[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 15263-15268]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, let me thank my great friend from 
Louisiana for her remarks and for all the work she has done to stand up 
for her constituents, but also for small businesses. I think she makes 
a great point, that right now there are thousands of small businesses 
throughout my State, the northeast, throughout the Presiding Officer's 
State as well, that are waiting for loans from the SBA that cannot get 
them because right now the SBA is essentially out of business. That 
right now is having a detrimental effect on our economy.
  I thank her for her great advocacy on behalf of the small businesses 
throughout Louisiana and across the country.
  There is a lot of truth to the fact that there can be mutual blame 
thrown around this place very often when it comes to the reasons why we 
have not solved a lot of our most vexing problems as a nation. The 
deficit, for instance, did not get to be the size it is without both 
parties playing a role in the fact that we still sit back without the 
will to try to take on that enormous problem and burden we are leaving 
to our kids. That is due to both Republican and Democratic 
intransigence.
  There are a lot of things that happen here in which you can very 
accurately and appropriately assess that both sides of the aisle have 
been part of the blame. This is not one of them. This is not one of 
them. When it comes to trying to figure out the reasons why our 
government is shut down, it is pretty simple to explain how we got 
here.
  Yet I have heard a lot of my friends on the other side blame the 
majority leader and blame the President for the shutdown. I have even 
heard some newscasts try to suggest that it is just sort of good old-
fashioned generic gridlock here in Washington that has led to this 
shutdown.
  Mostly the American public gets it. I think mostly the American 
public understands that this is essentially a shutdown of the Federal 
Government caused by a small band of ideological conservatives in the 
House of Representatives called the tea party. I have sort of tried to 
struggle with how to explain this to the handful of people back in 
Connecticut who still do not understand what is going on, although 
there is no way to create an analogy that works.
  I mean this shutdown is so ridiculous, it is so unique that there is 
no metaphor that works. I have tried this one. Imagine that there is a 
couple. They live in Boston, let's say. The wife loves living in 
Boston, but the husband has sort of been fed up with Boston for a 
little while. He wants to move to the west coast, let's say to San 
Francisco. But they have been living in Boston for a long time. They 
have this disagreement as to what to do next. They have been having it 
for a while. They have not sorted it out. But they chose to live in 
Boston, so that is where they continue to be.
  Well, one day the husband comes home and says to his wife: You know 
what. I have had enough. I have had enough. I want to move to San 
Francisco. If you do not agree, I am going to call up some contractors 
and have them come over and take the roof off our house.
  She says: What are you talking about? Take the roof off our house? I 
never talked about the roof coming off our house. The roof is 
important. It keeps us warm. It keeps us dry. You are kidding, right? 
You are not going to take the roof off the house.
  He said: Listen, I am going to give you 3 days. If you do not agree 
to move to San Francisco, then I am going to call someone and take the 
roof off of our house.
  She says: Well, of course, I am not going to do that. Of course I am 
not going to move to a place that I do not want to move to. We should 
talk about that. We should come up with a compromise. We should discuss 
this. Certainly I am not going to agree to move to San Francisco if you 
are threatening to take the roof off the house.
  Three days go by. She goes to work. She comes home, and the roof is 
gone. He took it off. She cannot believe it. She cannot believe it. 
Rain is coming in. It is the middle of winter. It is freezing cold. It 
is miserable.
  He shows up to work on the second day, and says to his coworkers: You 
cannot believe what my wife did. She took the roof off our house.
  The coworkers say: Well, what do you mean?
  I told her we had to move to San Francisco. And when she did not 
agree, I told her I was going to take the roof off the house. I did, 
but it was her decision. She would not move to where I wanted to move. 
So I had to go through with it. I had to take the roof off the house.
  If you were that coworker and listened to that story, you would know 
exactly what was going on. You would know exactly who to blame. You 
would associate yourself with the decision the wife made and say: 
Forget it, I am not moving somewhere with that threat hanging over my 
head. You would back her up when she said: Put the roof back on the 
house before we start discussing about where we are going to live next.
  That is essentially what has happened here. We had always assumed 
that the operation of the Federal Government was not something we 
negotiated over, just like the woman in my analogy assumed that the 
roof being on the house was not something that she had to worry about 
disappearing.
  Yet here we are. The government is shut down simply because of the 
demands of a small group of tea party Republicans in the House of 
Representatives. Their demand in this case is they want the health care 
law repealed, despite the fact that it was passed by two legislative 
bodies, signed by the President, upheld by the Supreme Court, verified 
in an election in which a President who said he would implement it was 
reelected by a huge margin. Every single Senator in the Senate who 
supported it and ran for reelection was reelected.

