[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15370-15371]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to speak as the chair of the 
Senate Appropriations Committee, who would like to reopen government 
and have our committee get back to regular order to be able to move our 
appropriations bills, to be able to debate them on the floor, amend 
them on the floor, and go to conference to resolve either fiscal or 
other issues we might have with the House. But we can't do it because 
we are in lockdown politics.
  There is much about where we find ourselves that is very frustrating 
to me. One of the main ones is the fact that the tea party Republicans 
are out there saying things that simply are not accurate. Tea party 
Republicans say President Obama won't negotiate. That is not true. Tea 
party Republicans are saying Democrats in the Senate won't negotiate. 
That is not true. Tea party Republicans say the Senate has not moved 
appropriations bills. That is not true. The Appropriation Committee 
has. Tea party Republicans say the House doesn't have the votes to 
reopen the government. That is not true. And tea party Republicans say 
the debt limit is not a big deal. That is not true. So let me elaborate 
on these point by point.
  Tea party Republicans say President Obama won't negotiate. The 
President has negotiated time and time again. He had a framework for a 
grand bargain in his 2014 budget. Read it. Let the print speak for 
itself. He had $1.8 trillion of deficit reduction over 10 years, 
including $400 billion in health care savings, $200 billion in savings 
from mandatory programs, $200 billion in further discretionary cuts in 
strategic funding and discretionary spending. And, yes, he would even 
change the cost-of-living calculation for Social Security. But the 
Republicans couldn't take yes for an answer. Here was Obama, here was 
his budget, here is what he was offering--to reduce debt, to take on 
mandatory spending, to take on discretionary spending. They couldn't 
take yes for an answer. It included items in there I didn't agree with, 
but they were to be negotiated, to be discussed. Since he became 
President, the deficit has gone down by 50 percent, from $1.4 trillion 
in 2009 to an estimated $700 billion in 2013. High? Yes. But cut in 
half.
  Now let's go to this President who they say won't negotiate. He 
negotiated in December of 2012 on a fiscal cliff deal. He wanted a 2-
year delay in sequester, but we got 2 months. He wanted tax cuts for 
the wealthy to be eliminated above $250,000. He agreed to an estate tax 
exemption. He wanted a $3.5 million exemption, the Republicans wanted 
$5 million. He said OK. The 2-percent Social Security payroll tax was 
ending without offsetting stimulus provisions. He gave and we supported 
him. Now they say he won't negotiate.
  Speaker Boehner says, we just want to have a conversation. That is 
what the President did. What were those summits at Andrews Air Force 
Base? I thought that was going to be kumbaya. The President has had 
private one-on-one meetings, and nothing has come from that. Then he 
did a larger charm offensive--he had dinner with Republicans both at 
the White House and at different restaurants around town. Nobody seems 
to be able to take yes for an answer. This is the President who has 
invited people to the White House, invited leadership to play golf with 
him to build relationships, he has had dinner there. But instead of 
having lunch with the President, they want to have his lunch--over and 
over again.
  The President has expressed a willingness continually to negotiate. 
And where are we now? We need to reopen the government. The House needs 
to pass the Senate clean short-term CR and raise the debt limit. Once 
it is open for business, we can talk about other matters.
  Now let's go to tea party Republicans saying Democrats won't 
negotiate. Senate Democrats have tried to negotiate on the budget since 
we passed it on March 23. We were here for a marathon session led by 
Senator Murray--vote after vote, amendment after amendment--and we 
passed a budget resolution.
  The rules of engagement and the rules for dispute resolution in the 
Congress are, take what one body passes, like the Senate, and meet with 
the

[[Page 15371]]

House in a conference. Senator Murray was ready to go. She asked 
permission--which she has to do under the rules of the Senate--to have 
her budget conference to hammer out the budget with Paul Ryan and other 
House Members.
  Nineteen times since March 23 Senator Murray has stood on this floor 
and asked for the ability to negotiate with the House. Nineteen times 
she was blocked by six tea party Republicans. Nineteen times, using the 
rules to protect the voice of the minority--which I understand they 
used not only their voice but what was used to protect them to prohibit 
the Senate from meeting with their House counterparts.
  So Senate Democrats want to negotiate. There is Paul Ryan. There is 
Patty Murray. Let's have the budget conference and hammer it out. The 
Democrats have been ready to negotiate on a budget since March 23, 
2013.
  Let's have a conversation? We have been trying to have that 
conversation since March. Who has stopped us? Harry Reid didn't stop 
Patty Murray. Chuck Schumer didn't stop the Budget Committee. Barbara 
Mikulski is not stopping it. Six tea party Republicans have stopped the 
ability of the Senate from going to the House to negotiate a budget.
  Free the Budget Committee. Why is that so important? Because they not 
only come up with an overall budget in discretionary spending, 
mandatory spending, and revenues, but they put a cap on us 
appropriators. One of the outcomes of a budget agreement is they set 
the total amount of money the Appropriations Committee can spend on 
discretionary spending. To the shock of everybody, there is actually a 
cap on discretionary spending established by the Budget Committee. That 
has been the rule of the Budget Act going back to the 1970s. I would 
accept a cap agreed upon in a duly constituted process established by 
the rules of the House and the Senate--which is, we pass a budget, we 
meet in conference, we come back and give the appropriators what they 
call the 302(a)--the total cap we can spend--we take a look at it, and 
we meet and we follow the law. It also says what revenue should be and 
then total mandatory spending.
