[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15537-15555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, today is day 9 of the government 
shutdown. House Republicans piously blame everyone except themselves, 
but there is no mystery about what is happening.
  It is very simple: They continue to refuse to permit a vote on a 
continuing resolution to keep the government operating for one reason--
they disagree with one law, the Affordable Care Act.
  That law, debated for months, voted on dozens of times, signed into 
law by the President, and ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, 
will finally make it possible for tens of millions of uninsured 
Americans to obtain affordable health insurance, including those with 
preexisting conditions.
  House Republicans and a handful of tea party Senators don't like it, 
and they have used all kinds of scare tactics to try to derail it. Yet, 
millions of Americans who know better, who want to protect their 
families, have already shown that they want to sign up.
  Unyielding in their opposition, tea party members of Congress, for 
whom ``compromise'' is a dirty word, are on a crusade to hold the 
Federal government hostage until the Affordable Care Act is repealed. 
It is a form of extortion that has no place in a democracy.
  Then, after a couple of days of angry phone calls from outraged 
constituents, in an attempt to blunt the criticism, the House 
Republican leadership abruptly changed course and decided to pick and 
choose which government agencies and programs to fund.
  This latest ploy is revealing for what it says about tea party 
Republicans. It is as if they suddenly learned for the first time that 
the Federal Government is comprised of millions of hardworking 
Americans, in every State, who perform countless tasks the rest of the 
country depends on.
  Did they not realize that many of the people who sent them to 
Washington depend on the Federal Government for their monthly pay 
checks? That every American depends on the Federal Government to 
inspect the safety of the food they eat, the water they drink, and the 
air they breathe? That America's students and farmers depend on loans 
from the Federal Government?
  That countless needy families depend on Federally funded Head Start 
programs? That the Department of Health and Human Services pays for the 
vaccines that protect American children from polio, measles, and other 
diseases?
  It has been interesting to hear the Speaker of the House. He wants 
the President to, ``sit down and have a conversation.''
  President Obama has shown time and again he is willing to compromise, 
sometimes more than some would like. He sat down with the Speaker last 
week. But no President should negotiate the terms of keeping the 
Federal government operating. And no Member of Congress should 
recklessly toy with the United States defaulting on its debt payments 
for the first time in history, and when the world is finally recovering 
from a devastating global recession.
  The Senior Senator from Maryland, the Chairwoman of the 
Appropriations Committee, has done an excellent job of explaining what 
is at stake--not only for American families but for the reputation of 
the United States, the world's oldest democracy. Senators should be 
aware of the impact of the shutdown on thousands of American companies 
that depend on financing from the Federal Government to export their 
products and invest overseas.
  During this shutdown, the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private 
Investment Corporation cannot provide new loans or insurance to U.S. 
companies. This means that every month those companies--U.S. 
companies--lose $2 billion to $4 billion in revenues, jeopardizing some 
30,000 American jobs.
  If the shutdown continues, the Department of State, which conducts 
all kinds of services for Americans and programs overseas, will be 
severely affected. In fiscal year 2011, when the Federal Government 
came close to shutting down, the Department estimated that 70 percent 
of its Washington staff would be furloughed.
  Do our Tea Party friends think these Federal workers just sit idly at 
their desks doing nothing? That they are some kind of luxury we cannot 
afford? Wait until one of their constituents is falsely arrested and 
imprisoned overseas, or robbed, or badly injured, and there is no one 
at the State Department to help them. Almost 800,000 children under the 
age of 5 die of diarrhea annually, mostly due to unsafe drinking water 
and poor sanitation. Those deaths are entirely preventable. A prolonged 
government shutdown would mean curtailing water and sanitation

[[Page 15538]]