[[Page 15264]]

  That is their demand in this case. As the Senator from Louisiana 
said, we should react as we would expect that woman to react. We want 
the government back up and operating, and then we will talk. I want the 
roof back on my house before we discuss where we are going to live.
  This isn't about politics any longer. This isn't about inconvenience.
  We are now going into the second week of this shutdown. It has 
started to ruin lives, such as Melanie Rhodes' from Bridgeport, CT. A 
few years ago Melanie was homeless, living out on the streets. Things 
were very tough for Melanie. Melanie became pregnant and had a little 
boy, a wonderful little boy about 2 months premature, a wonderful 
little boy named Malachi. Malachi had some developmental issues right 
off the bat, but she knew her life had changed and she had to do 
everything possible for her little boy. She placed him into the Birth 
to Three System, our early screening program. They identified the 
problems he had. He was connected with a Head Start Program in which he 
was enrolled at about 9 months old.
  Malachi is still behind his peers at 3 years old, but he is doing a 
lot better. He is beginning to finally communicate with a handful of 
signs. Every day he has been in that Head Start Program his life and 
her life have become better. Even though she has been struggling 
through the worst recession of her life, of my life, of most of our 
lives, she started to turn the corner very well. She applied everywhere 
over the last 3 years. She did everything we would have asked of her to 
try to find a job. She applied with Walmart, Walgreens, and McDonald's.
  Finally, in the past few weeks she got a job as a busdriver. She had 
completed her training, was waiting for her background check to come 
through, and was to start her job in a matter of days. She stayed up 
all night last Monday night, past midnight, watching CNN, watching the 
news, to see if the government was going to be up and operating. She 
knew the Bridgeport Head Start Program runs on a budget that expired at 
the end of September. That was one of the handful of programs that 
would shut down immediately upon the shutdown of the government.
  She woke up on Tuesday morning and hoped against all hope by calling 
Head Start to see if they were going to be up and operating, and they 
weren't. They had shut down. Bridgeport told 1,000 families across 
southwestern Connecticut that they couldn't show up for preschool that 
day. Their families had to scramble to find some kind of coverage for 
childcare.
  For Melanie it was a double disaster because she has a child with 
developmental disabilities. She can't have just anybody take care of 
him, and she is having a hard time finding someone. She is now going to 
be faced with not only inappropriate care for her child, perhaps 
setting him back developmentally, but she also probably can't start 
that job she was waiting for.
  If we take this situation and multiply it times 1,000 in only one 
city in Connecticut, then look at the fact that that problem could be 
multiplied 18,000 times over the course of next week as more Head Start 
Programs shut down, we see this shutdown is not about politics. It is 
not about inconvenience. It is about people's lives falling apart.
  What about the 1,500 workers at Sikorsky Aircraft, the majority of 
whom are in Connecticut. They have 43 employees from the Federal 
Government who inspect the helicopters as they go down the assembly 
line. But because those helicopter assembly lines are making Black Hawk 
helicopters for the U.S. military and they move pretty fast, if they 
don't have those inspectors for a handful of days, they can't continue 
to move the assembly line.
  On Friday, 1,500 workers were furloughed from Sikorsky Aircraft, let 
go until those inspectors are back on the job--43 inspectors equal 
1,500 private sector layoffs.
  When you are laid off from a job, sometimes if you can see it coming, 
you can try to make arrangements. If you are on a paycheck-to-paycheck 
