been shut 
down and one side is saying: We won't allow the government to operate 
unless you give us what we want on a substantive piece of legislation.
  This is the problem. This is why I think in this one case negotiation 
really is not the right course. It is a process problem, it is a 
practical problem, and I believe it is a constitutional problem. It is 
perfectly appropriate to negotiate budgets. As a Governor, I did it 
four times for biennial budgets and innumerable supplemental budgets, 
and it is perfectly appropriate to negotiate up to the deadline--lots 
of late nights. That is when this work, for some reason, seems to get 
done. But in the context of budgets, of negotiating the most 
fundamental governmental document, you negotiate about numbers, about 
details, about allocations. You don't negotiate about entirely separate 
substantive pieces of law.
  In fact, that happened 1 month ago right here when Leader Reid and 
Speaker Boehner negotiated a continuing resolution on what the numbers 
should be, and it was a hot and heavy negotiation. The leader 
compromised. He said: Let's go forward because we can do this cleanly 
with a continuing resolution at a lower level than the Senate Democrats 
felt was appropriate than what was in that budget that was passed 
earlier this year.
  But that is not what is going on here. We are not negotiating about 
the dollar amounts of the budget or the details or the allocations, 
such as how much will be allocated to defense or how much will be 
allocated to Head Start. This is an attempt to rewrite a major piece of 
substantive law through holding the government hostage, which is a 
result that cannot be achieved through the normal democratic and 
constitutional processes. That is the core of this current situation, 
and that is what is bothering me about it. I don't mind negotiating 
budgets. I do think we shouldn't use the threat of a government 
shutdown--or now the reality of a government shutdown--to obtain 
legislative and policy benefits that we can't otherwise obtain through 
the normal constitutional process. In a very real sense, this is a 
frontal assault on the Constitution itself.
  Ironically, it is being led by many of those who wrap themselves 
daily in the Constitution. I don't have one of those books, but we all 
know those books, such as, ``How a Bill Becomes a Law.'' I can 
guarantee you can read those books until, as my father used to say, the 
spots come off, but I guarantee there is nothing in there that says if 
all else fails, hold the government hostage and then you can make a 
law. That is not what it says.
  My wife Mary got me a book when I was first elected called ``Congress 
for Dummies.'' Even in ``Congress for Dummies,'' it doesn't say you can 
make laws, change laws, rewrite laws in the context of holding the 
country hostage. It is an attempt to create an alternative process, a 
new shortcut way of achieving political ends without

[[Page 15249]]

having to deal with those pesky elections.
  Here is the electoral history of this bill: In 2010, the Affordable 
Care Act was passed in the early summer. There were elections in 2010, 
and, indeed, the Republicans gained substantial seats in the House 
probably because of concern about the Affordable Care Act. I will 
concede that. But the Senate didn't turn over. By the way, that is the 
way the Framers planned it, and that is why there are 6-year terms, so 
public passions in one electoral cycle don't entirely change the 
government.
  Then there was another election in 2012. In that election, in which 
the Affordable Care Act was a major factor, Democrats gained seats in 
the House, gained seats in the Senate, and the President, whose name is 
attached to the bill, won by 5 million votes.
  In my election in Maine in every debate--and goodness knows there 
were probably over 20 of them--my Republican opponents started the 
debate by saying: I want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That was 
the whole mission. I defended it--not in every detail because I think 
it needs to be fixed--and I won that election and here I am. Mr. Romney 
said: I will repeal ObamaCare on day one, but he lost.
  Here we are, in effect, trying to effectuate that agenda--that policy 
position--through an alternative process that skips around those 
annoying elections. The passionate opponents of this act are acting as 
if those elections didn't happen.
  Let's be clear about what this is: This is one faction of one party 
in one House of one branch trying to run the entire U.S. Government.
  That is not the way our Constitution is supposed to work. I am 
confident of that statement because from talking to my friends in the 
House, I believe it is highly likely that if a clean continuing 
resolution--that means one without any strings, without any political 
baggage, without any repeal of the Affordable Care Act--went before the 
House today, tomorrow or Monday, it would pass. With most of the 
Democrats and enough Republicans to achieve the majority, the bill 
would pass and all of this would be over.
  Yesterday, Speaker Boehner said two things that I think were 
important. One I agree with and one I don't. The one I agree with was 
when he said this isn't a game. It is not a game. It is deadly serious. 
It is deadly serious because of the impact this shutdown is having on 
our country. It is having a serious impact on people throughout the 
country and in Maine.
  Let's talk about this from a national standpoint. Approximately half 
of the civilians in the Department of Defense and 70 percent of our 
intelligence agencies' personnel have been furloughed. Air squadrons 
have been grounded, there are people who are not being trained, and our 
defense industrial base is already suffering.
  In Maine we have 1,500 people on furlough at the Portsmouth Naval 
Shipyard and more coming at Bath Iron Works. Almost half of our 
National Guard people are on furlough.
  This is not a game. But all of this is being done in the name of 
effectively repealing or crippling the Affordable Care Act. Even if 
they don't think it is a good law, this is not the way to go about 
dismantling it. It is not the way our Constitution is designed.
  Why won't we even negotiate? Why aren't the Democrats negotiating on 
this and maybe nick the Affordable Care Act? It reminds me of a story 
of a city guy who came up to a farmer in Maine. He said: I like the 
looks of your land. I would like to buy your farm. The farmer said: It 
is not for sale. The city guy said: How about the 50 percent on the 
river, I would like to buy that. The farmer said: It is not for sale. 
The city guy said: How about just the quarter acre where your house is 
on the road? The farmer said: It is not for sale. Then the city guy 
says: Why won't you negotiate? Because it is not for sale.
  This is not the place or time to negotiate. Listen, I think there are 
problems with the Affordable Care Act. I would love to sit down in good 
faith with people and try to fix them--starting with making the Web 
sites work better. But I think the way to do that is not in the context 
of the government being held hostage.
  Here is the real problem: If we do it now, this will become the 
normal way we legislate around here. This is a 6-week continuing 
resolution. So we nick the Affordable Care Act in this one, then next 
time it is going to be, OK, we will take another nick.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. KING. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have 4 more 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. KING. I am afraid this will become the normal way we do things 
around here. Police, intelligence people, and military officers tell us 
they don't negotiate with hostage-takers, and the reason they don't is 
because they would empower, enable, and ensure it will happen again, 
and that is what worries me.
  Our constitutional system has two principles in tension; one is 
governing and the other is checks and balances. Governing is to 
establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare; and, of course, checks and 
balances is the rest of the Constitution so we are not abused by our 
government. If we take away the governing part, which is what the 
budget is, nothing is left but checks and balances. The Framers thought 
of this.
  Madison in the 58th Federalist addressed it directly. He said: It 
might be a good thing to have minorities have additional power above a 
quorum. He then said:

       But these considerations are outweighed by the 
     inconveniences in the opposite scale. In all cases where 
     justice or the general good requires new laws to be passed, 
     or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle 
     of free government would be reversed--

  By minority rule.

     It would no longer be the majority that would rule: the power 
     would be transferred to the minority.

  Lincoln put it much more succinctly:

       If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or 
     the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for 
     continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the 
     other.

  That is what is at stake--governing. I understand the opposition, 
although I frankly don't fully understand not wanting people to have 
health insurance. I understand the passion, and I understand the 
attempt. I think the Speaker is a good man, and he wants to do the 
right thing.
  I understand the need to get something and win something in this 
weird atmosphere where everybody has to win or lose. They gave it their 
best shot. It didn't work. Let's move on. Let's have a clean vote in 
the House so the American people and the world know we still know how 
to govern. I want to talk, I want to negotiate, and I want to solve 
problems but not at the expense of this institution, not at the expense 
of the Constitution, and not at the expense of the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday the White House said it is 
``winning'' the shutdown debate, and that it is ``not concerned'' how 
long the shutdown lasts.
  The Democrats may be content with playing political games. The 
Republicans remain focused on finding a solution to reopen the Federal 
Government. When the White House says it is winning--maybe winning the 
political debate or winning the political game, if you will--it is the 
American people who are losing.
  The Obama administration said yesterday it would support a measure 
providing retroactive compensation to furloughed Federal workers. Yet 
it continues to oppose funding for the National Guard and Reserve, 
veterans services, nutrition assistance for low-income Americans, FEMA, 
lifesaving medicines and cures at NIH, and the national parks and 
museums.
  What I would simply say is that there are bills that have been sent 
here

[[Page 15250]]

by the House of Representatives that are available to be picked up by 
the Senate at any time. We could fund all of those various things right 
now. The bills are from the House. All we have to do in the Senate is 
to pick them up and pass them, and there wouldn't be any objection on 
this side of the aisle.
  We could fund the National Guard and Reserve, we could fund veterans 
services, we could fund nutrition assistance for low-income Americans, 
we could fund FEMA, we could fund lifesaving medicines and cures by 
funding NIH, and we could fund the national parks and museums. It is 
that simple.
  Our colleagues on the other side consistently talk about this 
particular program that is not being funded or this particular Federal 
issue that is not being addressed right now in terms of funding. It can 
all be solved that easily.
  All they have to do is pick up the bills that have come over to us 
from the House of Representatives and pass them right now without 
objection on the Republican side, and all of these things that are 
being talked about could be funded. It is that simple and that easy.
  I hope in the end there would be some colleagues on the other side 
who would agree with us that that is the simplest way to deal with the 
immediate crisis. We obviously have other issues at work and at play 
that will be discussed. I wish to talk about one of those in just a 
minute, but in the meantime, if we are concerned about some of these 
important programs that are not being funded, we can do that right now. 
We can take care of the things that benefit people in this country, 
such as, the people who defend us, the National Guard and Reserve, and 
the people who want to see our national monuments and parks open. We 
have heard stories about how those are not available to people across 
the country. It is very simple. Pick up the bills and pass them right 
now.
  What I would like to talk about, in addition to getting the 
government back up and running, is doing something to address our 
Nation's debt. We find ourselves now on the fifth day of a partial 
government shutdown that--from my perspective--was completely 
avoidable. We know the government shutdown is only one of the 
challenges we are currently facing. The Treasury tells us we are going 
to be reaching our debt limit in the coming days, which astonishingly 
stands at almost $17 trillion.
  As we look at the near future, we need to address the debt limit, and 
we need to end this partial government shutdown. I think it is 
unavoidable. Those two issues have sort of converged and come together. 
At one time, we were going to be talking about addressing one and then 
subsequently dealing with the debt limit. Now it looks as if those are 
all going to be one big debate and discussion.
  What I am perplexed about is our friend on the other side of the 
aisle and the President who continue to insist they are not going to 
negotiate on those issues. When the people of South Dakota sent me to 
Washington, they did so with the expectation that I will continue to 
stand for their values. They also know that when it comes to governing, 
there will be differences of opinion. Oftentimes that means we are 
going to have to sit down together with people on the other side of the 
issue to find common ground.
  But to say it is my way or the highway is not the way to approach 
these issues. These are issues that are important to both individuals 
and our economy, and they just can't say we are not going to negotiate. 
That is not a viable or a reasonable position in the eyes of the 
American people.
  To put a fine point on that, earlier this week the majority leader 
was quoted as saying:

       The president said he's not going to negotiate on the debt 
     ceiling. He's not going to negotiate, we aren't either. It 
     has never happened in the history of the country.

  At the end of last week while the President was out giving political 
speeches, instead of engaging with Congress to solve these issues, the 
President made this statement:

       And that's why I said this before. I am going to repeat it. 
     There will be no negotiations over this.