programs for millions of people in the world's poorest countries--
programs that have always had strong bipartisan support.
  Malaria causes half a billion deaths a year, 90 percent of them 
children. A continued shutdown would force the U.S. Agency for 
International Development to stop funding malaria prevention programs, 
putting tens of thousands of lives at risk.
  Speaker Boehner is right. Shutting down the Federal Government is 
``not a damned game.'' But what the House is doing is playing Russian 
roulette with the U.S. economy and people's lives. There is no excuse 
for it, and the Speaker has two choices: stop it, or continue to roll 
the dice with the U.S. economy and the lives of millions of American 
families and programs that protect our Nation's security.
  At the State Department, the shutdown has already forced the 
cancelation of International visitors programs that enable future 
foreign leaders to experience this country first hand. Instead of 
seeing what a great country this is, they see our political system in 
disarray. It is embarrassing for our embassies and should be 
embarrassing to all of us.
  Despite the shutdown, the State Department still must ensure the 
health, safety, and welfare of nearly 10,000 academic exchange 
participants in the United States and abroad. Either those students and 
scholars will have to return home, or the organizations and 
universities that are responsible for implementing the exchanges 
continue operating without knowing if, or when, their costs will be 
paid.
  We have heard about the impact of the shutdown on the U.S. national 
security establishment, including the Department of Defense and the 
intelligence community. But the shutdown may also affect the State 
Department's anti-terrorism programs that support law enforcement and 
border controls in countries highly vulnerable to terrorist threats, 
such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Kenya, and Niger.
  The shutdown has halted trade talks between the EU and the United 
States on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Plan. This deal would 
harmonize U.S. and EU regulatory standards, and eliminate trade 
barriers. It would bring real benefits to the U.S. economy. Yet the Tea 
Party shutdown has prevented U.S. trade officials from traveling to 
Brussels to negotiate with their EU counterparts. Instead, EU diplomats 
remain at the ready to talk to nobody.
  Because of the shutdown, President Obama had to cancel his trip to 
Asia this week. We hear quite a bit about the Administration's ``pivot 
to Asia,'' but it is hard to pivot in another direction if you can't 
even get one foot out of your own country.
  Who made it to the Summit instead? China's President Xi filled 
President Obama's seat next to Vladimir Putin. Is this who the tea 
party wants to lead in the lower income Asian countries? For the sake 
of our economy and national security, we need our President to have a 
seat at the table.
  The list goes on and on, but these are just a few of the impacts of 
the shutdown that are only beginning to be felt. As this needless work 
stoppage drags on and more people are furloughed and programs are 
cancelled, our diplomats, our international development programs, our 
leadership in international organizations, and our national security 
will suffer.
  It is as foolhardy as it is wasteful.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I am pleased to be here on the Senate 
floor this afternoon. I am saddened by the circumstances we find 
ourselves in and look for a solid, responsible, and quick resolution to 
our differences in regard to continuing resolution.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from California Mrs. Boxer 
follow me upon the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, again, under the circumstances we find 
ourselves in, I look forward to a quick and responsible resolution to 
the differences we have and that we move forward with the funding of 
our Federal Government.
  I would point out that a reason we are at this point is we need a 
continuing resolution because the Senate failed to do its work in the 
first place. While, for the first time in 4 years, the Senate passed a 
budget, it was never reconciled in conference with the House. I am 
certainly a Republican who would be supportive of that reconciliation 
of the conference committee to work out the differences between a 
House-passed budget and the Senate-passed budget.
  The reality is that there are 12 appropriations bills--and I am a 
member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. I take that 
responsibility very seriously. I was excited to become a member of the 
Senate Appropriations Committee when I arrived here at the Senate. I 
saw it as an opportunity for us to establish our priorities and 
determine what we should be spending money on. Yet not 1 of the 12 
bills that are required for us to pass across the Senate floor has been 
passed this year; therefore, on September 30 we ended up with no 
funding in place, and it creates this opportunity for us to have this 
debate and discussion about a continuing resolution at a time in which 
there is great leverage on that issue.
  What I lament and what I wish would have happened is we would have 
passed 12 appropriations bills and then worked out the differences with 
the appropriations process in the House.
  Today I want to speak about a particular issue related to the 
shutdown of the Federal Government--the lack of funding. Prior to that 
occurring--prior to September 30--both the House and Senate and the 
President signed legislation called Pay Our Military Act. It was 
designed to make certain that our military men and women had 
compensation should there be a shutdown. I appreciate that legislation 
passing and am pleased it is in place now we are in the circumstance we 
are in. There were rumors and concerns about how that bill would be 
implemented by the Department of Defense. The Senator from West 
Virginia Mr. Manchin and I led an effort in which we had 50 Senators in 
a highly bipartisan way ask the Secretary of Defense to interpret that 
legislation in a broad way that would make certain our furloughed 
civilian employees who support our military men and women, as well as 
our Reserve component--those who serve in the National Guard and 
Reserve--would be put back to work for the benefit of the Nation's 
security.
  I thank Secretary of Defense Hagel for his decision to implement that 
legislation in a broad way that did exactly that--returned furloughed 
civilian workers at DOD, the Department of Defense, back to work, and 
gave the ability for our National Guard and Reserve members to continue 
in their responsibilities for defending our country. Again, I thank 
Secretary Hagel.
  I am here today to point out that we have an additional problem, in 
fact, one that is equally, if not more, serious than that, and that is 
that we have read and heard that those who die in the active service of 
our country are not now able to receive the death benefits that come to 
their families upon their death. I can't imagine that there is a 
Senator of any political party or persuasion who thinks that is a 
desirable outcome.
  With Senator Manchin and others, we worked at bringing this issue to 
the attention of the Department of Defense, asking Secretary Hagel, in 
a letter that was led by Senator Coons and Senator Blunt, to use every 
opportunity, full authority, wide flexibility--whatever circumstances 
the Department of Defense could find--to provide the benefits to those 
who died in service to our country.
  There is a special tax-free payment of $100,000 to eligible survivors 
of members of the armed forces who are killed in action. Those benefits 
usually arrive within the first 3 days following the death of a service 
man or woman. This helps the family--certainly not overcome their 
loss--to have the necessary funds for funeral services, to travel in 
this case to Dover Air Force Base to meet their loved one as he or she 
returns home, and to overcome the lack