basis, where everything that comes in goes right back out again to pay 
your food bills, mortgage, student loans, whatever it may be--if you 
can see the layoff coming, then you might be able to scramble to find a 
part-time job or save a little bit more for the final few months of 
your employment. But when you get a notice in 2 days you are going to 
be laid off for an indeterminate amount of time, there is no way for 
the people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck to put their lives 
together.
  As Senator Landrieu said, that results in mortgage payments being 
missed, in credit ratings going into the tank, and lives being ruined 
off of a purely political crisis caused by a handful of rightwing 
Republicans in the House of Representatives.
  I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle and Speaker Boehner 
say, yes, but if the Democrats would only negotiate, would compromise, 
we could get this thing done. Before I yield the floor to my friend 
from Rhode Island, I wish to say two things about that insistence from 
Republicans that the problem is not their demands that the health care 
law be repealed before we open the government but it is that Democrats 
will not sit down and negotiate.
  I think the Senator from Louisiana said it best: It makes no sense to 
negotiate with a gun to our head. Open the government and we will sit 
down and talk about anything the other side wishes to talk about.
  Let us also discuss what the positions of the two parties are. 
Republicans want the most important achievement of President Obama's 
first term repealed. We want the government to continue to be 
operational. Republicans want a law taken off the books that will 
ensure 30 million more people with health care. We want the government 
to continue to pay its bills.
  What I am trying to say is that we don't actually have demands. All 
we want is what our constituents have always expected to happen to 
continue to happen. All we have asked for in this crisis created by tea 
party Republicans is for the government to be open and for the 
government to continue to pay its bills.
  We could make a bunch of our own demands. I think it is ridiculous 
that we don't have background checks on the purchase of firearms in 
this country, but I am not saying I am going to shut down the 
government unless I get my way on background checks. All I want is the 
government to be open and for us to pay our bills.
  Second, normally one negotiates when we don't have consensus. 
Normally, we sit down and compromise when 50 percent of the Senate and 
50 percent of the House doesn't agree to the exact same thing. That is 
why we have to sit down and talk--because we do not have consensus.
  We do. We have a bill, which is the clean continuing resolution--and 
otherwise just keep the government open and operating for another 6 
weeks on the same rules it used to be operating under. We had, I think, 
54 votes in the Senate. It is publicly supported by a majority of the 
House of Representatives.
  Why would we negotiate when we already have a bill that is supported 
by the majority of the Senate and the majority of the House? The only 
thing that has to happen in order for the government to get back and on 
its feet is for Speaker Boehner to call a vote on that bill. It makes 
no sense that Speaker Boehner says sit down and negotiate, when there 
is already a proposal pending before the House that has the support of 
the majority of both bodies.
  We don't have a lot to negotiate over because all we want is the 
government to open and for us to pay our bills. We don't need to 
negotiate because we already have a proposal that enjoys the support of 
the majority of this body and the majority of that body.
  Tea party Republicans should stop holding this country hostage to 
their ideological demands. Speaker Boehner should call a vote on this 
bill tonight and this totally self-created crisis could come to an end 
today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent to speak up to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page 15265]]