  That is the President of the United States.
  There will be no negotiations over this, reiterated by our friends on 
the other side of the aisle in the Senate.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. THUNE. I would be happy to yield when I have concluded my 
remarks, on the time of the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I think the reason Republicans here in the 
Senate find this stance so perplexing is that the characterization we 
have never negotiated around a debt ceiling is absolutely not true. 
Deficit reduction measures over the last several decades have been 
paired with increases in the debt ceiling. Almost 30 years ago, we had 
the Balanced Budget Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, otherwise 
known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. I was a staffer here at the time. That 
was done in the context of the debt ceiling.
  We had several measures in the 1990s that reduced our deficits that 
were done in association with an increase in the debt ceiling.
  Most recently, we all remember the Budget Control Act of 2011, which 
resulted in restraint largely on the discretionary side of the budget, 
which many of us would like to change; but it has also resulted, for 
the first time since the 1950s, in 2 consecutive years where the 
Federal Government spent less than it spent the previous year--the 
first time since the Korean war. The common denominator is that these 
deals were paired with an increase in the debt ceiling.
  The point I am trying to make, for those of my friends who are 
arguing that negotiating around our debt ceiling is unprecedented, is 
perhaps they ought to take a closer look at history.
  This week, Kevin Hassett and Abbey McCloskey of the American 
Enterprise Institute wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled 
``Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History,'' which I think characterizes the 
history of the debt limit in a more accurate way. They write:

       According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress 
     voted 53 times from 1978 to 2013 to change the debt ceiling.

  So 53 times in those 35 years of recent history.
  They go on to write:

       Congressional Republicans who want legislative conditions 
     in exchange for a debt-limit increase are following a 
     strategy that has been pursued by both parties the majority 
     of the time. Of the 53 increases in the debt limit, 26 were 
     ``clean''--that is, stand-alone, no strings-attached 
     statutes. The remaining debt-limit increases were part of an 
     omnibus package of other legislative bills or a continuing 
     resolution. Other times, the limit was paired with reforms, 
     only some of which were related to the budget.

  To reiterate, out of 53 increases in the debt limit, less than half 
were what we say are clean or stand-alone measures. The others had 
other legislation associated with them, in many cases an omnibus 
package of legislative bills or continuing resolutions or deficit 
reduction measures.
  To make that happen again, what we need is leadership. We need 
leaders on the other side of the aisle, including the President, to 
come to the table in good faith to make the tough decisions.
  I have to say I find it concerning that instead of coming to the 
table this week, the President has embarked on a media blitz suggesting 
Republicans in Congress want to default on the debt. In an interview 
this week with CNBC's John Harwood, the President stated that he 
recently told representatives from the financial services sector 
visiting Washington that they should ``be concerned.'' They should be 
concerned over a faction of Congress that is willing potentially to 
default.
  In my view, these statements are both unproductive and misguided. 
Nobody wants default. Nobody wants a government shutdown. I can assure 
the President and my friends on the other side of the aisle that 
Republicans here in the Senate couldn't agree more that those are 
things we need to avoid.
  What I would suggest is that instead of simply kicking the can down 
the

[[Page 15251]]

road, instead of pushing the difficult decisions off until tomorrow, we 
have to get serious about the long-term fiscal health of our country so 
we can grow our economy and help strengthen our middle class. Rather 
than stoking fears that rankle financial markets and damage the 
economy, now is the time to move beyond politics and to work with 
congressional Republicans to make a significant downpayment to address 
America's long-term debt problems.
  Republicans are seeking responsible and reasonable solutions. South 
Dakotans, and I think the American people, understand that choosing to 
do nothing when it comes to the debt while piling it on the backs of 
future generations is not a responsible way to continue to govern our 
country. I would pose to my Democratic colleagues that Republicans 
stand ready to come to the negotiating table and act in good faith to 
get the government up and running again and to make responsible 
spending reforms that address the true drivers of our debt.
  I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will take a 
lesson from history and not suggest they are not going to negotiate. 
That is not a viable position in the eyes of the American people, and 
it is not a viable position if we want to work in a way that is going 
to lead to an accomplishment and a result here in Washington, DC, on 
these issues and matters that are of great importance not only to today 
but to the future of this country.
  I would simply say again, as I said when I began, having a position 
that we are not going to negotiate on a government shutdown and we are 
not going to negotiate on a debt limit increase is inconsistent with 
what the American people have said they want to see done. The latest 
poll I saw shows that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans think we ought to 
be around the debt limit increase figuring out what we are going to do 
about the debt. That is what the American people think. It is also 
unrealistic to think we are going to be able to solve our problems, and 
it is inconsistent with what history has shown us in the past, that 
when we have been able to accomplish something, we have been willing to 
sit down together in the context of raising the debt limit which, by 
the way, will be over $17 trillion when this is all said and done. I 
think the American people believe we are going to ask for another debt 
limit increase to raise that by perhaps another $1 trillion, borrowing 
limit. They would like to see us do something meaningful to address the 
incredible, burgeoning, exploding Federal debt we are putting on the 
backs of our children and grandchildren.
  I see the Senator from Rhode Island is up next, and if he would like, 
on his time, to ask a question, I would, through the Chair, entertain 
it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
South Dakota. I noticed he was on the floor during the remarks of the 
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Maine, a few moments ago. Having 
heard those remarks, I ask the Senator from South Dakota if he would 
concede that there is a difference between negotiating and negotiating 
with hostages; whether the hostage is shutting down the government or 
whether the hostage is defaulting on the U.S. obligations, there is a 
difference between negotiating and negotiating while holding hostages.
  Mr. THUNE. I would say through the Chair, to my colleague from Rhode 
Island, that I think what makes a negotiation successful is when both 
sides are sufficiently motivated. It strikes me, at least, that if we 
are going to have a successful outcome, both sides have to have 
incentives to be at the table.
  I think Republicans have indicated very clearly that we believe one 
of the ways in which we get legislation, policy put in place that is 
good for the future of this country is to do it around a debt limit 
increase. Historically, that has been the case. That has been a 
precedent. It has been very clear, as I mentioned, throughout the 
course of modern history that many of the big budget agreements we have 
reached have been done in the context of a debt limit increase. So I 
would suggest to my colleague from Rhode Island that whatever the 
motivation is for getting people to the table, we just need to get to 
the table.
  We have had a lot of, on both sides of the aisle, I would say, in 
fairness, people questioning each other's motives. But we are in a 
pretty tough spot right now. We have a government that is shut down 
that we need to get reopened. We have a debt limit we are going to hit 
in the next couple of weeks. I hope we can sit down in good faith and 
figure out where we can find a common path forward that will allow us 
to govern in a responsible and a reasonable way, but to address what I 
think are the big issues facing the future of this country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I note that the President and Leader 
Reid have both indicated a very open willingness to negotiate on 
virtually anything. But in light of the difference the Presiding 
Officer pointed out on the floor a moment ago between good-faith 
negotiating under our established constitutional procedures and 
negotiating while holding hostage either the continuing operation of 
the Federal Government or a U.S. default on its obligations for the 
first time in history, that that difference does indeed bear on this 
discussion.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today marks the fifth day of the 
shutdown. I come to the Senate floor once again to call on the House of 
Representatives to take up the Senate bill. It is a simple bill. It has 
no bells and whistles. It simply says, Let's open the government again. 
Let's open all the monuments. Let's open up the research that is going 
on at the National Institutes of Health which is important to save 
lives. Let's put our intelligence employees, who every day are putting 
themselves at risk trying to gather intelligence data, back to work. 
And then let's take those 6 weeks to do what the Senator from South 
Dakota was talking about, which is to negotiate a bigger deal, a budget 
deal.
  One of the things I have been concerned about is that the Senate has, 
in fact, passed a budget, the House has, in fact, passed a budget, but 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not let those two 
budgets go to conference committee as they are supposed to do so we can 
work out the differences and have a long-term solution. The solution is 
not to shut the government down.
  What has happened? The Senator from Maine, the Presiding Officer, did 
a good job of reviewing what has gone on over the past few weeks. 
First, we passed a sensible bill to keep the government open at low 
spending levels--sequestration levels, as we call them here--with the 
spending cuts included, because we knew that was a compromise, but we 
knew that was a way we could get our friends from the other side of the 
aisle to agree to have a further negotiation period. Instead, we got 
back a bill that would have delayed the Affordable Care Act--something 
they knew very well the President would veto and the Senate would not 
agree to. Now we have gotten a series of bills where they have agreed 
to keep certain agencies open--sort of government by Whac-A-Mole. One 
problem comes up; OK, we will get that one done. Oh, maybe there is a 
big merger that has been proposed that has antitrust problems and could 
cost consumers money. Maybe we will put a few antitrust lawyers back to 
work. Oh, I guess there is an imminent threat going on right now, so 
let's add a few intelligence officers. Let's handle that one. Maybe 
there is a foodborne illness problem that has developed in part of the 
country. Maybe we have to put some of those Centers for Disease Control 
employees back to work.
  That is no way to govern in business and that is no way to govern the 
greatest Nation on Earth. We are a democracy that has been a model for 
the rest of the world. This is not the answer.
  What is the next vehicle we got? Today we found out they have voted 
to

[[Page 15252]]

pay furloughed workers. That is something I support. That is something 
most of the Senators here support. OK. But does this make sense, that 
they would decide to do that today and then not also vote to put them 
back to work? They are essentially deciding they are going to pay 
them--which I support--that they are going to pay them, but they are 
going to pay them to stay at home. This doesn't make sense in 
Lanesboro, MN. This doesn't make sense in Detroit Lakes, MN. They 
believe Federal workers have been hired to do a job and it is time to 
put them back to work, and that is what this debate is about.
  These are the things I have been hearing from my constituents. I have 
some random letters that came in on our e-mail system over the last few 
days. Here is a letter from Jason of St. Paul. He says:

       I am a Minnesota resident currently on active duty in the 
     U.S. Navy on deployment in the Middle East for my 2nd tour . 
     . . As a military member, if I did not do my job I'd be 
     putting the lives of my friends and fellow military members 
     at risk.

  Jason is a Navy reservist on active duty. He continues:

       At home, I am a full-time professional firefighter and EMT 
     for the St. Paul Fire Department. If I chose to fail on my 
     duties when a fire call came in, people would die. Similarly, 
     the shutdown in the U.S. Government--

  He says,

       I know it happened in the House, and that the Senate passed 
     a bill, sorry--

  He adds that, and then he says:

     The shutdown of the U.S. Government is unacceptable. I work 
     in a coalition office with several other European officers 
     from other navies and I am embarrassed at what I see from 
     Congress. I urge you with all of my being to work to resolve 
     this. I am confident that you can get the job done.

  Next, Lisa from Oakdale, MN:

       Senator Klobuchar, I am 39 years old and have never 
     contacted a representative until now. I felt compelled to do 
     so today because as a federal civilian employee, I want to 
     express my extreme disappointment. I have dedicated my career 
     to federal service, which I am now considering changing given 
     this unfairness. Please work to resolve the budget as quickly 
     as possible so my husband and I can return to work.

  That is what Lisa said.
  The House of Representatives said, rightfully so, they would pay her 
while she is at home, but they didn't send her back to work. They 
didn't do what she asked for in this letter. They didn't send her back 
to work. She simply wants to do her job.
  Here is a letter from Pamela from Young America, MN, a farmer:

       Please do whatever you can to stop the government shutdown. 
     We have 14 acres of land enrolled in the CRP program 
     [Conservation Reserve Program] and our rental payment is to 
     be made to us this first week of October. As long as the 
     government shutdown is in place our CRP payments are delayed. 
     We depend on this money as it is not a small amount for our 
     family. There are many farmers/land owners in this same 
     situation. Please stop the shutdown.