[[Page 15539]]

of a regular paycheck. This death gratuity is such a small price to pay 
to honor and recognize someone's family who has lost a member of their 
family in service to our country.
  At least the stories are, the reports are that this situation is due 
to the inability of us to resolve--to work with the President, 
Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate--the continuing resolution, 
and so work is being done so that the death benefit will be available. 
My understanding is that the House of Representatives is poised to pass 
legislation to make certain that the Department of Defense has the 
authority to immediately pay those benefits. I hope that is a piece of 
legislation that is met with unanimity of support here in the Senate.
  We have asked Secretary of Defense Hagel if he has the ability to do 
that within his current legal jurisdiction, within the law--if he has 
the ability to do that within the law that he does have--and we 
anxiously await and hope the Secretary can do that. But, if not, I hope 
this Senate will unanimously confirm that legislation that would allow 
the Secretary to pay those benefits immediately.
  Again, I just can't imagine any of my colleagues ever thinking that 
under any circumstance, we ought not step forward to resolve this 
issue. Just because we can't resolve everything--it seems to me there 
is a method of operation too often here in the Senate that if we can't 
solve every problem, we are unwilling to solve any problem. On those 
things on which there is such significant agreement, we ought not let 
anything stand in the way of coming to the aid and rescue of a family 
who now so desperately grieves the loss of their loved one.


                       Honoring Our Armed Forces

                        Sergeant Patrick Hawkins

  We know over the weekend there were five soldiers killed in 
Afghanistan. There are five families as of today who would be in this 
circumstance. I would like to pay tribute to one of those five: SGT 
Patrick Hawkins. He was born October 1, 1988. He graduated from high 
school and enlisted in the Army in his hometown of Carlisle, PA.
  SGT Patrick Hawkins, according to his Italian commander, was 
described as a brave and incredibly talented Ranger. The description of 
his death revolved around the fact that he was moving to aid another 
wounded Ranger when he was killed. His actions, according to, again, 
his commander, were in keeping with the epitome of the Ranger creed, 
which is, ``I will never leave a fallen comrade.''
  Sergeant Hawkins dedicated himself to serving us--to serving our 
families, to serving all Americans--and he ultimately paid for that 
service with the loss of his life. I pay tribute to this soldier as an 
example of many who have sacrificed in similar ways over a long period 
of time, but especially for those five who this weekend lost their 
lives in Afghanistan.
  Sergeant Hawkins was awarded the Bronze Star and the Meritorious 
Service Medal. He was awarded a Purple Heart. None of that replaces the 
loss of life. He is survived by his wife, who is a resident of Lansing, 
KS, and her parents, who are residents of my hometown of Plainville, 
KS.
  So today, on behalf of my colleagues in the Senate, I pay tribute to 
a soldier who in serving his country lost his life, who leaves behind 
grieving family members and friends, and who epitomizes what we all 
should know in service here in the Senate, which is what I spoke about 
earlier on the Senate floor this week. That is, if we need a reminder 
about how this place should work, we should look to our service men and 
women who, for no partisan reason--no Republican or Democratic reason--
volunteered to serve their country. They concluded there were things 
much more important than life itself, and that being the ability to 
have a country that we know and enjoy as the United States of America, 
that has the freedom and liberties guaranteed to us by our 
Constitution, and creates the opportunity for every American to pursue 
what we all call the American dream.
  Today, I pay tribute to one more hero, one more soldier, one more 
American who, through service to others, was willing to sacrifice his 
life for the betterment of his family back home and for the future of a 
country that we all love and call home, the United States of America.
  I yield to the Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, would it be possible--because Senator 
Casey and I were each thinking we would get 10 minutes and we are 
willing to cut that to 15 minutes between the two of us--could we ask 
unanimous consent, if the Republicans don't mind, just slipping a 
little bit, because people took extra time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Thank you. So we will each have about 7\1/2\ minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, we are going to fix the injustice my 
colleague spoke about--the injustice to the families who lost their 
loved ones. Let me be clear about one of those five families who were 
denied the benefit and someone important to me a constituent of mine--
Army 1LT Jennifer Moreno from San Diego, who was killed this weekend in 
Afghanistan by a roadside bomb. Jennifer was 25 years old. Because of 
this shutdown brought to us by the Republicans, those families have to 
suffer even more than they are already suffering.
  Let's be clear. This never had to happen. This government has been 
shut down by the Republicans for one reason, and John Boehner was 
honest about it. He said:

       The American people don't want to shut down the government, 
     but the American people don't want ObamaCare. They don't want 
     the Affordable Care Act.

  Let me say that to close down the government because a person doesn't 
like a law that was passed almost 4 years ago, to shut down the 
government because a presidential election was lost and which was 
based, in large part, on this--to shut down the government, to keep our 
people--millions of them--from getting affordable care for the first 
time, it is a disgrace. It is. There is no other way to say it, except 
maybe it was said beautifully here. It was said beautifully here by the 
chaplain: ``Enough is enough.''
  We are going to fix this problem; of course we are, this indignity 
our military families had to face. But let's be clear: It never would 
have happened if the government had been open.
  We have two things that are in our job description. I know the 
Presiding Officer knows that quite well. One is to keep the doors of 
government open officially. We do our best, but we don't always 
succeed. There are problems here and there. Keep the doors open. Just 
as a pilot has to fly a plane, just like a teacher has to teach a 
class, just like a nurse has to give a vaccination, we have a basic 
responsibility to keep this government open, and we know how to do it. 
They pass a budget over in the House, we pass it in the Senate, the 
conference is called, they hammer it out, and we have a budget plan, 
and none of this would be happening. Let's be clear. The Republicans 
have objected now 21 times--21 times--to Senator Murray, the chairman 
of our Budget Committee, so she can sit and confer with her 
counterpart, Paul Ryan, and hammer out the details of a long-term 
budget. But, no. The Republicans don't want to do that. They want to 
hold the country hostage. They want to put our backs up against the 
wall, or the backs of the American people. Why? They don't like the 
health care law.
  If a person doesn't like a law, that person tries to repeal it. They 
tried to repeal it 43 times. It went nowhere. If you don't like a law, 
try to replace the people who support the law. Oh, they tried. They 
tried and they failed. I served with five Presidents, three of them 
Republican. I didn't like everything they did; believe me. But after 
they won and they had an agenda, I did what I could, and so did my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to carry it out the best I 
could, to fix it where I could.
  Let me just say this: We are in a shutdown because they are throwing 
a