  Mr. REED. Mr. President, we are 5 days into the government shutdown, 
but unfortunately there has been no progress in resolving this issue. I 
disagree with some policies championed by my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle, and indeed I sometimes disagree with the President 
and Members of my own party on specific policy prescriptions. Case in 
point: raising the student loan interest rate and the so-called JOBS 
Act. In both cases I tried to make my best argument on the merits of 
the issue, and then we voted, moved on, and I am still working to try 
to improve both laws. I haven't given up, but I have not shut the 
government down because my views didn't prevail.
  So I say to my colleagues on the other side, the way to change laws 
you do not like is not to shut down the government at the expense of 
your fellow Americans and at the expense of our economy; it is to try 
to build consensus and persuade a broad swath of the American people 
that there is a better way of doing things and making concrete 
proposals.
  It has been pointed out many times before that the House of 
Representatives has attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 45 
times at last count, I believe, but I have yet to hear any credible 
plan put forth to replace it or strengthen it or make it work better. 
And the American people want our constructive efforts to succeed. They 
would like it modified if it needs modification. But the attitude of 
some of our colleagues has been to just strip away the whole book of 
significant legislation--and replace it with what? We don't know. That 
is irresponsible.
  This Senate and this Congress is a great institution. Our Founding 
Fathers, in their wisdom, set up a system with plenty of room for 
debate, different points of view, and checks and balances. But checks 
and balances are not what is happening today. The government has been 
shut down not because Congress can't agree on levels of funding. We 
agree. We have actually agreed with the House on their level. The real 
reason is that some on the other side of the aisle--and I do think it 
is just a small cadre--have a very different vision about the 
government itself. And this is not hyperbole. We can all recall that 
during the Republican Presidential primaries we had candidates seeing 
who could out-promise whom in terms of eliminating aspects of the 
Federal Government. They proposed getting rid of the EPA, the Commerce 
Department, the Department of Education, FEMA, and the Department of 
Energy--not reforming these agencies, not changing their missions, not 
making them more efficient or more effective, but just doing away with 
them--and that spirit is animated in the House today, unfortunately.
  I am particularly glad that view did not prevail in the last election 
because these agencies are vital to all Americans. Looking back at 
Rhode Island, we were victims of serious historic flooding over the 
last several years. If FEMA had not been there to step in and help us, 
we would still be trying to pull ourselves together. As a small State, 
like Connecticut and other States, we do not have the resources to do 
it. We saw the same thing with Hurricane Sandy. They were there helping 
efficiently and effectively. And that is one of the agencies my 
colleagues are not allowing to operate today.
  Many small business men and women in my community, manufacturers, et 
cetera, have been aided immensely by the Department of Commerce. That 
is something else that was on the hit list during the Presidential 
primaries by Republican candidates.
  Those of us who enjoy clean water, fresh air, and the importance of a 
healthy environment--i.e., every American--even if they do not notice 
it or admit it, their health and the health of their children would be 
jeopardized severely if EPA was eliminated. There are calls repeatedly 
to make it more efficient, more effective, make it more businesslike, 
and those calls have to be recognized and heeded. But the notion that 
we would just wipe it away and the private markets or private self-
interests would ensure that our air is clean, that our water is clean, 
and that our health is protected is not something that is either 
realistic or, indeed, even something that is arguable.
  There is room in this country for a range of views, and I recognize 
that many of my colleagues, who consider themselves members of the tea 
party, are simply doing their best to represent the views of those who 
sent them here. But I would hope everyone who has been entrusted with 
the responsibility of government could work together to at least make 
the government function--i.e., to stay open. That is a basic 
responsibility our constituents entrusted us with when they sent us to 
Washington.
  There is nothing patriotic about shutting down the government, 
putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and potentially 
forcing our country into default. And the hundreds of thousands out of 
work are not just government employees. As my colleague from 
Connecticut pointed out, now defense contractors are beginning to 
furlough. These industries are the heart and soul of so many 
communities. When these jobs are lost, there is a multiplier effect, 
which affects the entire community. And this cascading series of 
economic problems will get worse each day we keep this government 
closed.
  Both sides need to work together, but we have already significantly 
compromised on our side. Again, as the Senator from Connecticut pointed 
out, we are voting for a continuing resolution at the House level, not 
our level--a multibillion-dollar gap. We have accepted that. At least 
for the interim period, the 6 weeks or so of this continuing 
resolution, we accept the House's position. And of course, for many of 
us who have been arguing vociferously to end this sequestration, to 
increase investment, this was a significant compromise. We are not 
seeing that reciprocated on the other side; it is ``my way or the 
highway,''--stop ObamaCare or nothing gets done, Government doesn't 
work, and we will default on our credit.
  That is reckless, irresponsible, and does not serve the interest of 
those who sent us here.
  It is time for those who are proposing the wild plans of shutting 
down the government if they don't get exactly what they want to grasp 
the reality of the situation. We cannot keep this government closed. 
This closure will last as long as Speaker Boehner wants it to. He can, 
under the rules of the House, call up this bill within hours--perhaps 
less--or Republicans can join Democrats and sign a discharge petition 
to bring it to the floor regardless of the Speaker's position. Those 
are two paths that should be taken immediately to open this government.
  We all have a shared responsibility for the government. As I sense 
it, one of the basic rationales of this government is to keep the 
lights on, keep people working. Let's get to the difficult negotiations 
on how we improve efficiency, how we improve operations, but we have a 
responsibility to keep our government open--to open it and then keep it 
open--and the longer this shutdown drags on, the more people will be 
affected. Cancer patients, young mothers, scientific researchers, 
Federal employees, people who take prescription drugs all are being 
negatively impacted. Government contractors are being laid off.
  Let's work together and reopen the government for business. Let's 
continue to debate the issues. We have many issues we can debate but 
not under the sword of Damocles--of a government that is closed and an 
economy that is beginning to lose more and more of its momentum and 
strength. That harms the American people irresponsibly and recklessly 
for a very narrow self-interested principle.
  There is another aspect here too. It is not just the government 
shutdown, but we are coming perilously close to a potential default on 
the debt of the United States. The government closure is affecting our 
economy dramatically, but a default on our debt could be catastrophic. 
There is a growing risk that this brinkmanship on the part of the 
Republican Party could force us to default. We are only 12 days away 
from a potential default because the tea party Republicans would rather 
play their games over the Affordable Care Act,