  Well, I hope the House of Representatives is listening to Pamela of 
Young America, MN, today.
  Kathy from Braham, MN:

       I am an employee of the Social Security Administration, 
     Office of Disability Adjudication and Review.
       I have seen you intervene on matters for claimants who have 
     disability hearings pending. I am furloughed as part of the 
     government shutdown. If you want your constituents' hearings 
     addressed, I need to be at work in my office.

  Is she talking about pay in this letter? Of course she wants to get 
paid, and she is going to get her pay, and she should, but that is not 
what she is talking about. She is talking about doing her job and 
getting back to work. Yet today the House of Representatives voted to 
pay workers to stay home. OK, we want to pay them but not to put them 
back at work, when that is all she is asking to do.
  Alicia from Hastings, MN:

       Dear Senator Klobuchar:
       I am writing to express my extreme concern over the federal 
     government shutdown. I am a teacher, a mother of three boys 
     and the wife of a furloughed veteran who works for the 
     Minnesota Air National Guard. I have never before written a 
     letter to my representatives, but feel so utterly helpless 
     and frustrated at this time; I need to voice my concern.
       My concern at this time is that those in Congress have 
     forgotten about people like me, like those in my family, and 
     those in my community. I feel like an inconsequential number, 
     a nameless and faceless casualty in a game that has no 
     winners. I am concerned that my family's experience is lost 
     in the rhetoric exchanged between party members. I am 
     concerned that we are the forgotten and nameless . . . 
     collateral damage in a philosophical debate.
       At this point in time, my husband, who is a veteran working 
     full-time for the Minnesota Air National Guard, is out of 
     work because he is a federal employee not deemed essential. I 
     am afraid that not only are the other 800,000 laid-off 
     federal employees deemed non-essential, but the rest of the 
     American citizens are non-essential as well. . . . Our 
     struggles are real-life struggles; not a game, not 
     philosophical, not in theory, not distant and not imaginary. 
     My hope is that those struggles and hardships matter to you, 
     and in a real way. . . . I am hoping you will understand the 
     urgency of this situation for my family and for the thousands 
     of others whom you directly impact on a daily basis. I don't 
     want any representatives to forget the real people affected 
     by these decisions. . . . That is your duty. That is your 
     charge. That is your enormous task. . . . I hope that I can 
     count on you to look out for my family and the many others 
     you affect. I hope that you will consider our lives and 
     hardships. . . . Thank you for your efforts to . . . solve 
     this situation.

  She does not want to be inconsequential. She does not want to be non-
essential--not just her husband, who is furloughed, but she as a 
citizen of this country. Again, is she asking for money? Of course they 
want to get paid, and they will get paid, but that is not what this is 
about. This is about her husband getting back to work to do the duties 
he was hired to do by the American people.
  This is a simple bill. It simply allows them to go back to work.
  I am heartened by the fact that the number--I think it is at 22 House 
Members now on the Republican side--who have said they want to vote on 
this Senate bill. That is a magic number. That is enough to pass it. We 
have to let that bill come up for a vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today in order to talk about the 
impact of the current government shutdown on Hawaii's Federal workers.
  Here in Washington, we debate in what most people consider 
abstractions. We use terms such as ``ObamaCare,'' ``filibuster,'' and 
``discretionary spending.'' We talk about government programs and 
initiatives in the aggregate and in the abstract. Hardly a day goes by 
that we do not hear about some program costing in the millions and 
billions. While we use these terms and concepts when debating the nuts 
and bolts of government policy, what we need to always keep in mind is 
that these dollars and these terms impact real people, real lives.
  The work of the Senate is to debate and to deliberate with the goal 
of finding consensus solutions to the challenges our Nation faces. The 
core of what we do is about people, families, and communities. When we 
get away from thinking this way, when we focus on the abstractions and 
the slogans and who is winning the day's media war, it becomes easy to 
forget what we are all here for. When we forget that, we find ourselves 
unable to move forward and find consensus. We lose focus on the people, 
families, and communities that sent us here.
  Public service is a privilege. It is also a responsibility. When we 
stand for election or enter public service in some other way, we are 
committing to put ourselves in the back, behind the people for whom we 
work and serve.
  So today, as we mark another day of a government shutdown, I would 
like to share some stories with my colleagues, stories about people and 
families affected by the shutdown.
  I have received letters like my colleague from Minnesota has received 
letters from her constituents, from people of all ages, serving in 
different capacities and at different Federal Government agencies, and 
even some who are just embarking on a path to public service. These are 
all people dedicated to their work and dedicated to their country. The 
damage we are doing by not getting these folks back on the job is 
serious and impacts our national security, our economy, and a

[[Page 15253]]

host of necessary services upon which the people of our country depend.
  This shutdown and the debate around it is undermining a commitment to 
public service for many people. It is damaging the effectiveness of our 
institutions, and it is unnecessarily putting many families in Hawaii 
and across the Nation in a state of uncertainty and anxiety.
  One furloughed man who wrote to me expressed these views clearly. He 
said:

       As a U.S. Air Force civilian, I am a furloughed employee. 
     Hawaii has nearly the highest percentage of federal workers. 
     This has a huge impact on the Aloha state. Unlike the recent 
     sequester, one can't scale back when nothing is coming in.
       Some lower-grade workers may lose their homes and with it 
     their sense of pride for choosing to work for the govt. 
     That's the reality of this shutdown.

  He went on:

       By Oct 9, we'll have lost more than the recent sequester 
     cuts. Many have not overcome that and now we're summarily 
     discharged. And the debt ceiling debate is next? I work in an 
     office of 10 or so. Half active duty, half civilian. We 
     provide the continuity needed year in and year out to manage 
     instrument procedures at all our bases in the Pacific Air 
     Forces. . . .

  He goes on:

       Are we ``non-essential'' employees? I respectfully ask 
     Speaker Boehner to ask them. I'm upset that a few politicians 
     are holding my country, my community, and yes, my family 
     hostage for political brinksmanship. . . . I stand with you, 
     Leader Reid and the ``responsible'' Republicans in the U.S. 
     House that want to get our nation moving again.

  Another constituent wrote to me about the impact of the shutdown on 
her family. She said:

       As the wife of an ``essential personnel'' government 
     employee, I would like to tell you that the shutdown is 
     devastating. We are parents of three children, one of whom is 
     special needs and requires expensive measures daily to 
     survive. Without a paycheck, we will be unable to pay our 
     bills, buy food, support our children. Many, many middle 
     class federal employee families are in the same boat. Savings 
     will not support us indefinitely.
       My husband is, right now as we speak, at work doing his 
     duty, protecting the American public against foodborne 
     illness and contamination. Yet he is doing it with no pay. We 
     are devastated. Please please tell our story. Tell the 
     Republicans who have not crossed the aisle to please be 
     reasonable and fund the government. They can argue later. 
     Children are paying the price for the shutdown.

  As of right now, at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, three of our 
Nation's nuclear submarines are in drydock. Work on them stopped due to 
the shutdown. One of the shipyard workers wrote this to me:

       Mazie, I am an employee of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The 
     shutdown has left my co-workers and myself with a sense of 
     trepidation, insecurity and angst. Most of the hard working 
     dedicated and patriotic federal civilian employees I work 
     with live paycheck to paycheck due to the high cost of living 
     in our islands. I have fears of not being able to pay my 
     mortgage on time in November.
       But more importantly Mazie, the operational readiness of 
     our Pacific Fleet is in jeopardy because we aren't able to 
     keep our ships ``Fit To Fight'' if we can't go to work, 
     repair them and meet schedule deadlines for returning them to 
     operational status. Our workload already is stretching our 
     resources and demanding we perform more with less. How can we 
     recover a day, a week, a month or more sitting at home when 
     so much is at stake? The long term consequences of this 
     shutdown has ripple effects that are not one for one but a 
     much longer period when moving a large industrial workforce 
     back into a rhythm of productivity and efficiency. Please 
     continue to work with your colleagues in Congress and 
     convince them to end this shutdown sooner rather than later.

  This letter is an example of the selflessness of so many workers. 
While he is concerned about himself and his colleagues, his greater 
concern is for the impact this shutdown will have on our Nation's 
security.
  I have also received letters from people just starting out in life 
and in public service. For example, one young woman wrote me:

       I am in jeopardy of losing my AmeriCorps VISTA placement, 
     which would prevent me from developing essential workplace 
     skills, and an education stipend that would lighten the load 
     of my student loan debt.
  Another shared this:

       My husband and I are closing on our first condo today, 
     Tuesday, October 2nd and are now faced with the challenge of 
     my husband not receiving a paycheck during the shutdown. He 
     is a government employee who is expected to work during the 
     shutdown without a payday in sight. I am extremely nervous 
     now about paying our mortgage and other essential bills when 
     I should be excited about our first home purchase. I know 
     eventually this will be straightened out but at what cost to 
     us? We are both in our early 30's trying to make a life 
     together and like many obstacles, this is another setback. I 
     hope this comes to an end quickly.

  These are people just starting to make their way in the world. They 
are working hard and doing all the right things. Yet, through no fault 
of their own, they are facing uncertainty and are likely questioning 
whether they have chosen the right path.
  The last letter I would like to share today--and I will be sharing 
more in the coming days about other areas of Hawaii's economy that have 
been impacted--is one that I hope my colleagues will think about as we 
go forward. This couple wrote:

       My spouse and I are both federal employees, with a combined 
     public service commitment of over 50 years. We have seen and 
     lived through many congressional sessions and many more 
     shenanigans, but neither of us can recall a time when the 
     truculence of a few has caused so much hurt in the lives of 
     so many. I am ``essential;'' my husband is not. We will get 
     by.
       Others are not so lucky. Our administrative assistants, for 
     example, both of whom are barely hanging on, trying to feed 
     their kids on the same pay they received three years ago 
     while the costs of health insurance, transportation, and 
     housing have continued to rise, are now not being paid at 
     all.
       Our daughter, for example, over $200,000 in student loan 
     debt, who tends to our veterans as a physician in a VA 
     hospital, still had to come up with her rent on Tuesday and 
     still has to pay for healthy food and quality daycare so that 
     she can go to work, but not get paid.