[[Page 15540]]

temper tantrum about the health care law, the Affordable Care Act. I 
wish to share some news with them, because I went home to see how the 
health care law is working in my State. I want to say what I know. I 
know it is working. By now we have had more than a million distinct 
visitors to our site, coveredCA.com. We have tens of thousands of 
applications. We have completed more than 20,000. Small businesses by 
the hundreds are coming on to the site.
  In the time I have remaining, let me read to my colleagues about one 
woman the Republicans want to stop from getting health care by shutting 
down the government. According to the Associated Press, nothing could 
dissuade Rachel Mansfield of La Quinta, who sent in an application to 
Covered California last week. Rachel has been waiting for the exchange 
to start so she and her husband could get health insurance. Rachel is 
self-employed. Her parents currently pay a $530 monthly premium for her 
coverage. Her husband has been rejected for health coverage because he 
was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Rachel's new 
premium, instead of it being $530 for just her, will be $400 for both 
of them, with higher quality coverage than she currently has.
  That is why the Republicans are having a temper tantrum, to stop my 
constituent from, for the first time, having peace of mind and having 
good insurance? Come on. If you don't like the law, work with us. We 
can make it better.
  Then there is Melissa Harris. According to the Fresno Bee, Melissa 
stopped at a CoveredCA tent on campus. She is paying $600 a month with 
help from her family for insurance through her former employer. She has 
diabetes and hypertension and, under the Affordable Care Act--which 
prevents insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting 
conditions--she can now afford health insurance on her own. And the 
quote from her, from my constituent is, ``It's a Godsend for me--a 
blessing.''
  It is a blessing. And that is why the Republicans are shutting down 
the government, to stop my constituent from getting a blessing of 
health insurance.
  There was another story of a man who waited on the phone for 40 
minutes, and he finally got on. He signed up and he said: You know 
what, I have been waiting for years. Forty minutes was nothing.
  So I say to my friends, the law is the law. Open the government, pay 
our bills, and we will negotiate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator's time is expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield the rest of the time to Senator 
Casey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, thank you very much. I know our time is 
limited.
  I want to start on an issue that I think all of us are coming 
together on no matter what party we are in, and that is what has been 
happening to our military families.
  On Sunday, as noted by the Senator from Kansas a few moments ago, SGT 
Patrick Hawkins from Carlisle, PA, was killed in action in Afghanistan 
when his unit was hit with an IED, an improvised explosive device. 
Sergeant Hawkins was moving to the aid of a wounded Ranger when he was 
killed. Due to the shutdown, Sergeant Hawkins' family cannot receive 
the death benefit provided to soldiers to cover the funeral and burial 
expenses for that family.
  Today I am joining an effort with a number of Senators writing to 
urge Secretary Hagel to use whatever discretion he has to provide the 
death benefits to the Hawkins family as well as the other families so 
we can meet the promise we made to those families. I know the President 
is working on this issue, is working with the Office of Management and 
Budget and the Defense Department on a solution to this problem.
  Mr. President, I will move to the question of where we are now. This 
is a shutdown brought about by the tea party. We know that if Speaker 
Boehner would simply hold a vote on the bill that is before him, which 
would fund the government, this crisis would be over.
  So we should continue to take steps, No. 1, to open our government; 
No. 2, to pay our bills and make sure we do not miss a bill and 
default; and No. 3, to negotiate--or I would argue to continue to 
negotiate because we already negotiated a budget number which was much 
lower than our side of the aisle wanted. We agreed to $70 billion less 
from the other side. If that is not a compromise and a negotiation, I 
do not know what is.
  We know this sentiment and this position to make sure the government 
opens is a point of view that is shared by Democrats, Republicans, and 
Independents across the country. By way of example, nine Members of the 
Pennsylvania congressional delegation--four Republicans and five 
Democrats--are supportive of a so-called clean bill that does not have 
attachments to it, to open the government, to make sure we can have a 
functioning government, to pay our bills, and then work together on 
longer term solutions. Just a couple of examples--and I know our time 
is limited.
  As this tea party shutdown moves into its second week, the Women, 
Infants and Children Program--we know it by the acronym WIC--will no 
longer be able to be funded in many States across the country. We know 
this program provides nutritional services to more than 8.9 million 
participants per month, including 4.7 million children and 2.1 million 
infants. A quarter of a million of my constituents in Pennsylvania 
depend upon this program. For now--for now--the State government is 
using carryover funds to keep the WIC Program running in Pennsylvania. 
If the government shutdown continues to stretch on, this may put the 
program in jeopardy.
  We know the impact this shutdown is having on older citizens across 
Pennsylvania and across the country. The Centers for Medicare and 
Medicaid Services is no longer able to provide health care provider 
oversight. While Medicare claims are still being paid, the shutdown has 
caused a reduction in the number of initial surveys and 
recertifications for Medicare and Medicaid providers. If providers are 
unable to be certified, then they cannot serve beneficiaries.
  Home- and community-based services are adversely impacted. We know 
that even though Social Security checks are going out, at the same time 
those who are hoping to be enrolled in Social Security do not have that 
opportunity.
  Let me read from a letter we got from a constituent in northeastern 
Pennsylvania talking about this individual's parents.