[[Page 15266]]

ObamaCare, than choose to do what we have always done--pay our bills.
  This is not about borrowing more money to spend more. This is about 
paying for those things we agreed on--Republicans and Democrats--
through congressional appropriations, through legislation creating 
programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security.
  These are obligations we have incurred, and we won't be able to pay 
all of them. Indeed, on October 17, unless my Republican colleagues end 
their obstruction, the Nation will not be able to pay its bills, 
causing dire consequences for American workers and our economy.
  Many commentators have pointed out a default will destabilize the 
national and global economy. It could cause another financial crisis 
and over the span of a month cause an estimated $106 billion shortfall 
of Federal spending that would cause a severe economic contraction.
  If we can't pay our debts, then we will contract federal activity. 
That contraction will be multiplied in the economy. Our economic growth 
will slow. In fact, not only decelerate, it could collapse. Ironically, 
one aspect of that is it will almost overnight increase our deficit; as 
less economic activity produces less revenue, there are more people who 
are laid off and eligible for unemployment insurance. It is a downward 
spiral.
  Economists on both sides agree that it is just the specter of default 
that has serious economic consequences. In fact, we have already seen 
the 1-month interest rate of Treasurys jump over the 6-month and the 
year-long rates. The markets are already voting. They are nervous. They 
are nervous that the Republicans will carry out these threats, and you 
can see it in what they are demanding in order to buy the short-term 
paper of the United States versus the longer term paper.
  We just have to look back at August 2011 to know there will be 
consequences. Back then, Republicans pushed us perilously close to 
defaulting on the debt, and that manufactured crisis set back job 
growth and the economy. The Government Accountability Office estimated 
that the 2011 debt ceiling crisis cost taxpayers $1.3 billion in that 
fiscal year. It also rattled American households and created economic 
uncertainty. From June to August 2011, consumer confidence fell 22 
percent. And I suspect that if this debate--particularly with respect 
to the debt ceiling--continues to pick up over the next few days, 
American consumers will become more and more nervous.
  It took several months after August 2011 for the recovery of consumer 
confidence, for people to come back into the marketplace to begin to 
participate. The S&P index of equity prices fell about 17 percent in 
that period surrounding the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, and it did not 
recover to its average over the first half of the year until 2012. So 
we are going to see a market effect. We know that. That was August 
2011, and indeed I am concerned that this crisis is even more perilous 
because the opposition seems to be more intransigent. Those people are 
saying there won't be any consequences to default, or repeal of 
ObamaCare is more important than anything else, even the economic well-
being of the United States.
  Roughly half of U.S. households own stock either directly or 
indirectly through mutual funds or 401(k) accounts. So this fall in 
equity markets, which we saw in 2011, will cut across a wide swath of 
the American public. We saw in 2011, the result of the approaching 
deadline and debate over whether or not to pass the debt ceiling, wiped 
out about $2.4 trillion of household wealth. This decline in wealth 
leads to a decline in consumption, and consumer spending accounts for 
roughly 70 percent of our gross domestic product. So put the links 
together: People are nervous. They pull back. The economy pulls back. 
Growth begins to decelerate, in fact reaching zero--or worse. That is 
demonstrably the effect in some degree from what happened in August 
2011, and would likely happen again--in fact, this time, perhaps worse.
  Already we are starting to see some of the warning signs. We are 
seeing banking institutions prepare for the worst. According to the 
Financial Times, on October 3, 2013:

       One senior executive said his bank was delivering 20-30 
     percent more cash than usual in case panicked customers tried 
     to withdraw funds en masse. The move to source extra cash is 
     a precaution to deal with an unnecessary upturn in demand, 
     banks said. . . . Banks are also holding daily emergency 
     meetings to discuss other steps, including possible free 
     overdrafts for customers reliant on social security payments 
     from the government.