  These people devoted their careers to serving the public, helping 
people, and making our country a better place.
  I ask my colleagues to think: How long will this couple's daughter or 
the administrative assistants they mention in their letter continue to 
hang on and stay in public service? If our political system cannot 
function, our institutions and the people who work in them and rely on 
their services suffer.
  One of the most damaging legacies of this shutdown could be the 
crisis of confidence it will create among the American people toward 
their own government. That would be devastating.
  I am not arguing that government should be the answer to all of our 
problems, provide all of our services, but the services it does provide 
should be worthy of the people, families, and communities we are 
providing them for. Having a dedicated Federal workforce is central to 
that goal, and our job as Senators is to give that workforce confidence 
that their work is valued, that they are valued, that their 
contributions are worthwhile. This shutdown fails miserably in all of 
those respects.
  We have the privilege of serving in the Senate. Let's do our job for 
the people all across our country who, like all these people who wrote 
to me and who wrote to all my other colleagues, expect nothing less of 
us.
  Let's reopen the government. Speaker Boehner, let the House vote on 
the bill that the Senate sent to you. Let's get back to working on what 
we can do better to serve the people, families and communities that 
gave us the privilege to be here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Hawaii 
for her comments and say that on the basis of what this Senator just 
discovered, having gone down to the other end of the Capitol, it is 
going to take a lot of loud voices to get the Speaker to hear us 
because they have shut down. They have gone home. They are not even 
coming back until next Monday.
  I was just wandering through this deserted Capitol. I encountered 
Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of the great leaders of the Congress, who 
is the minority whip now and used to be majority leader in the House of 
Representatives. He just gave me this report.
  Those chambers down there at the other end are darkened. Here we are, 
on the basis of a small group of people in the House of Representatives 
who insist on having it their way or no way, we have all of these 
people and all of

[[Page 15254]]

these specific events that all of these Senators have chronicled of the 
deprivation of the lack of security. I mean you can go on and on as a 
result of the shutdown.
  This Senator is going to enumerate a few examples of that while the 
two Senators from Hawaii and the Senator from Wisconsin are here, and 
the great presiding officer, one of the bright lights of the new class 
that just came into the Senate.
  If you really examine what is the problem--the problem--it actually 
goes back to the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Hebrew Scriptures, to two 
commandments that then were reiterated by Jesus in the new Scriptures.
  The first commandment: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and 
strength. The second is likened to it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 
There is a practical ``how to'' for what we know as the Golden Rule: 
Treat others as you want to be treated. That is a practical application 
of the second great commandment of: Love your neighbor as yourself.
  It is part of the root of the problem we see. It is not only gripping 
the capital city of the United States, where people are so ingrown and 
insular and unwilling to respect the other fellow's point of view and 
work out their differences--the very underpinnings of the greatness of 
our democracy that has lasted over 2\1/4\ centuries is on that basic 
principle of: Treat others as you would want to be treated.
  In other words, in the political context, do what Tip O'Neill and 
Ronald Reagan used to do: Have your fights, but at the end of the day, 
respect each other so when it is time to do the deal, you can come 
together and resolve your differences.
  Another great model for this Senator when he was a young Congressman 
were the two leaders in the House of Representatives: Tip O'Neill, the 
Democratic Speaker, and Bob Michel, the Republican leader. It is the 
same kind of relationship that Tip had with the President.
  They would fight like the dickens during the day, but they kept that 
personal respect through a personal friendship, so that even though 
they vigorously disagreed about an issue, they realized that they were 
not the only ones in this country, that there were other people who 
thought differently than they did, and in the grand tradition of 
American democracy, when it was time to build a consensus to achieve a 
workable solution, then they could come together and work it out.
  But what we see is a small--very, I would dare say--totally inward-
looking group that thinks that they know it all and that their opinion 
is the only opinion, and that they have the political leverage since 
the Speaker of the House has said that he will only pass something with 
Republican votes. By the way, it did not used to be that way. They now 
call that the Hastert rule, named after Speaker Hastert.
  Before that, it did not used to be that way. We used to pass 
legislation in the House of Representatives with Republican and 
Democratic votes. I give you that great example. I want to give you one 
of the finest examples of government being able to work during a time 
of economic emergency. It was in 1983. We were within 6 months of 
shutting down Social Security because Social Security was starting to 
run out of money, where it could not make its full payments. It would 
have made partial payments.
  Those two Irishmen, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, said: We are going 
to fix it. The first thing we are going to do is to take this iron rail 
of American politics, and we are going to take it off the table to be 
used as a hammer to beat your opponent over the head with in the next 
election. Then we are going to appoint a blue-ribbon panel. They are 
going to bring back their recommendation to the Congress, and we are 
going to pass it.
  All of that occurred. It passed overwhelmingly and made Social 
Security actuarially sound for the next half century, into the 2030s, 
all the way from 1983. That is an example of the finest traditions of 
governing under the American constitutional method in our democratic 
system.
  So when you get at loggerheads in a time such as this, where is that 
respect--that genuine respect and not that superficial respect, that 
respect that fortunately we show to each other out here on the floor of 
the Senate. But where is that genuine respect, and where is that 
recognition? Those words over the presiding officer are scrolled in the 
marble: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. We gain our unity from many 
peoples, many ideas, but we all think of ourselves unum, as one, as 
Americans.
  That is what we are missing. You boil all of this down, and that is 
what is going on in American politics today. We do not talk to each 
other. We are shouting past each other. Turn on your cable TV. Look at 
the shouting match there. Turn on one cable network and you get only 
one perspective. Turn on another cable network and you get another 
perspective. We are not talking to each other. We are not.
  Also, as the good book says, as Lyndon Johnson as President often 
reminded us: Come, let us reason together. That is what is happening. I 
see other Senators that want to speak here. I have got a whole bunch of 
things that I wanted to enumerate that are happening in the State of 
Florida, where the shutdown of the Federal Government is affecting the 
State government. I am not going to list those so that my colleagues 
can go on and speak.
  I have got a bunch of issues to talk about related to national 
security, where we are genuinely harmed today with the shutdown of the 
government. I want to point out that one of our military commanders--it 
happens to be a tanker unit, the big KC-135 tankers. They fly and 
refuel all of our aircraft. They refuel in the air.
  He said, ``We are effectively shut down.'' Another commander of 
another active duty wing, Colonel DeThomas says that when you take the 
furloughs, these furloughs on top of the 6 days that they lost unpaid 
in the sequester in the last fiscal year, which ended September 30, he 
says: You do that, and it creates a double whammy. That is what is 
happening. That is just one little snippet of our national security. I 
am so glad that these colleagues are here to speak. I will share all of 
the details that I intended to share at a later time. I thank the 
Senators for their attention.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to deliver 
a message from the people of Wisconsin. They are fed up with the 
political games that are being played here in Washington. They have had 
enough. On Tuesday, Congress failed the American people and our 
government shut down because the tea party faction in the House put 
their own personal agendas and partisan politics ahead of progress for 
the American people.
  The Republican leadership in the House could end this shutdown by 
simply letting the House vote on the Senate-passed bill to fund the 
government. Instead, the Speaker of the House has, for over a week, 
prevented the House from voting on a clean funding bill that would open 
the entire Federal Government.
  In my home State of Wisconsin, we believe in hard work. We believe 
that hard work should be respected and rewarded.
  Every day people get up and go to work to build a better life for 
themselves and their families. They trust in the promise that if you 
work hard and play by the rules, you will get ahead.
  They are right to expect that both parties in Washington work 
together to help keep that promise. They are right to expect that both 
parties in Washington work together to respect the hard work of 
Americans who have helped lift this country up from the worst recession 
since the Great Depression. They are right to expect that both parties 
in Washington work together to reward the hard work of families and 
small business owners who, through sheer grit and determination, have 
been moving our economy and our country forward.
  In my home State of Wisconsin, our State motto is one word: Forward. 
The

[[Page 15255]]

people of Wisconsin live up to that motto every single day, and I would 
say all Americans do as well.
  As I stand here today, in the midst of the fifth day of a government 
shutdown, I can't say that Congress has. Instead of working together to 
move our economy and our country forward, the Republican leadership in 
the House has offered day after day of political games and 
brinkmanship.
  Here is the price: In Wisconsin, more than 800 workers in the 
National Guard are off the job--hard-working people who have committed 
themselves to public service, to something bigger than themselves. They 
get up every day and work for our common good. They deserve to have a 
Congress that does the same.
  These are particularly tough times for my State. Even as the national 
economy is rebuilding and rebounding, my State's economy has lagged 
behind the rest of the Nation. Our economy cannot afford to have the 
tea party extremists in the House making it harder for small business 
owners to create jobs.
  Their shutdown has blocked small business loans and investments in 
Wisconsin and that threatens our ``made in Wisconsin'' economy and 
tradition, our work ethic, and our entrepreneurial spirit.
  Due to this tea party shutdown, Wisconsin's small businesses are 
missing out on about $3.5 million in SBA-supported loans every day. 
That means Wisconsin's small businesses have been denied access to 
critical loans since this shutdown began.
  We know the majority of new jobs in the United States are created by 
startups, and small businesses are engines of our economy, creating two 
out of every three new jobs. Our economy needs to have a Congress that 
is supporting and strengthening small business efforts, not a Congress 
that steers from one manufactured crisis to another.
  Groundbreaking research, supported by the National Institutes of 
Health, adds more than $800 million a year to Wisconsin's economy. We 
should all be able to agree, both parties in the House and the Senate, 
that in order for America to outinnovate the rest of the world we must 
protect and strengthen our investments in research, science, and 
innovation.
  The failure of the House leadership to step up and actually lead has 
put in place a shutdown that is threatening Wisconsin's leadership on 
bioenergy research and on biomedical research. This failure in 
leadership in the House means new patients are being turned away from 
the benefits of cancer research being done at the University of 
Wisconsin.
  On a broader scale, our NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins, told the 
Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that as long as the government is shut 
down, the National Institutes of Health says it will turn away roughly 
200 patients each week from its clinical research center, including 
children with cancer. He said:

       We've had to tell people ``I'm sorry, you can't come 
     here.''

  This is the price extracted by a small tea party group in the House 
who can't see past their own political agenda to defund, delay, or 
repeal the Affordable Care Act. It is reckless and it is irresponsible. 
But it doesn't have to be that way. It is time. It is time the House 
leadership steps up and actually leads.
  More than 1 week ago the Senate passed a clean bill that funds the 
government, ends the shutdown, and that opens the Federal Government 
for business again. They have obstructed that measure from going to the 
House floor for a simple up-or-down vote. The House Republicans need to 
end these politics. It is time for the House to have an up-or-down vote 
to end this shutdown.
  House Republicans need to break with their divisive threats. They 
need to start governing and pass a responsible budget that invests in 
the middle class and strengthens our economy. It is time. It is time 
for the House to have an up-or-down vote to open our government for 
business.
  House Republicans need to stop standing in the way of progress. They 
need to start working to build a better and stronger future for our 
country. It is time. It is time for the House to have an up-or-down 
vote to end this gridlock and to move our country forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. We certainly appreciate the hours of the Presiding Officer 
in presiding. I don't know whether the Presiding Officer's time is at 
the beginning or the end, but we are grateful for the time this 
weekend.
  I wish to start by commending the work of the Capitol Police. I 
didn't have a chance to do that yesterday in light of what happened in 
Washington the other day. It was a terrible incident and a terrible 
tragedy. As usual, the Capitol Police handled it with professionalism 
and with very effective policing and law enforcement and kept people 
safe. We should commend them every day, not only on days when there is 
a dangerous incident that takes place. We thank them for that.
  We gather here today to talk about our country and whether we are 
going to finally, after almost a full week now, have a government that 
is open, operating, and functioning. I think a lot of people in both 
parties, and maybe more so on the Republican side of the aisle, have a 
better chance this week to understand, appreciate, or have insights 
into what our government does every day, how it helps people, keeps our 
economy moving, and keeps us safe. I only hope those lessons are being 
learned.
  When I am in Pennsylvania or in Washington and getting communications 
from Pennsylvania, people ask, in light of this shutdown, some basic 
questions. A lot of the questions are the same: When will it end? How 
will it end? Is there a way out? They ask those kinds of questions. 
They don't know because there is often not a readily identifiable 
answer.
  But as complicated as this is, and as difficult as it has been, 
especially for people directly affected or even affected indirectly for 
folks around the whole country, there actually is a pretty simple 
answer, and maybe it has been overlooked this week. It comes down to 
one word--technically it is two words. The first word is ``just'' and 
the second word is ``vote.'' But in our social media age, often words 
are jammed together, so maybe we will say it is one word, ``justvote.''
  People might say what does that mean? Congress should have votes all 
the time, and we understand the House and the Senate votes things all 
the time. What does ``just vote'' mean? Actually, it is rather simple. 
A week ago yesterday the Senate voted on a measure, a simple amendment, 
that was sent over to the House that was a clean resolution--in other 
words, a continuing resolution. It is another way of saying to keep the 
government operating. It didn't have anything attached to it, nothing 
about anything extraneous or additional. That is where the phrase a 
clean CR, continuing resolution, comes from. It is a way to keep the 
government open.
  The House, led by Speaker Boehner, decided not to consider that. Here 
it is. It is actually pretty simple. It is an amendment to H.J. Res. 
59. It is amendment No. 1974. We can see the markings on it when it was 
being considered here. It is all of 16 pages. It doesn't even get to 
the end of page 16. It is a simple document, and it has been sitting 
over there for a week. I, of course, won't read it, but it is a very 
simple way out of this predicament.
  It has overwhelming support across the country. Even for people who 
disagree with me or disagree with Democrats about health care or about 
any other issue, there is overwhelming support for this. When someone 
says ``just vote,'' this is what they should just vote on in the House. 
The House passes this, and it is over. The government shutdown is over. 
The President will sign it and literally within--I don't know how long 
it will take them to consider it in the House, 20 minutes for a vote, 
or an hour for all the procedural mechanisms to play out--and then the 
President would sign it. I am sure there are people who would drive it 
to the White House to have him sign it.