       Besides our personal difficulties due to the Budget 
     Impasse, my elderly parents live with the worry of when and 
     if they will receive their Social Security checks. At 85 and 
     83, they should not have this uncertainty. These should be 
     their golden years. It breaks my heart to hear my Mother 
     saying she can't sleep and has a stomach ache from the worry 
     about where our country is heading. Middle and low income 
     families cannot afford another economic downturn, we are just 
     barely recovering from the last one.

  That entire passage came from one individual in northeastern 
Pennsylvania writing about her parents, and I think that is the best 
summation I have read about what this is doing to people. The worry and 
the anxiety, in addition to the harsh impact, are things we should not 
accept.
  Finally, I will conclude with some comments about national security.
  I support--and I know this is widely shared--the passage of the Pay 
Our Military Act and welcome the Defense Department's decision to bring 
the majority of furloughed staff back. We mentioned the death benefits 
for families. We are all together on that. But all the while--all the 
while--that the Speaker does not put a bill on the floor that will open 
the government, we see the impacts on our national security. Seventy 
percent of the intel community's workforce has been furloughed. These 
are people who work every day to keep us safe from terrorists, and they 
are not able to work. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset 
Control has a skeletal crew, and they are not able to do their work, 
which is part of our national security.

[[Page 15541]]

  So if we are doing the right thing, and if the Speaker and his party 
in the House are doing the right thing, they would vote today to open 
the government, to ensure that we pay our bills, and to continue to 
negotiate. It is very simple. What they have in front of them is a 16-
page bill. I think they could pass it this afternoon and reopen our 
government and give that family in northeastern Pennsylvania some 
measure of peace of mind instead of the worry and the anxiety and the 
fear that are caused by both the government shutdown and efforts made 
to even contemplate defaulting on the full faith and credit of the 
United States of America.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


               Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 58

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, last Saturday the House voted 400 to 1 
to express the view that a government shutdown should not interfere 
with the ability of military chaplains to provide services for our 
servicemembers. The House took that vote amid reports that chaplains 
were limited in their ability to minister to those who sought their 
services even if ministers were doing so on a volunteer basis.
  We have heard reports that those who have scheduled baptisms might 
not be able to have them. Obviously, this is not a tolerable situation. 
We have a very large military presence in Kentucky. The folks at Fort 
Campbell and Fort Knox do not need this. We need to remedy the 
situation immediately and care for the troops who have volunteered to 
defend us.
  The House has already taken a stand, in an overwhelming, bipartisan 
basis--only one vote against it. It is time for the Senate to do the 
same. So I would call on the majority to allow a vote to express the 
Senate's views that servicemembers in my State and every other State or 
overseas should be able to receive religious services. This is one vote 
we should have today. Some of my colleagues will talk this afternoon 
about some of the other votes we should also have. The government may 
be shut down, but our service men and women should not be caught in the 
middle of this impasse.
  I had indicated to my colleague, the majority leader, that I would 
ask unanimous consent after my remarks, which I will proceed to do now. 
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of H. Con. Res. 58, which was received from the House; I 
further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the 
preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, there is no question when we look across 
the Senate or across the House, people of different political parties, 
people of different faiths all support any kind of religious service 
for members of the armed services. There is no question about that. Our 
budgets indicate that every year. That is a widely held point of view.
  Unfortunately, what we are seeing is a continuation of an effort to 
pick and choose what areas of our government should be funded. We 
should not have an exercise where we choose between our soldiers and 
our kids or between one priority versus the other. We should vote and 
work together to open the government. It is as simple as that. Open 
every service that is part of the Federal Government.
  Open the government, pay our bills, and continue negotiations which 
started a long time ago on the current budget. I come from a State 
which has well more than 1 million veterans. No State in the country 
has contributed more to the armed services of the United States than 
Pennsylvania. I will take a backseat to no one when it comes to 
supporting our troops and supporting their families.
  That is why we are all coming together to make sure the death benefit 
is paid for those who recently lost their lives, including Sergeant 
Hawkins from Pennsylvania. But this process we are going through today 
is just another attempt to not deal directly with the question of how 
we are going to operate the Federal Government.
  We should urge our colleagues in the House to have a vote today. It 
would take a matter of minutes for the House to vote on a bill that 
will open the government, allow us to make sure we are paying our 
bills, and do everything we can to continue to work together on a 
longer term budget agreement.
  So I would first offer a modification and ask unanimous consent as 
follows: that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, 
expressing the sense of the Congress that the House should vote on the 
Senate amendment to H.J. Res. 59, the continuing resolution passed by 
the Senate; that the concurrent resolution, as amended, be agreed to; 
that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Republican leader so modify his 
request?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. Is there objection to the 
original request?
  Mr. CASEY. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Republican whip.


                Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 91

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there are obviously differences in this 
Chamber over the fiscal direction of our country, but we should be 
united in our efforts to do right by our uniformed military and their 
families and certainly their survivors. The way they have been treated 
is simply unacceptable--indeed, it is outrageous. The President's 
spokesman today said he is looking for a solution. We are here to offer 
one to him. Washington has not gotten a lot right lately but now is our 
chance. The legislation I will be offering a unanimous consent request 
on would right this wrong by ensuring that the families of the fallen 
receive four essential benefits: the death gratuity benefit, the 
coverage of funeral and burial expenses, coverage of travel to both the 
funeral and the dignified transfer of their loved one's remains and the 
temporary continuation of their housing allowance.
  I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives H.J. Res. 91, 
making continuing appropriations for survivor benefits for survivors of 
deceased military servicemembers for fiscal year 2014, the measure be 
read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, would my friend agree that 
we have just learned that the President said he would solve this in the 
next hour. Would my friend be willing to wait until 4 o'clock today and 
renew his request at that time if it has not been done?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, responding to the distinguished majority 
leader, if that will help facilitate this getting done, we would be 
glad to work with him. Hopefully, we can find another area, as we did 
for military pay for our uniformed military, where we can begin to 
mitigate the hardship caused by this shutdown.
  Mr. REID. I think on this issue it would be the best way to proceed; 
that we can do something together, and hopefully the White House will 
be in on what we are trying to do. So I ask my friend to renew this at 
4 o'clock.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 70

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, if businesses ran their operations the same 
way the government is running this shutdown, they would be bankrupt. 
Oh,

[[Page 15542]]

that is right. That is kind of where we are, isn't it.
  Our national parks, particularly the ones that are revenue producers, 
are shut down. Yellowstone Park is a revenue producer. You pay to go 
into the park. You pay to travel through the park. The roads connect 
Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It is a thoroughfare. You have to pay to 
be able to do that. But right now you cannot do that, which means you 
probably have to travel an extra 300 miles to get to your destination.
  The park does not get the revenue, and not only that, there are 
people in the park who are visiting there and they have been made to 
leave. They were made to leave in a very ungracious way. One of the 
tours was from Japan, Australia, Canada, and some people from the 
United States. They had reservations at Old Faithful. That is one of 
the historic places in the park, one place that everybody goes because 
they like to see the geyser go off. It is probably the most famous 
geyser in the world.
  But they were told they had to leave. They had 2 days of 
reservations. They said: OK. You can stay for the 2 days. But an armed 
guard was outside of their room and they could not leave their room to 
go watch the geyser go off, which they do not have any control over, 
nor can they harm. It has been written up as Gestapo tactics that met 
senior citizens in Yellowstone Park.
  So we are giving up the revenue and we are creating a bad impression. 
We should not be doing that. We ought to be taking revenue. The revenue 
is a little more difficult than that because we have concessionaires in 
the park, people who run the hotels and the stores and the filling 
stations and the other services in there. They pay a fee for doing that 
and a percentage of what they take in. So we are not getting that 
percentage now either.
  They are losing about $4.9 million a week by not being able to be 
open. There are a lot of other things I could say about the way the 
parks are being treated here and around the country, but the ones that 
are revenue-producing are particularly egregious.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of Calendar No. 203, H.J. Res. 70, making continuing 
appropriations for National Park Service operations; I ask further that 
the measure be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider 
be considered made and laid on the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I appreciate the motion of my colleague, as someone who 
comes from a State where tourism is the No. 3--and we have 38 million 
people--it is the No. 3 business in our State. We have national parks. 
But guess what. You fellows over there, you did not take care of all of 
my recreation land under the Army Corps. You did not take care of all 
of the BLM land.
  This whole notion of funding the government piecemeal is absurd. This 
is the greatest Nation on Earth. All you can do is come with these 
little, mini, piecemeal bills. Let's face it. We would not be going 
through any of this angst, and my friend would not have to have any of 
that emotion if the Republicans had not shut down the government.
  I wish to state the rest of my reservation. We certainly support the 
notion that our parks should open, but we also support the notion that 
this government should open. If the Senators don't like certain 
functions, let's duke it out and find out which ones we have the votes 
to do away with. I know a lot of you don't like the Clean Water Act, 
the Safe Drinking Water Act. Fine, let's fight that out.
  I see my colleague from Wyoming is here. He and I are constantly 
debating the issue of what should be a priority, but we don't do it 
this way. We need the entire Federal Government open. People need to 
get paid. The communities around the parks, around the BLM land, around 
the Corps recreational lands, around our NASA Ames facility, and I 
could go on and on--they need to be paid because the mom-and-pop shops 
are suffering. We don't do government by piecemeal, not in the greatest 
Nation on Earth.
  This reminds me of a woman who is drowning and someone goes to rescue 
her, but he only takes her halfway to the shore and leaves her to 
drown. This is what this is about. We don't say: I will save this 
child, but this one I don't have to save. I will save this community 
because I kind of like it, but this community, sorry. No one party has 
a right to do it, not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. 
We don't have the right to decide which kids live and which kids die, 
which families thrive and which sink, and which communities suffer and 
which communities don't. None should suffer, not in this Nation.
  Open the government, pay our bills, and let's negotiate. Let's 
negotiate on everything.
  I have a modification to suggest to the unanimous consent request, if 
I might.
  I ask unanimous consent that the consent be modified as follows: That 
an amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the joint 
resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed, and the 
motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with 
no intervening action or debate. This amendment is the text that passed 
the Senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire 
government and is something that is already over in the House and 
reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the House of 
Representatives.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator from Wyoming so modify his 
request?
  Mr. ENZI. Reserving the right to object, the reason we are in this 
mess right now is because we didn't do the budgets piecemeal. We are 
supposed to do them piecemeal. We are supposed to do 12 separate 
spending bills. We are supposed to do them one at a time. We are 
supposed to have the right to amend them. This way we can get into the 
details of what we are spending, instead of an Omnibus bill, which is 
what is being suggested by this amendment.
  Had we gone through each of those, we could have had all of these 
discussions. This is how we should do it, which is our second most 
important task. Our most important one, of course, is the defense of 
our country, but the second most important one is the spending bills, 
and we are not doing the spending bills. I know the other side will 
say: Well, we brought out one, it was filibustered, and we didn't get 
cloture on it. We only did that one time. There should have been every 
one of these bills brought up with the right to amend and then they 
wouldn't have been filibustered. Then they could have been passed when 
the House sent their companion bill. Since we didn't do the process 
right, we are stuck with the continuing resolution.
  Piecemeal is one way we can get it through. There was a request for a 
conference between the two sides. That was turned down by the 
Democrats. It would have been a chance to raise all of these things at 
once. That was turned down.
  I object to the modification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mrs. BOXER. Reserving the right to object to the original request.
  I feel I must respond. Senator Murray and I looked at each other and 
said: It feels as though it is ``Alice in Wonderland.''
  Where were my colleagues 21 times when the chairman of the Budget 
Committee or her representatives asked to go to conference on the 
budget resolution, in which the conferees would negotiate how to fund 
the various parts of government, and that instruction would be sent to 
the appropriators? I do not understand what is happening here.
  All we hear on the other side is negotiate, negotiate. They won't 
remember--selective memory, perhaps--that they objected 21 times to 
going to negotiations on the budget.
  I have to say, this is the saddest display coming from the 
Republicans, who