  But this potential consumer dash for cash is only the tip of the 
iceberg when it comes to entirely avoidable self-inflicted economic 
wounds if we get close to--and certainly if we do not raise the debt 
ceiling, and default.
  According to The Economist, the noted British magazine, Treasurys are 
``more than 30 percent of the collateral that financial institutions 
such as investor banks use to borrow in the $2 trillion triparty repo 
market.'' That is the source of overnight funding for most large 
financial institutions and many other institutions. ``A default could 
trigger demands by lenders for more or different collateral. That might 
cause a financial heart attack, like the one prompted by the collapse 
of Lehman Brothers in 2008.''
  We are just barely understanding the inner relationships of all these 
different financial instruments and financial markets. But this is not 
the only financial instrument that could be affected. Money market 
funds are a prime source of investment by thousands of Americans--both 
institutions and individuals. According to the Federal Reserve's 
September 25, 2013 Statistical Release on the Financial Accounts of the 
United States, money market funds in the second quarter of 2013 hold 
$449 billion of U.S. Treasurys.
  Back in 2011, Matthew E. Zames, the chief operating officer for 
JPMorgan Chase and the chair of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory 
Committee--which offers observations to the Treasury Department on the 
overall strength of the U.S. economy as well as providing 
recommendations on a variety of technical debt management issues--wrote 
to at that time Secretary Geithner and expressed concern of:

       . . . a run on money market funds, as was the case in 
     September 2008 after the Lehman failure. In the event of a 
     Treasury default, I think it is likely that at least one fund 
     would be forced to halt redemptions or conceivably break the 
     buck. Since money funds investors are primarily focused on 
     overnight liquidity, even a single fund halting redemptions 
     would likely cause a broader run on money funds.

  And from the same 2011 Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee letter:

       Because Treasuries have historically been viewed as the 
     world's safest asset, they are the most widely-used 
     collateral in the world and underpin large parts of the 
     markets. A default could trigger a wave of margin calls and a 
     widening of haircuts on collateral, which in turn could lead 
     to deleveraging and a sharp drop in lending.

  What this is saying, essentially--not just in the United States but 
worldwide--this could have a huge, immediate, unpredictable global 
effect on markets, causing deleveraging, causing a sharp drop in 
lending, causing confusion and uncertainty. One thing we should 
recognize, particularly after the events of 2008, is markets do not 
like uncertainty. And when things are uncertain, they pull back. If the 
expectation is a declining market, there is a premium to the 
institution or individual that can get out first. When they start 
getting out, people notice, and then you have a stampede to the door.
  The consequences that are possible are staggering, and yet we hear so 
many of our colleagues glibly sort of saying that, if they don't get 
their way on certain aspects of this bill or that bill, they are going 
to default on the debt of the United States. I think that approach is 
very, very dangerous.
  We are seeing already some indications from financial markets that 
these factors are beginning to affect economic behavior. Again from the 
Financial Times, October 3:

       Money market funds dumped October Treasury bills on 
     Thursday, in the first sign of investor unease that 
     Washington may not

[[Page 15267]]

     raise the federal debt ceiling in the coming weeks and risk 
     triggering a technical default by the U.S. Treasury on its 
     debt.

  From the Institute of International Finance this month, a well-
respected organization:

       Just when the global economy is showing signs of 
     stabilization, with Europe emerging from recession, and 
     geopolitical risks in the Middle East seem to be subsiding, 
     consumer and investor confidence could be tested by a range 
     of political and policy uncertainties . . . What is truly 
     unprecedented is a possible, but still unlikely--

  And I hope that is the case, unlikely--

     combination of government shutdown and failure to lift the 
     current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling by October 17. The impact 
     of such a failure of political leadership on business, 
     consumer and investor confidence is difficult to say and 
     could lead to further downgrades of the U.S. sovereign debt. 
     Reflecting rising credit risks, 5-year CDS spreads for the 
     U.S. have risen by 45 percent in the past 3 weeks to 33 basis 
     points and could test, or exceed, the previous high of 62 
     basis points reached during the previous threat of default in 
     2011.