[[Page 15256]]

  That is what this is. It is a 16-page bill that is simple. It even 
has growing support on the Republican side.
  When we say just vote, just vote on this 16-page document. It may not 
look like a key--it is 16 pages of legislative language--but this is 
the key to ending what I think is not a Republican-Democratic shutdown, 
but this is the key to ending the tea party shutdown. That is what this 
is. I think most people understand that now we are into a couple of 
days of government shutdown.
  It would be very easy for that vote to take place. It would transpire 
very quickly. The Speaker would only have to put the bill on floor. He 
wouldn't have to vote for it. Most Republicans wouldn't have to vote 
for it and likely would not. But the combination of getting Democrats 
voting for it, virtually every one, and a handful of Republicans, is 
not only possible but I think there are people waiting to do it. Maybe 
the number would even grow if it actually happened. This is what should 
happen. That could happen today or the next opportunity would be 
Monday.
  I would hope the Speaker would do that because I think a lot of 
people are asking a fundamental question about who is in charge, who 
runs one part of the House or the other. It is my judgment that the tea 
party is in charge now. I hope conservative Republicans, very 
conservative Republicans, and moderate Republicans can get control of 
their party.
  What I worry about--and I think what economists worry about even more 
than I because they know more than we do about the economy--the concern 
is if they don't get control of one wing of one political party, we are 
going to have an economy that gets out of control. No one wants that, I 
don't believe, in either party.
  The other point I wanted to make about where we are--and I know there 
are people who hear a lot of back and forth and they get a little tired 
of the debate. They would rather have everyone vote in the House and 
this would be over. I think it is important to talk about the words 
``compromise'' and ``negotiation,'' because they have been used a lot 
by the Speaker and by Republican Members in the last couple of days.
  I think the record is pretty clear, even though some have forgotten 
it--and there were reminders this week--that the negotiation and the 
compromise on the resolution to keep the government operating already 
happened. It happened weeks if not months ago. Both sides agreed a 
resolution to continue funding the government would go forward with 
nothing attached to it.
  The hard part for Democrats is that we had to compromise in a very 
substantial way, and I think that is an understatement. The compromise 
we put on the table and we adhered to is the compromise of a $70 
billion cut in fiscal year 2013 enacted levels.
  What does that mean? That means we agreed to a much lower number. 
Democrats on this side passed a budget resolution in the early hours of 
a Saturday morning. We voted all night. I don't know how many votes we 
had through several days and throughout the night, but we passed a 
budget resolution which had a higher number than the number we agreed 
to later. So we compromised substantially.
  I think you could even make the argument the compromising so far has 
been all on one side--the Democratic side--to agree to a much lower 
number. But one of the most important parts of that is we compromised 
on the core issue before us. This continuing resolution and funding the 
government, keeping the government operating, is not a health care 
debate. I realize people have made it into a health care debate, but 
the core issue is will the government remain open. We said yes. Will 
the government remain open at the Democratic number? We wanted that, 
but we said no in order to keep it functioning and moving forward. We 
agreed to a lower number. That is the core issue, what will the number 
be to fund the government.
  So the compromising and the negotiating was done a long time ago and 
we were the ones who compromised. The idea that we should have a drawn-
out discussion, which they call negotiating, to open the government 
doesn't make a lot of sense. Once the government is open, we have a lot 
to debate and talk about and negotiate.
  One of the illustrations of what I am talking about in terms of what 
happened here and that transpired over many months, where Democrats 
compromised to keep the government functioning, was set forth in 
several news articles in the last couple of days, but I won't read 
them.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent to have 3 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Looking at the Thursday, October 3 edition of Politico, on 
page 19, here is the headline. I will hold it up, but it is probably 
too small to see so I will read it: ``How the Shutdown Fight Is 
Obscuring a Major Republican Victory.''
  They are saying here that the compromise the Democrats made to cut 
$70 billion is the compromise that already happened and should keep the 
government open. That is the reality.
  The good news is there is a growing number of Republicans in the 
House and Senate who are saying just what I am saying: Let's just have 
the House vote and pass the continuing resolution as it is.
  I have a number of examples from Pennsylvania. These are examples of 
what middle-class families are facing.
  I have heard from several constituents who may not be able to make 
their mortgage payments this month due to furloughs and from others who 
can't close on homes because their federal loans are not being 
processed during a shutdown. I want to take the opportunity to 
highlight two letters from my constituents. This letter No. 1:

       Because of the government shutdown, my husband has been 
     furloughed, and is now home without pay for nearly a week. 
     Our mortgage payment is due next week and we are going to be 
     short because of this. My family barely gets by as it is and 
     we cannot afford to lose an entire week's salary because of 
     government tantrums over a health care bill . . . I cannot 
     even begin to express how disappointed I am in our government 
     and your lack of consideration for middle class families who 
     are struggling.

  This is letter No. 2:

       After searching for a house for over two years, we have 
     finally found our home. We have gone through all the 
     underwriting for our mortgage, and we only need the stamp 
     from USDA. Unfortunately, since the government shutdown, USDA 
     has closed. We were supposed to have settlement on October 
     11th, 2013. My husband . . . and I already put in our notices 
     that we will be moving. This is absolutely unacceptable. 
     Please help us in making our home, OUR HOME.

  Every day that Speaker Boehner refuses to hold a vote on the Senate 
passed bill that will reopen the government causes more uncertainty and 
difficulty for Pennsylvanians and citizens across the country. It's 
time for this shutdown to end and for the House to just vote on the 
clean continuing resolution that will reopen the government.
  Let me conclude with this. I think one of the best lines of the week 
about this piecemeal approach the House is taking day after day, 
instead of just voting on the measure before them to open the 
government, came from the commander in chief of the VFW--the Veterans 
of Foreign Wars. He said:

       We expect more from our elected leadership, and not a 
     piecemeal approach that would use the military or disabled 
     veterans as leverage in a political game.

  I think that is a pretty good estimation of why we shouldn't go in 
the direction of piecemealing. The House should, in a word, just vote 
so we don't have--and I say this respectfully to my Republican 
friends--a tea party shutdown evolve into a tea party default. It is 
bad enough we are in a shutdown, but it will be a lot worse if, for the 
first time since 1789, the U.S. Government defaulted and the full faith 
of credit of the United States was badly, badly damaged.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the other day a reporter came up to me and 
said: You have been here a while. What do

[[Page 15257]]

you think it will take to end this shutdown? I replied with a single 
sentence: The Speaker of the House needs to lead.
  A majority of House Republicans want to end this shutdown by voting 
for a clean continuing resolution, but a small number of the most 
ideological Members of the House oppose such a move and oppose a vote, 
and the Speaker has given this small group a veto over the functioning 
of the U.S. Government.
  Congressman Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, made one of the 
most stunning statements about this situation. In a television 
interview this week, Congressman Dent said the following:

       I do believe it's imperative we do have a clean funding 
     bill to fund the government. That was the intent of the 
     Republican leadership all along, but obviously there were a 
     few dozen folks in the House Republican Conference who 
     weren't prepared to vote for a clean bill, and that's why 
     we're in the situation we're in right now.

  Congressman Dent, a Republican, makes it very clear what is going on 
over in the House of Representatives. There are a few dozen folks in 
the House Republican Conference who aren't prepared to vote for a clean 
bill, and that is why we are in the situation we are in right now. So 
the Speaker of the House is allowing a ``few dozen folks'' to shut down 
the U.S. Government. What an indictment of the House Republican 
leadership.
  Speaker Boehner could bring all this chaos to an end. All he has to 
do is bring the Senate's bill reopening the government to a vote. The 
Senate has voted three times on House continuing resolutions. Speaker 
Boehner has yet to schedule a single vote on the Senate's bill. Why? 
Because it would pass.
  That has to sound totally counterintuitive--that you don't bring a 
bill to the floor because it would pass. When the Speaker himself says 
he wants the government to open, and 90 percent of his own Republican 
Caucus wants the government to open but 10 percent of his caucus 
doesn't, that means he would have to depend on a few Democratic votes 
to pass the bill. And that is anathema to the Speaker of the House; a 
bill with bipartisan support cannot be allowed, in his judgment, to 
come to a vote because it would pass. That means it would be a 
bipartisan bill. It would depend upon some Democratic votes. It is his 
policy--the Speaker's policy--that he cannot hold votes on bills that 
require Democratic votes to pass.
  I cannot think of a more striking example of rank partisanship than 
that policy. I hope the Speaker will be asked one of these days to 
explain his refusal, as to why he is following the dictates of a small 
group of his caucus when there is a bipartisan solution right in front 
of him. We have looked through the media, and we cannot find where the 
Speaker has ever been asked or answered this question: Why will you not 
bring the Senate continuing resolution vote to the floor of the House 
of Representatives for a vote? Why will you not allow a vote on that 
bill?
  Instead, the Speaker sends us piecemeal bills and demands we open the 
government one program, one agency at a time. Today, there is a new 
element--a bill that would pay Federal employees whether they are on 
the job or not during this shutdown.
  Federal employees didn't ask to stop working, so we should pay them. 
But why in heaven's name--why in heaven's name--should we not let them 
get back on the job serving this country if they are going to be paid? 
Why not pass a continuing resolution and let them work? This bill to 
pay retro actively Federal employees who aren't working passed, 
apparently, unanimously today in the House of Representatives.
  Why not let them work? Pass a continuing resolution.
  I also want to ask the Republicans who support this bits-and-pieces 
approach this question: When all this piecemeal legislating is through, 
what is it that you propose to remain closed? Is it the USDA inspectors 
or offices that process small business loans? Is it the agency that 
works on Pell grants for college students? Is it NOAA forecasters who 
keep the watch on hurricanes? Is it FEMA workers who respond when 
storms come ashore? Is it the furloughed workers at the National 
Institutes of Health who process the grants that fund so much of our 
Nation's health research? Just which Americans do the House Republicans 
intend to keep as hostages to their obsession with repealing ObamaCare?
  One of the problems with the Republican approach is it makes gross 
judgments as to who will be ransomed and who will remain a hostage. 
What agencies get ransomed and which ones remain hostage? I don't think 
we can be satisfied with freeing some of the hostages while the rest 
remain captive. That is not what this country is all about. We are not 
the United States of National Parks Visitors or the United States of 
NSA. We are one nation, and that is why the attempt of the Republicans 
in the House to pick out one group of Americans at a time is going to 
fail.
  I heard one Republican say the other day that our call, the 
Democratic call, to open the entire government was ``cynical.'' What a 
remarkable statement. Here is what I call cynical: Shutting down 
government cancer trials for young patients, Head Start classrooms for 
students, benefits for the families of our troops who fall in combat, 
shutting down all that and hundreds of other things, and then offering 
to restore the government in slivers, piece by piece, while pretending 
you are doing the country a favor. That is pretty doggone cynical--
acting as if it is a compromise worthy of praise to shut down our 
government and then to allow portions of it to reopen today, perhaps 
another portion or two tomorrow, and another portion or two the day 
after that. That is cynicism.
  The anecdote to that cynicism is the true spirit of this country, and 
it is embodied in people such as Congressman John Dingell and former 
Senate majority leader Bob Dole. Bob Dole is a Republican. Both of 
those great gentlemen, Congressman Dingell and Senator Dole, served 
this country in peace and war. And when the House Republicans tried to 
cover up their destructive behavior by draping it in the love our 
Nation feels for our World War II veterans, these two men, Republican 
and a Democrat, both World War II veterans, said it clearly:

       If you want to honor the service, give the nation we risked 
     our lives for its government back, all of it.