  So when we hear Democrats won't negotiate--the Democrats have 
negotiated.
  Going to this situation where we know the fiscal year expires October 
1, the Senate put forth a bill. It came out of the Appropriations 
Committee. It was really, as the Chair, at my suggestion we would have 
a short-term funding resolution so we could deal with issues such as 
debt limit, canceling sequester for 2 years, and what our funding as a 
cap should be for 2014--short term, no new money, but a goal of getting 
us to canceling the sequester, following what the Budget Committee 
would set as the cap on us.
  In order to get there, I was willing to compromise. I didn't want to. 
I felt it was too harsh, too rough on important discretionary spending. 
But sometimes you have to negotiate and compromise. So I was willing to 
compromise in order to get to negotiations. What was the compromise? 
The House has a level of $986 billion. It follows fiscal 2013 at the 
sequester level, meaning reduced by over $100 billion. I thought that 
$986 billion was too low. The Senate bill was $1.058 trillion. That is 
over a $70 billion difference.
  But that is what a conference is. That is what negotiation is. So in 
order to get us across the dome into negotiations, I was willing to 
compromise, particularly on very important domestic spending.
  The liberals who want to fund Head Start, who want to fund NIH--well, 
maybe we are not liberals. Maybe we are just Americans and, I believe, 
friends on the other side of the aisle--we were ready to go. So in my 
mind, as an appropriator, I have already compromised just to get us 
into the room. But they won't even take up that bill. They won't take 
up the bill that Speaker Boehner said he would pass if we agreed to 
their number--$986 billion--to get us into the room to talk. If you 
tell the Senate: If you agree with us on this, just to get a short-term 
negotiation going, we will pass it, and then you don't, why should we 
believe it will be any different?
  But as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I am ready to 
negotiate. I am ready to compromise. I have reached out to my House 
counterpart, the chair of Appropriations. We have a marvelous, civil, 
candid relationship. We are ready to go to work.
  We differ on money. There is no doubt. The chairman of the House 
Appropriations Committee, Congressman Hal Rogers, is a wonderful 
gentleman, but I will tell you he is a rock-ribbed, no-nonsense fiscal 
conservative. But that is OK by Senator Barb because that is what 
compromise is. That is doing what Colin Powell asked us to do: Let's 
talk things over. Let's find some sensible center. Let's make sure we 
run the U.S. Government in a smart, frugal, effective way. That is what 
it would take.
  We are ready to do it, but we need--I need Speaker Boehner to pass 
the short-term CR so we can even get into the room to do this. So when 
you say Senate Democrats will not negotiate or will not compromise, it 
is not true.
  Also, I heard the junior Senator from Kentucky say that the Senate 
has not approved appropriations bills. The Appropriations Committee, 
despite being hamstrung by not having a budget, reported 11 
appropriations bills. Eight of them were supported by Republicans. By 
August 1, our Appropriations Committee had marked up every single bill 
except one, Interior. We had marked them up with bipartisan support. 
Eight of them had bipartisan support; three did not: Labor-HHS, 
Financial Services, and Legislative Branch.
  Why did we not get that? Because the Labor-HHS bill and Financial 
Services play a role in funding ObamaCare. There we go again. Don't do 
anything that would fund ObamaCare. There we go again.
  I am so fed up with those riders, those poison-pen riders. We could 
have done that to them. We chose not to. I would like to see the 
comprehensive immigration bill passed. I didn't put any riders on the 
appropriations bills coming out of the Senate. I would have liked to 
have seen a farm bill. That has been worked on so hard by Senator 
Stabenow, the Senator from Michigan, and Senator Roberts, the Senator 
from Kansas--they worked wonderfully on a bipartisan farm bill. It was 
something to be proud of in the Senate. I would have liked to have 
attached that to the continuing. But we decided no riders, nothing 
cute, nothing clever, no earmarks, nothing like that--straightforward 
money bills ready to go to conference.
  We could not get it, but they are passed. They are passed in the 
Appropriations Committee and we are waiting to get to work.
  The Republicans, the tea party Republicans say they do not have the 
votes in the House to reopen government. Give it a chance. Put the vote 
to the floor. If we win, government is reopened. If we lose, at least 
we offered a suggestion and we can go back to the drawing board. But 
the solution to reopening the government lies on Speaker Boehner's 
desk. He says he wants to have a conversation. We say pick it up, have 
the vote. That puts the conversation to work for a short-term funding 
resolution.
  We say to our six Republican Senators who have blocked the Budget 
Committee, let the Budget Committee go to conference. Let Senator Patty 
Murray and Congressman Paul Ryan meet to resolve these issues. Let's 
follow the regular order. Let's get back to the way this government and 
this country should function.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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