  That is an indication the market is getting very nervous about what 
we are doing. These rising rates are not good for the United States. 
They mean the market is beginning to look at the default as possible 
and the risk is being written into the instruments that they are 
providing in terms of insurance, if you will, on U.S. Treasurys and 
other securities.
  On October 17, the extraordinary security measures the Department of 
Treasury has had to employ since May 19 will be exhausted. The Treasury 
Secretary told us that. On that date, Treasury will have approximately, 
in their view, $30 billion on hand to meet the government's daily 
expenditures which can be as high as $60 billion. That $60 billion 
represents payments for the Nation's bills on things such as Social 
Security, Medicare, national defense, and education.
  However, some tea party Republicans have decided to dismiss this 
issue and say they are planning to limit the fallout. That they should 
not be blamed for it because they have a plan in case of default. They 
call for, what they argue is prioritization, where some of the U.S. 
bills are paid and others are not. But their plan for prioritization is 
just another version of default. Indeed, the House passed legislation 
that would prioritize payments. However, in a letter to Speaker 
Boehner, the Department of Treasury made clear prioritizing payments 
``would not protect the full faith and credit of the United States'' 
and that prioritization is ``simply default by another name.''
  It is shocking to witness the lengths some of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle are willing to go in order to win political 
points and gain negotiating leverage. They are threatening the economic 
well-being of every American by refusing to do something, at least at 
this point, as essential as paying the Nation's bills. Paying the 
Nation's bills should be a routine matter. There is no alternative. 
Congress has always done so. Since 1960, Congress has acted to prevent 
a default on the debt 78 times, 49 of which were under Republican 
Presidents.
  Indeed, President Reagan said in 1983 that ``the full consequences of 
default--or even the serious prospect of default--by the United States 
are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate.''
  Regrettably, because of some colleagues, particularly colleagues in 
the House of Representatives, there is a serious prospect of default, 
something President Reagan warned us against.
  He also, I think quite rightly, pointed out the consequences are 
impossible to predict. The markets, frankly, are much more complicated, 
much more interrelated, much more driven by technology today than in 
1983. Automated computerized trading was not a common feature of 
markets in 1983. Today it is. Today, algorithms have programs that look 
for declines in products and then begin to sell; it's not an individual 
broker who says: Listen, I know this is going to be worked out in a 
couple of hours. It is a machine and we have seen these machines go 
haywire. There is a real possibility that initial reaction to a 
technical default on the debt could trigger some of this trading in a 
way that even the people who built these elaborate algorithms do not 
fully understand.
  This is very serious, more serious today than in 1983. But President 
Reagan's words were prescient then and decisive then and right then and 
they are the same today.
  This should not be a negotiating chip. Speaker Boehner's threat to 
default in order to extract dollar-for-dollar cuts to programs, to make 
changes in this program or that program, is risking the economic 
viability of the United States and indeed the world's financial 
condition.
  Also, the Speaker suggested we have always done it this way. He said 
every major effort to deal with the deficit in the past years has been 
tied with the debt limit. That is not supported by the facts. Over the 
past 30 years, 77 percent of laws passed by Congress to pay for 
spending already accrued were not statutorily linked to deficit 
reductions or budget reforms; 77 percent were simply done because we 
have to extend the debt ceiling. We will do it. We always have.
  Furthermore, several of the deficit reduction measures identified by 
Speaker Boehner as tied to paying our Nation's bills included 
significant new revenue. According to U.S. Treasury estimates, the 
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 raised $126.6 billion over 4 
years and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 raised $188 
billion in new revenue over 4 years.
  I do not see the Speaker coming up and saying we have a plan. We are 
going to make adjustments here on the spending side and on the revenue 
side and then we are going to tie it to the debt ceiling. No. In fact, 
this discussion of revenue increases or revenue positions, spending 
cuts, all of this is not appropriate to the debt ceiling discussion. It 
is appropriate for the conference on the budget. We have had a budget 
in the Senate since March and we have been prevented from going to 
conference with the House Republicans by Republican Members in the 
Senate.
  There is a bipartisan demand, many of my colleagues on the Republican 
side have asked, suggested we go to conference. That is the appropriate 
way to deal with this--not threaten the world and the American people 
with default on our debts but doing a budget in regular order, taking 
up the budget, talking about revenues, talking about changes to 
programs, talking about continued efforts to reduce our deficit, 
talking about growing the economy. That ultimately is the best way to 
reduce the deficit.
  You cannot expect, as the Speaker implied by citing budget reforms 
tied to the debt ceiling, which contained revenue, that Republicans are 
serious. That is not going to be the case from what I sense from the 
other side.
  We have a real challenge before us. The challenge is that there seems 
to be this blase attitude in some respects, particularly in the House, 
among certain of their Members that: So what if we default. Other 
countries have defaulted. We saw something like it in Greece.
  But Greece, for example--it is very difficult to compare the two 
economies. I do not want to suggest that our experience will mimic 
their experience. It is a much smaller economy. It does not have an 
independent currency. It is tied to the euro. But their debt in 2012 
was basically challenged. While the intent of restructuring was to 
avoid default that would require payment of credit default swaps on 
Greek debt, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association in 2012 
determined that they had technically defaulted on their sovereign debt. 
This would trigger credit default swaps being called. One estimate of 
the net notional value of the Greek credit default swap outstanding at 
the time was about $3.2 billion, but in that economy it was a 
significant number and according to a Forbes article on March 9, 2012:

       While no one expects the Greek settlement to have systemic 
     implications, it does set the precedent for any subsequent 
     restructurings, which could take on added importance if big, 
     troubled peripherals like Spain or Italy take a turn for the 
     worse.