  Here is what they said in a joint statement:

       If this Congress truly wishes to recognize the sacrifice 
     and the bravery of our World War II veterans and all who've 
     come after, it will end this shutdown and reopen our 
     government now.

  Senator Dole and Congressman Dingell added:

       Piecemeal or partial spending plans do not adequately 
     ensure that our veterans--and indeed all Americans--have 
     access to the system of self-government established to serve 
     and protect them.

  Republicans have a simple choice: Continue their current dead-end 
approach or reopen the government and then have discussions about 
health care or the budget or other issues they wish to discuss. It is 
time for those Republicans who say the government should be open, who 
say they do not believe in these destructive tactics, to match their 
words with deeds. It is time for the rhetoric now to give way to 
leadership.
  Speaker Boehner can end this all now--end this farce of rifleshot 
funding that leaves our government full of holes--and bring up for a 
vote in the House of Representatives a clean continuing resolution. 
Open the government, all of it. Open it now, Speaker Boehner, by 
allowing the House to vote on the Senate bill which will reopen this 
government.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, most people believe in compromise. Coming 
from Hawaii, I certainly believe in compromise. It is part of who we 
are.
  When you live on an island--no matter how contentious issues may 
get--because of your geographic limitations, you will always see 
someone the following morning at the Safeway, at the

[[Page 15258]]

coffee shop, at the bus stop or back at work. So I am deeply personally 
inclined toward compromise, and so are the people that I represent back 
in Hawaii.
  The problem here is that the House Republicans' supposed compromise 
is not a compromise at all. Absent from their press conferences and 
their photo ops is the truth. They are attempting to extort the end of 
the Affordable Care Act in exchange for doing the job that they were 
elected to do--a job that 800,000 Federal employees need them to do--
which is to simply just pass a bill to fund the government.
  Passing observers, people who were busy last week may be tempted to 
cast blame on both parties, but the reality is that there is no 
question, by any objective measure, of whose recklessness has forced 
our government to halt many of its most important services. This 
shutdown is on the Speaker and the tea party.
  Meanwhile, my friends and neighbors back home are suffering. About 
25,000 people in Hawaii are civilian Federal employees, and most of 
them are going without paychecks. More than 36,000 women and children 
in Hawaii depend on the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for 
Women, Infants, and Children, which makes sure that low-income mothers 
and infants are fed. Without funding, these families could actually go 
hungry. More than 3,000 children in Hawaii participate in Head Start 
programs. Head Start is a program that provides early education and 
related social services to children and their families. Without 
funding, these kids will have no place to go every day.
  Only 3 weeks after 250,000 gallons of molasses spilled into Honolulu 
Harbor--one of the worst environmental catastrophes in the history of 
the island of Oahu--Federal support for investigation, cleanup, and 
restoration activities have essentially had to stop. Those 
Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration employees responsible for assisting are not allowed to 
report to work.
  At the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, 2,600 employees are furloughed. 
Workers are forced to stay home, causing real economic hardship. This 
continued uncertainty not only affects them, but affects the decisions 
of future shipyard workers who may now choose other professions rather 
than become the naval engineers that Hawaii and our Nation desperately 
need. With nearly half of their workforce at home, officials at the 
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard are forced to make hard choices about what 
work they can perform. We need to end this shutdown so that the Pearl 
Harbor Naval Shipyard can continue to ensure that our entire naval 
fleet is ready to respond to any contingency in the Asia Pacific.
  These are not theoretical hardships or decisions. My constituents 
have been sharing their situations with me. I have received many 
letters. Let me give an example of a person from Kailua on Oahu, who 
wrote to me saying:

       Let me start by stating that I am a U.S. citizen. I love my 
     country, I love my job, I want to work and am proud to 
     support the war fighters when I can work. But I am truly 
     disappointed and feel a sense of betrayal over the past three 
     months of furloughs, budget cuts and being worried about my 
     job and career.

  Another constituent of mine from Mililani on Oahu serves in the 
Reserve. She relies on the money she receives from her monthly unit 
training assembly to pay her mortgage. She knows she may not be able to 
meet all of her financial obligations at the end of this month, which 
is when her paychecks may stop arriving. But she asked me not to give 
in on the Affordable Care Act because millions of uninsured Americans 
deserve access to health care.
  Even residents who do not collect a paycheck from the Federal 
workforce are suffering. One small business owner from Makawao, on the 
island of Maui, is suffering because her business relies on traffic to 
and from the Haleakala National Park, which has been closed since 
Monday. She says:

       Many small businesses like mine felt an immediate impact on 
     our sales as tours cancelled their trips into Hawaii's most 
     visited attraction.

  Last night I got an e-mail from someone who is waiting on a small 
business loan that is not coming through because of the delay in 
processing SBA loans. This person is expecting to have to lay off 40 
individuals from their small company.
  So the idea that this is somehow a pro-business shutdown, the idea 
that they are protecting the rights of employers, the idea that this is 
in any way good for the economy is just belied by all of the facts.
  Personally, working with a reduced staff, I began answering phone 
calls myself this week and many of the stories were similar: Without 
pay and Federal services, life has become uncertain and worrisome for 
thousands of families. This is all because House Republicans are 
throwing a temper tantrum and refusing to take a reasonable vote to 
reopen the government. This really is a tea party temper tantrum, and 
it is totally unprecedented. It is a low point for the Congress.
  But there is a solution to this, and the senior Senator from Michigan 
pointed it out. It is simple. All that has to happen is for the Speaker 
of the House to put our legislation on the floor and let the House 
vote. There is a broad bipartisan majority of Members of the House of 
Representatives who want to reopen the government.
  So I have two questions. First, for the media and for the 
constituents of Speaker Boehner: Please ask him, why in the world--if 
there is a majority of Members of the House of Representatives prepared 
to reopen the government--why he would not use his authority to put 
that legislation on the floor? And I ask everyone to ask all of their 
Members of Congress to let the House vote. If we let the House vote, 
this crisis will be done on Monday morning.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about reopening the 
government. We are now 5 days into a government shutdown that should 
never have happened. Minnesotans do not want a government shutdown. 
They want us to do our jobs, not refight the same old political battles 
over and over. With each day of the shutdown I hear more and more 
reports about how it is affecting Minnesotans, as I am sure the 
Presiding Officer hears about how it is affecting the people of Maine.
  Minnesotans seeking basic government services are being turned away. 
Hundreds of people go to the Minneapolis Social Security office each 
day to get Social Security cards. But on the first day of the shutdown, 
according to the Minneapolis StarTribune, those Minnesotans--some of 
whom took time off from work and drove long distances--arrived to find 
the card center closed.
  Minnesota's small businesses are also feeling the impact. Small 
businesses in Minnesota receive an average of $1.8 million in loans 
every day under the Small Business Administration's Guaranteed Loan 
Programs in 2012. With the government shut down, these programs will no 
longer take new applications and our businesses have to put their plans 
on hold.
  It is not just businesses that are facing problems getting access to 
loans. Minnesota is home to a lot of great, smaller financial 
institutions. We have the second most community banks in the country. 
It is the home of a lot of credit unions, and I talk with them 
regularly. Earlier this week, I met with folks from some Minnesota 
credit unions, and they explained to me that as a result of the 
shutdown, they are having problems approving mortgages because the 
Social Security Administration can't verify Social Security

[[Page 15259]]

numbers. That is not just bad for those Minnesotans who are trying to 
buy or sell a home, it is also bad for the economy.
  This week my office heard from one of those Minnesotans who is in the 
process of buying a home. Jesse is using a USDA Rural Development loan. 
His banker now has all of the documentation compiled and ready to be 
submitted to Rural Development for approval, but they are shut down. 
Jesse was originally supposed to close on October 11, next Friday, and 
the sellers were scheduled to close on another property right after 
closing on the property they are selling to Jesse.
  Jesse and his family are now living with his in-laws, and they have 
all of their possessions in storage. He doesn't know whether he will be 
able to close on his new home--all because some people thought it was a 
good idea to insist on shutting down the government to repeal the 
health care law, which isn't going to happen and never was going to 
happen.
  Jesse is really frustrated and disappointed. He felt compelled to let 
me know how this is affecting him and other people. He asked me to do 
whatever I could possibly do to end this shutdown quickly.
  The shutdown is also affecting other Minnesotans who depend on vital 
programs, such as Federal nutrition programs. An estimated 125,000 
Minnesota mothers and mothers-to-be depend on the Women, Infants, and 
Children Program, or WIC, so they can buy healthy food for their 
families. With the shutdown no new Federal funds are available to 
support WIC. That puts the program in Minnesota, and the women and 
children it serves, at risk. Hopefully, we can avoid any terrible 
consequences by getting the government up and running as quickly as 
possible.
  But in some other States, such as Utah--according to Forbes--they 
have already stopped accepting new participants.
  In a shutdown the Administration for Community Living in the 
Department of Health and Human Services can't fund senior nutrition 
programs such as Meals On Wheels. Seniors who rely on Meals On Wheels 
face uncertainty. If the shutdown goes on, State and local agencies 
will not be able to replace Federal funding and that will result in an 
outright inability to access the program. That is why I will be 
donating my salary during the shutdown to Second Harvest Heartland. It 
is a great hunger relief organization which works throughout Minnesota 
to help people who need to get food.
  Meanwhile, Minnesota's farmers cannot get the resources they need. 
Susan Magadenz, a constituent of mine from Eden Valley, MN, works at 
the USDA Farm Service Agency. She wrote me to say:

       This shutdown has cut off services to thousands of American 
     farmers. They cannot get grain checks released and are 
     missing access to funds they require to carry out their 
     operation.