[[Page 15543]]

serve in the greatest legislative body in the world, to try to fund 
this government on a piecemeal basis, leaving some of our families 
winners and some of our families losers. It is pathetic, and they have 
caused this Republican shutdown. They can end it.
  Because I feel my friend's narrow, piecemeal approach to running this 
country is very wrong for this country, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Does the Senator from Wyoming still have the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming has the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator from Wyoming yield for a question?
  Mr. ENZI. I yield to the Senator.
  Mr. HARKIN. My friend from Wyoming mentioned the fact that we should 
bring up appropriations bills. As someone who has been a member of the 
Appropriations Committee for quite a long time, I would remind my 
friend from Wyoming that earlier this year, on the first appropriations 
bill that we passed out of committee under the leadership of Senator 
Mikulski--it was the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development 
bill--if I am not mistaken, it had a number of Republican votes in 
committee. It was brought out onto the floor. An extraneous amendment 
was offered by the Senator from Kentucky, whereupon I believe Senator 
Mikulski, our leader, filed cloture on the bill so we could vote on the 
appropriations bill.
  I say to my friend from Wyoming that all the Republicans on that side 
voted against cloture, voted against taking up that one appropriations 
bill--I am sorry, I am reminded that we had one Republican, the 
Republican from the State of Maine who did vote to go to cloture on 
that bill, one Republican out of all those on the other side.
  I say to my friend from Wyoming, we tried to bring up the 
appropriations bill. It was Republicans who objected to even dealing 
with that appropriations bill. I would ask my friend from Wyoming if he 
had looked at that history and understood what had happened on the bill 
that came up at the time.
  I thank my friend from Wyoming for yielding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. I have looked at both of the histories that have been 
discussed. One of them is the budget. The failure of the budget to not 
have a conference committee did not stop the Appropriations Committee 
from going through and doing 12 appropriations bills. I think that is 
what I count on the calendar that could have been brought up. There was 
only the one brought up.
  The Senator has said, appropriately, that in committee there ought to 
be some amendments, but on the floor there were none.
  What we have spent a lot of time on around the body this year is try 
to negotiate how few amendments would be brought up. That has taken 
longer than it would have taken to vote on the whole issue.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article 
from the Eagle Tribune.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Eagle Tribune, Oct. 8, 2013]

         `Gestapo' Tactics Meet Senior Citizens at Yellowstone

                            (By John Macone)