  The Greek situation is not identical to ours. In fact, because of the 
size of our economy, because of the ubiquity of U.S. Treasurys across 
the globe, in

[[Page 15268]]

so many different instruments, in so many different institutions, a 
default could be much worse. But the Greek example does demonstrate 
there are consequences to default.
  The Wall Street Journal on September 7, 2013 pointed out:

       . . . since tipping into recession in 2008, Greece's 
     economy has shrunk more than 20 percent from its peak while 
     successive waves of austerity measures since the start of the 
     Greek debt crisis in 2009 have helped push tens of thousands 
     of businesses into bankruptcy and sent unemployment to a 
     record of around 27 percent.

  The Pew Center reports that unemployment among young Greeks under 25 
years old skyrocketed to 62 percent in June, 2013.
  Austerity in some respects is another word for contracting government 
spending--contracting government engagement in the economy. This 
shutdown is essentially a miniausterity program for the last 5 days 
because we have contracted government contributions to the economy. 
Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers furloughed, additional private 
sector contractees furloughed, extraordinary measures taken to shut 
down the government. These measures will lead inevitably to the 
contraction we have seen in other places. Holding the full faith and 
credit of the United States hostage to appease a handful of 
irresponsible and reckless House members who are fighting battles that 
have been lost several times is not what our democracy is about.
  I urge immediate action to get our government up and running again 
and our bills paid. Then we can focus on a more pressing need--creating 
jobs, opportunity, and prosperity for families in my State of Rhode 
Island and across this Nation.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am grateful to the senior Senator from 
Rhode Island for his statement. I listened to every word of it from my 
office. He is such a great asset to the State of Rhode Island and our 
country with his military background and his experience in the Banking 
Committee and Armed Services. Very few people have the wisdom he has.
  I would also note that the Presiding Officer's presentation was also 
remarkably good.
  Mr. President, in closing today I want to read a very brief statement 
from a Nevada publication. The headline is:

       Nevada Residents Are Calling Their Obamacare Hotline In 
     Tears, Desperate For Health Coverage.
       Uninsured Americans in Nevada are so desperate to get 
     health coverage under Obamacare that many are calling the 
     state's new insurance marketplace ``in tears.''

  Kevin Walsh, a senior Xerox official who heads the department that is 
helping some states maintain their online ObamaCare marketplaces and 
call centers, told Bloomberg Businessweek that many people had 
contacted Nevada's ObamaCare hotline with ``just raw emotion'' within 
the first hour that the marketplace opened on Tuesday. Nevada has an 
adult uninsurance rate of 27 percent--the fifth highest in the country.

       ``They were calling and saying, `Can I get my coverage 
     today so I can see my doctor this afternoon?''' said Walsh. 
     That is in one sense moving but also frustrating because, 
     sure, you can sign up--but the coverage can't be effective 
     until January 1st.
       Uninsured Americans and those with costly or skimpy health 
     plans have been rushing to sign up for health coverage under 
     the law, although technical glitches have delayed the 
     enrollment process for some of them. Those who have 
     successfully enrolled say that they are pleased with the new 
     coverage they will be getting beginning in January.
       Even some ardent Republicans and ObamaCare skeptics who 
     signed up for coverage are admitting that the law will be a 
     financial boon to them and give them peace of mind. Butch 
     Matthews, a lifelong Republican and initial proponent of 
     repealing the law, told ThinkProgress that it would end up 
     saving him $13,000 per year on medical costs. ``I still am a 
     very strong Republican, but this . . . I'm so happy this came 
     along.''

  Mr. President, it has been this way all across America this week. I 
learned personally from the man who started Google that they had 
problems when that first started. They didn't believe that many people 
were interested in the information they could give. There were about 9 
million people this week who have gotten online to find out about 
ObamaCare.
  This has been very successful.

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