  The shutdown is hitting Minnesotans in many other ways as well. The 
shutdown means that the National Institutes of Health is not awarding 
any new funds or making payments on recently awarded grants. The Mayo 
Clinic receives 40 percent of its research funding from NIH grants. By 
the way, this is one of the many reasons we are going to have to 
address the sequester. This sequester has hit vital NIH funding really 
hard, even though this is an agency that some people seem not to have 
noticed until the shutdown.
  Speaking of the effects of the shutdown compounding the damage from 
the sequester, tribal schools are being hit even harder because they 
get a substantial part of their funding from the Federal Government in 
what is called Impact Aid. Impact Aid is Federal money that goes to 
school districts where Federal property or Federal activities 
significantly reduce the local tax base. The biggest recipients are the 
schools on military bases and on Indian reservations. We have 11 tribes 
in Minnesota, and some of them get about one-third of their school 
funding from the Federal Government.
  I am on the Indian Affairs Committee, and I can tell you that the 
sequestration has been hitting them even harder than it has been 
hitting other people. These are some of the most vulnerable kids in the 
country. Their afterschool programs are being canceled because of the 
sequester. And now, on top of that, Impact Aid is at even greater risk 
because of the shutdown. That is not right. It is just wrong.
  Some veterans services, through the Department of Veterans Affairs, 
are already being curtailed, and if the shutdown goes on for very much 
longer, VA will not be able to process benefit claims and payments, 
aggravating the claims backlog we have been working so hard to address.
  These are just some of the effects the shutdown is having on 
Minnesotans. People are suffering. Minnesotans who have written and 
called my office want Congress to get things done, do our work, and not 
shut down government. More than a week ago, I voted--with the Presiding 
Officer and a majority of my colleagues in the Senate--to pass the bill 
to keep the government open and prevent the damage that a shutdown does 
to our country and to our economy.
  The House could take up that bill and pass it in a matter of hours, 
and it would reopen the government immediately. It has been widely 
reported that enough Republicans and Democrats support that bill for it 
to pass in the House if Speaker Boehner would only put it up for a vote 
in the House. That is all he needs to do. Let the full House vote on 
the continuing resolution. But the House hasn't done that.
  Instead, a faction of the Republicans in the House has decided that 
rehashing old political fights and political brinkmanship are more 
important than getting back to the job we were sent here to do, which 
is putting Americans back to work, improving education, and 
strengthening our economic recovery.
  Earlier this week I was asked what I would be working on if there 
were no shutdown. I would be working to pass my Community College to 
Career Fund Act. This legislation is aimed at closing what is called 
the skills gap. What is a skills gap? Recent studies in Minnesota show 
that about one-third to one-half of all manufacturers in our State have 
jobs they need filled, but they can't fill them because they don't have 
people with the skills to fill them. There are more than 3 million of 
those jobs across the country that are going unfilled because of the 
lack of workers with the right skills. My bill would help those 
companies that have open positions. It would help workers find jobs, 
and it would help our country be more competitive globally. It would 
address college affordability. It is the kind of thing we need to be 
doing.
  I have seen partnerships between businesses and community colleges in 
Minnesota that work--at Hennepin Technical College in Hennepin County, 
for example. A group of manufacturers worked with the school, Hennepin 
Technical College, and created a curriculum where students could get 
credentials. I went to a roundtable there and they told me they had put 
over 300 students through this course and 93 percent of them had 
permanent jobs.
  The manufacturers who are involved in this partnership had skin in 
the game. They gave Hennepin Tech machines and helped design the 
curriculum. Now they have people filling the jobs that need to be 
filled. I have seen this model work throughout Minnesota, and I have 
seen it work throughout our country.
  However, we still have a skills gap. That is why my bill would create 
a competitive grant program to incentivize partnerships between 
businesses and community colleges. This isn't just manufacturers; it is 
in health care, it is in IT. It would incentivize businesses and 
community colleges to create programs targeted at getting workers the 
skills they need to fill these jobs.
  This is what I want to be working on. This is what the Presiding 
Officer wants to be working on for the people of Maine. This is the 
kind of thing Americans sent us to do. Americans want us to learn from 
strategies that are succeeding in our States--in Minnesota and in 
Maine--and then work together to make our country more prosperous and 
stronger. What else are

[[Page 15260]]

we supposed to do? That is why they sent us.
  I recognize we have political differences we have to work through, 
but brinkmanship and crises can't be the rule; they should be the 
exception. After the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, Standard & Poor's 
downgraded our Nation's credit rating and they cited the dysfunction in 
Congress as a main reason. After that, people thought--I thought and I 
believe most people in this country thought--OK. We have learned our 
lesson. We are not going to govern by crisis and brinkmanship.
  In fact, this year, in March, the Senate passed a budget through the 
regular process, through regular order. The House passed a budget--a 
different budget, but that is the way it works--and then we are 
supposed to get together for a conference. We have sought for months to 
have a conference with the House to resolve the differences in regular 
order. But we were blocked by the same Senators who thought it was a 
good idea to shut down the government and to defund the Affordable Care 
Act. The House has simply refused to go to conference; instead, they 
waited for the government shutdown and then sought to go to conference 
on a 2\1/2\-month continuing resolution that would delay the health 
care law for 1 year.
  That is irresponsible. Minnesotans and Americans want us to govern 
responsibly.
  Brenda Gregorich from Duluth wrote me on Wednesday about her husband, 
a disabled veteran whose disability benefit is now further delayed due 
to the shutdown. She says:

       We would rather do without, than have you give in to 
     delaying the Affordable Care Act. Please stand strong and do 
     not let anyone change or delay this. We will sit tight 
     without income while you work towards this.

  Overwhelmingly, Americans do not want us to shut down the government 
to stop the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
  Earlier this week, Minnesota's health care exchange opened and, 
according to Minnesota Public Radio, received approximately 100,000 Web 
hits on its first day--the second highest number of hits in any State. 
Believe me, we are not the second largest State.
  So the shutdown is not actually stopping the implementation of the 
health care law; instead, the shutdown is threatening to do serious 
damage to our economy.
  Today, jobless claims are close to a 5-year low. The second quarter 
of 2013 marked nine consecutive quarters of economic growth. The 
private sector has created 7.5 million jobs over the last 42 months. 
There are more people on private, nonfarm payrolls than at any time 
since September of 2008.
  But the shutdown is putting our still fragile economic recovery in 
jeopardy. Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi testified before the 
Senate a few weeks ago that a shutdown lasting just a few days would 
cost the economy approximately 0.2 percent of GDP, and a longer 
shutdown could cost it as much as 1.4 percent. The U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce has called on Congress to keep the government open stating:

       It is not in the best interest of the U.S. business 
     community or the American people to risk even a brief 
     government shutdown that might trigger disruptive 
     consequences or raise new policy uncertainties washing over 
     the U.S. economy.

  This shutdown is painful for our constituents and it is damaging the 
economy. Everyone should understand this is costing the government 
money. Some people may think at least if the government is shut down, 
we are saving money. But, actually, the very opposite is the case. 
Recently, in the New York Times, they had an editorial that detailed 
some of the reasons shutdowns end up being very expensive. A shutdown 
government cannot collect fines and fees, contractors build in the cost 
of the shutdown and the added probability of future shutdowns to how 
much they charge the government. Furloughing government workers means 
lost productivity. Lost economic output means lower tax revenue for 
Federal, State, and local governments.
  This shutdown is unnecessary and it is irrational. Please, let's 
reopen the government and get back to the work the people elected us to 
do.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today marks the fifth day of the 
government shutdown. With each passing day, the consequences grow more 
severe, more people are affected, and the implications grow far more 
serious.
  Federal civilian employees working to support our National Guard, 
overhaul our nuclear submarines, and analyze the latest terrorist 
threat are being furloughed, leaving us less safe as a country. I 
understand this afternoon Secretary Hagel, in response to a letter the 
Presiding Officer and I signed, along with many of our colleagues, is 
recalling some of those civilian workers. But there are still other 
implications.
  Disabled veterans who have sacrificed so much for this country are 
facing delays in the handling of their claims. Pregnant women and 
little children who depend on the foods provided by the WIC Program are 
at risk. Vital biomedical research is being disrupted such that even 
the sickest children cannot enroll in clinical trials at the National 
Institutes of Health.
  The impact goes beyond these services provided by essential Federal 
programs. Jobs in the private sector are affected as well. In Maine, 
our gem of a national park, Acadia National Park, is shuttered during 
the peak of the foliage season. This not only disappoints tourists, it 
hurts the innkeepers, owners of bed and breakfast organizations, 
servers at restaurants, and the small gift shop entrepreneurs who 
depend on these tourists during this time of year.
  The list of harm goes on and on and on and worsens with each passing 
day. It is time for this shutdown to end.
  From the start of this debate, I have urged our House colleagues not 
to adopt a policy that linked ObamaCare with the funding of government. 
I have been outspoken in my own opposition to ObamaCare and have cast 
many votes consistent with that position. I have cosponsored and 
introduced bills to reform the law so we can better rein in health care 
costs and truly help the uninsured without jeopardizing their jobs and 
without imposing billions of dollars of new taxes, fees, and penalties 
that discourage job creation and drive up costs. But the fact is the 
Democratic Senate is never going to pass, nor is President Obama ever 
going to sign, a bill that repeals his signature accomplishment.
  So now that we have all made it crystal clear where we stand on 
ObamaCare, it is past time that we reason together on how to bring this 
impasse to an end. In that regard, I must express my own disappointment 
in the lack of results from the President's meeting with congressional 
leaders and what I understand to be the President's refusal to enter 
into negotiations with Congress.
  So let me present to my colleagues and to the President for their 
consideration a proposal to bring an end to the shutdown. The proposal 
is based on concepts that have been discussed by Senator Pat Toomey and 
Congressman Charlie Dent, and they also reflect my own personal 
discussions with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  Even the staunchest advocates of ObamaCare, including the President 
himself, recognize the law is not perfect. What 2,000-plus-page law 
dealing with extremely complex issues could be? The President himself 
has delayed the implementation of the employer mandate and certain 
consumer protections.
  I have, therefore, searched for common ground on reforming ObamaCare, 
seeking a proposal that has widespread bipartisan support in order to 
attract the necessary votes of our House colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle; that is, the repeal of the 2.3-percent tax on the sales of 
medical equipment. When such an amendment repealing this tax was 
considered by the Senate during the budget resolution, it passed by a 
resounding vote of 79 to 20. Clearly, it has strong bipartisan support.
  This $30 billion tax on medical devices such as pacemakers and 
defibrillators will cause the loss of as

[[Page 15261]]

many as 43,000 domestic jobs, according to industry estimates. It will 
reduce investment in research to produce new medical devices and, 
ironically, it will increase health care costs because the 
manufacturers will simply pass on the costs to consumers.
  Now the administration has protested the idea of repealing this tax 
because it would lose $30 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. 
Fair enough. Let's make up for the lost revenue by providing an offset. 
It is a complicated one, but it works. It is called pension smoothing. 
It would smooth out the amount of payments businesses make into pension 
plans. This is not an unusual concept. New York State has adopted it to 
allow local school systems to reduce their annual pension contributions 
somewhat next year in exchange for higher payments in future years. The 
result of allowing private businesses to smooth out their pension 
contributions would produce tax revenue by lowering their deductions, 
and that could be used to offset the cost of repealing the tax on 
medical equipment.
  Second, I would propose that the continuing resolution funding 
government include a bipartisan bill that Senator Mark Udall and I 
introduced earlier this year to give agencies flexibility to deal with 
sequestration. It makes no sense at all for Federal managers not to be 
able to set priorities and then submit their plans to the 
appropriations committees as they do now with reprogramming requests. 
Sequestration is a flawed policy. It does not discriminate between 
absolutely essential programs and those that are duplicative, wasteful, 
or simply less important. Now, it is Congress that should be making 
these decisions, but if the across-the-board meat-ax cuts of 
sequestration stay in effect, the least we can do is let Federal 
managers set priorities and manage their budgets subject to 
congressional oversight.
  It is my hope that if repeal of the medical equipment tax, offset 
fully by the pension-smoothing proposal, plus the Collins-Udall 
flexibility bill were combined with a continuing resolution to fund 
government, we might well have the combination necessary to secure the 
votes and reopen government. Surely, it is worth a try. So on this late 
Saturday afternoon, I offer this proposal, and I urge my House 
colleagues to send us such a bill, which I would then urge the Senate 
majority leader to schedule for an immediate vote.
  We have a lot to do to restore the public's confidence in our ability 
to govern. We can start by offering and voting on specific proposals 
such as this one. It is time that both sides come out from their 
partisan corners, stop fighting, and start legislating in good faith. 
The shutdown represents a failure to govern and must be brought to an 
end.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am not happy to be here, but it is an 
honor and a privilege to be on the Senate floor representing the people 
of Louisiana and speaking for constituents around the country on this 
important subject. It is unfortunate we are here today because of the 
irresponsible behavior of one group of Members from one party in 
basically one Chamber.
  While I most certainly respect my colleague from Maine and think that 
the proposal she has generally outlined has a lot of merit--and I would 
add, there would probably be 15, 20, or 25 other Senators from both 
parties who have worked together to find common ground on many issues 
who could come up with equally meritorious proposals--it misses a very 
important point. The point is simply that the House Republicans and a 
handful of Senate Republicans have forced the government into a 
shutdown, hurting their own constituents--hundreds of thousands of 
their own constituents--and small businesses in their districts that do 
not deserve in any way to be dragged into this fight or to be used as 
bait in these negotiations. That point cannot be understated, and it 
cannot be ignored.
  This whole issue is not caused because neither side can compromise or 
we cannot find common ground. We have proven that over and over on 
hundreds of issues. I myself, along with the Senator from Maine and the 
Presiding Officer--who is new here but not new to government--have been 
part of dozens of extraordinary efforts when there did not seem to be 
any way forward to find a way. So we know how to do that. We can do it. 
The problem is that there is a rump group of Republicans and the 
Republican House leadership that have made a terrible mistake in 
shutting the government down and putting government workers and our 
private sector partners--and I want to underscore ``our private sector 
partners.'' This government does not work with just Federal employees 
alone. They do the bulk of the wonderful work--many of them do--that we 
rely on every day--our neighbors, our relatives, our aunts, uncles, et 
cetera. But the real power is not just with them, it is with the 
private sector that helps this government and our nonprofit and not-
for-profit sector that joins with us in fulfilling the missions, the 
important missions of government that have been put at risk.
  What that rump group did, though, was basically take all of this 
hostage until they get something. What they want to date is not clear. 
They want many things, all sorts of different things. One of them is to 
repeal the Affordable Care Act or to dismantle it in such a way that it 
cannot work to provide for the first time in the history of America 
affordable access to health insurance. There are other reasons that 
have been stated. They do not like the spending levels. They do not 
like the debt. They do not like Democrats generally. They do not like 
President Obama. There have been many things I have read about what 
they have said.
  But no matter what they have said, their actions are irresponsible, 
reckless, and neither the President nor the Democrats should enter into 
negotiation with a gun to our constituents' heads. That is as simple as 
it is. There is a difference, but it is an important difference. House 
Republicans cannot get Democrats to any negotiating table unless they 
put the weapons down. These weapons are being used against their own 
constituents and their own businesses in their own districts, and it is 
not fair.
  I want to read from one of my constituents, who says it better than I 
could. It is one of the messages that came into our office. We have 
been closed but functioning with a small staff. This message is from 
Vicki Cusimano, whose husband Mark is a 13-year military veteran who 
works on planes as a technician at one of our great air stations in 
Belle Chasse, LA, which, by the way, would be on high alert today 
because there is a storm out in the Gulf of Mexico. Thank goodness it 
is not a hurricane, but it is tropical storm Karen that has put the 
whole gulf coast a little bit on edge. It is not a huge and powerful 
storm, but these storms are unpredictable, as the Presiding Officer 
knows, being from a coastal State himself, how these things can happen.
  Anyway, Belle Chasse is right there. Vicki is there with her husband 
Mark, a 13-year veteran. Mark says:

       They've--

  Speaking of Congress--

     just pushed us away and said, ``Hey, we're going to fight, 
     and you're going to pay for it.'' Well, they're still getting 
     paychecks. We're not, and now we're trying to figure out how 
     we're going to fend for our families.

  That is what Mark said.
  Vicki says:

       We have bills [to pay], and you can't tell Wells Fargo, 
     ``Sorry. I can't pay my house note today because the federal 
     government has furloughed my husband.''

  So I want to clarify because I have been one of the ones saying we do 
need to negotiate, but we need to negotiate without a gun to our head. 
We need to negotiate when the House decides and the House recognizes 
that their reckless behavior cannot be encouraged, that it is wrong. I 
know it is hard when you make a mistake to admit you are wrong. It is 
very difficult to do. But this would be a time to do it and then move 
on to negotiations that we can have over everything, whether it is the 
Affordable Care Act, whether it is the budget, whether it is 
appropriations. I

[[Page 15262]]

am chair of the Homeland Security appropriations bill. I most certainly 
know how to negotiate a major bill, $42 billion. Dan Coats is my 
ranking member from Indiana. We have been in negotiations literally on 
and off for years as partners on the Homeland Security bill.
  But when we asked, the Democrats and the President--but the Democrats 
asked to go to the budget conference to work out the differences 
between the budget in the House, the Ryan budget, and the budget in the 
Senate, the Murray budget--which, unusually, was cast during the same 
week. People will not even remember this because it was so long ago. It 
was sometime in April, sometime in April. The House passed their budget 
after an open, raucous debate. We passed our budget. I think we stayed 
on the floor until 5 o'clock in the morning, as I recall. I can 
remember being very tired and everybody was pretty aggravated. But we 
stayed here. We got our work done.
  So when people call for negotiation, the time for negotiation was 
then, and we can still have this 6-month-delayed negotiation. But the 
House Republicans--the tea party Republicans and House Republicans--
have to put their weapons down. You cannot negotiate with a gun to your 
head. It is not fair--not just to us but to our constituents and to our 
businesses.
  I am saying to my delegation and to the House Republicans: Do not use 
these reckless and irresponsible tactics. In addition, do not even 
threaten--do not even use the threat of not living up to the full faith 
and credit of the United States of America. You are really playing with 
fire then. That is what I believe the President is saying. That is what 
Democrats are saying.
  Now, we have proven--it is not a matter of conjecture or a matter of 
guessing or a matter of, well, they say they negotiate, but they really 
will not. This is the record. Here is the record. This is evidence. 
This is not something anybody made up. It is in the Congressional 
Record. I am not going to read the whole sheet here, but I am going to 
say--what this says is that on 19 separate occasions Senator Reid or 
Senator Murray or Senator Wyden or one of the Democrats came to the 
floor--and here are the dates: April 23, May 6, May 7, May 8, May 9, 
May 14, May 15, May 16, May 21, May 22, et cetera, et cetera, June 19, 
26, July, August, and then the latest was October 2. OK. Those are the 
facts. On every single occasion, there was one out of six Senators who 
stood on behalf of the others here and blocked it and said: No, we 
cannot, we will not go to a budget conference. Those Senators were 
Senator McConnell on May 8, Senator McConnell on May 9, et cetera, et 
cetera, Senator Paul on May 21, Senator Toomey on June 19, Senator 
Cruz--who has been the leader of this irresponsible and reckless 
strategy, which I do not think is getting his party or his future 
anywhere, but I will have to see about that--Mike Lee on July 17, and 
then Senator Rubio on August 1.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 more 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. So this is the record. When people say Democrats have 
not been willing to negotiate, that is false, false, false. We have 
been trying to negotiate for 6 months, and the way you negotiate is 
going to a budget conference.
  Even now we are in control of the Senate. People elected us. No one 
appointed me to be here. The people of this United States elected us in 
a fair and square election. Some of us won by a lot, some of us only by 
small amounts, but it was an election by the people of the United 
States. The people elected the Republican leadership in the House.
  They passed a budget. We passed a budget. All we have to do is go to 
conference. Not everyone in Washington is reckless. Not everyone loves 
to fight over our constituents' misfortune of unemployment and lack of 
business. There is a small group that put them on the chopping block. 
They need to take them off. They should not be used as fodder in 
political fighting and debate. It is not right. That is the argument.
  When they remove the constituents and re-fund the government and put 
the government open again, we could then ask to go to conference. This 
time they should say yes. They just have to not show up. Sit at your 
desk and do not say anything, do not object. We will go to conference, 
a budget conference. Then you put everything on the table. Everything. 
You can talk about anything you want. You can talk about taxes, no 
taxes. You can talk about how much money you want to spend overall. 
Most importantly, you can decide how much revenue, how much in taxes 
you want. What the American people want is a budget. We have not had 
one for a while. We need to get one. We have had spending limits, but 
we have not had a budget. We have had spending limits, but we have not 
had a budget. Let's get a budget.
  Then those of us who are appropriators--I am one of those, and in 
charge of helping to try to build the homeland security budget--the 
chairman then will give us the number that is agreed to by the 
Democrats and Republicans. They will say to me and Senator Coats: Okay, 
you have X amount of money to spend. You have lots and lots of requests 
out there. You have lots of responsibilities. Let me list a few: 
Securing the entire border of the United States, all airports, all land 
ports, all river ports. We have to check all the cargo that comes into 
the country.
  Our budget funds TSA, not the most popular group. But we try to keep 
our air travelers safe and support international commerce at every 
level. Every business traveler who is trying to cut a deal in Germany 
or in England or in Asia has to get either preclearance or global entry 
or travel. We support that effort. We want our businesses out there 
making contracts, bringing jobs to America. We cannot do that if this 
budget does not get done. So give us a number. We will put the budget 
together the best we can together. We will live within the restrictions 
that are given to us--or the guidelines. We will not spend one penny 
more than what the budget tells us.
  But we cannot even get there because not everyone is being reckless. 
Not everyone is being unreasonable. There is clearly an identifiable 
group, led by the Senator from Texas. One of his colleagues or someone 
in the press--I am not sure who, but it was a great quote--said that 
Senator Cruz has led the Republican Party and the tea party into the 
middle of eight lanes of traffic and walked away. Eight lanes of 
traffic with traffic coming both ways is a very unsafe and dangerous 
place to be. They are going to have to find their way to the side of 
that road.
  Open the government, and then say yes to a budget conference where 
all things can be negotiated, and have been for literally hundreds of 
years. This is not a new process the Senate and the House have been 
undertaking. This is regular order.
  I am going to end here. This is day 5. I want to have this printed in 
the Record, since they are in the middle of traffic now, with very few 
safe ways out, but we could open the government and get to the 
negotiating table.
  I want to have printed in the Record that for businesses, 800,000 
workers--I know they passed a bill a little while ago to say those 
workers could be paid. That is important to do. But, again, it is not 
just workers. What about the contracts they are supposed to be giving 
out or the projects? They still do not have authorization even if they 
come back to work to do that. It is going to affect business. Let me 
say how much.
  The Federal Government spends $400 billion in the private sector. 
That is $1 billion a day. So this reckless behavior has already cost $5 
billion; every day $1 billion gone.
  Is their resolution in the House going to reinstate that $1 billion 
that small businesses have lost or business generally? I do not think 
so. I did not read the fine print. I do not think that is in there. 
Every day, if you say 25 percent of all of our contracts should go to

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small businesses, that is $240 million a day for small businesses lost.
  The government roughly makes about 150 loans to small businesses 
every day. We are in day 5. That is 600 loans gone. I could go on and 
on with every day how that affects businesses.
  I am happy to see, in conclusion, that the House, in realizing they 
are in a bad, bad situation, has sent a lifeline out to the 800,000 
Federal employees, their own constituents that they put on the chopping 
block and took these paychecks as negotiating fodder because they do 
not like the bill that passed 3 years ago, upheld by the Supreme Court, 
and being implemented in the majority of States, including States with 
Republican Governors.
  That is foolishness, recklessness, and irresponsibility. But that is 
what they did. We did not do that; they did that. If we open the 
government, get contracts going again, stop threatening small 
businesses that have nothing to do with this, then we can go to the 
budget conference and open everything for negotiation.
  Maybe we can do the medical device tax. I would like to work on flood 
insurance, for one. My constituents are going crazy. Flood insurance 
has gone up tenfold. I cannot even get to a negotiating table. We would 
like to pass the WRDA bill in Louisiana. I would like to see the 
Keystone Pipeline negotiated. I am for the Keystone Pipeline. The 
President is against it. But maybe we can find some way forward.
  But we cannot go anywhere until we get out of eight lanes of traffic. 
The only way to do that is to admit you were wrong, open the 
government, and then go to conference and put everything on the table 
and let's talk.
  I see my good friend from Connecticut here. I thank him for joining 
us on the floor today.
  I yield the floor.

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