       Newburyport.--Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week 
     that was intended to showcase some of America's greatest 
     treasures.
       Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her 
     tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her 
     embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country.
       Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found 
     themselves in a national park as the federal government 
     shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour 
     group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, 
     Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a 
     Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.
       The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, 
     she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with 
     limited English skills thought they were under arrest.
       When finally allowed to leave, the bus was not allowed to 
     halt at all along the 2.5-hour trip out of the park, not even 
     to stop at private bathrooms that were open along the route.
       ``We've become a country of fear, guns and control,'' said 
     Vaillancourt, who grew up in Lawrence. ``It was like they 
     brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, `we're 
     sorry,' it was all like--'' as she clenched her fist and 
     banged it against her forearm.
       Vaillancourt took part in a nine-day tour of western parks 
     and sites along with about four dozen senior citizen 
     tourists. One of the highlights of the tour was to be 
     Yellowstone, where they arrived just as the shutdown went 
     into effect.
       Rangers systematically sent visitors out of the park, 
     though some groups that had hotel reservations--such as 
     Vaillancourt's--were allowed to stay for two days. Those two 
     days started out on a sour note, she said.
       The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison 
     passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost 
     immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get 
     back in, saying they couldn't ``recreate.'' The tour guide, 
     who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group 
     into the park, argued that the seniors weren't 
     ``recreating,'' just taking photos.
       ``She responded and said, `Sir, you are recreating,' and 
     her tone became very aggressive,'' Vaillancourt said.
       The seniors quickly filed back onboard and the bus went to 
     the Old Faithful Inn, the park's premier lodge located 
     adjacent to the park's most famous site, Old Faithful geyser. 
     That was as close as they could get to the famous site--
     barricades were erected around Old Faithful, and the seniors 
     were locked inside the hotel, where armed rangers stayed at 
     the door.
       ``They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you 
     can't go outside,'' she said. ``Some of the Asians who were 
     on the tour said, `Oh my God, are we under arrest?' They felt 
     like they were criminals.''
       By Oct. 3 the park, which sees an average of 4,500 visitors 
     a day, was nearly empty. The remaining hotel visitors were 
     required to leave.
       As the bus made its 2.5-hour journey out of Yellowstone, 
     the tour guide made arrangements to stop at a full-service 
     bathroom at an in-park dude ranch he had done business with 
     in the past. Though the bus had its own small bathroom, 
     Vaillancourt said seniors were looking for a more comfortable 
     place to stop. But no stop was made--Vaillancourt said the 
     dude ranch had been warned that its license to operate would 
     be revoked if it allowed the bus to stop. So the bus 
     continued on to Livingston, Mont., a gateway city to the 
     park.
       The bus trip made headlines in Livingston, where the local 
     newspaper Livingston Enterprise interviewed the tour guide, 
     Gordon Hodgson, who accused the park service of ``Gestapo 
     tactics.''
       ``The national parks belong to the people,'' he told the 
     Enterprise. ``This isn't right.''
       Calls to Yellowstone's communications office were not 
     returned, as most of the personnel have been furloughed.
       Many of the foreign visitors were shocked and dismayed by 
     what had happened and how they were treated, Vaillancourt 
     said.
       ``A lot of people who were foreign said they wouldn't come 
     back (to America),'' she said.
       The National Parks' aggressive actions have spawned 
     significant criticism in western states. Governors in park-
     rich states such as Arizona have been thwarted in their 
     efforts to fund partial reopenings of parks. The Washington 
     Times quoted an unnamed Park Service official who said park 
     law enforcement personnel were instructed to ``make life as 
     difficult for people as we can. It's disgusting.''
       The experience brought up many feelings in Vaillancourt. 
     What struck her most was a widely circulated story about a 
     group of World War II veterans who were on a trip to 
     Washington, D.C., to see the World War II memorial when the 
     shutdown began. The memorial was barricaded and guards were 
     posted, but the vets pushed their way in.
       That reminded her of her father, a World War II veteran who 
     spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
       ``My father took a lot of crap from the Japanese,'' she 
     recalled, her eyes welling with tears. ``Every day they made 
     him bow to the Japanese flag. But he stood up to them.
       ``He always said to stand up for what you believe in, and 
     don't let them push you around,'' she said, adding she was 
     sad to see ``fear, guns and control'' turned on citizens in 
     her own country.

  Mr. ENZI. I object, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. For the benefit of those on the other side of the 
aisle, I am not going to end my remarks with the issue of a unanimous 
consent, but I still have things I wish to say.
  No one supports a government shutdown, not my side of the aisle or 
the other side of the aisle. Could we have avoided this situation? 
Sure. The government could be open and fully operating today but for 
the majority. There

[[Page 15544]]

was an unwillingness to engage in a legitimate debate over proposals to 
amend ObamaCare or any other issues that have come before us, not even 
having a debate on those pieces that have come over from the other 
body. Hiding behind a motion to table is a way of avoiding debate.
  As we know, the House passed and the Senate defeated three different 
continuing resolutions. Each one of those would have kept the 
government open and prevented a shutdown, but they were rejected by the 
Senate majority.
  We are in this position because the majority refused to give the 
American people relief from the individual mandate and treat President 
Obama and his political appointees the same as all other Americans or 
as we now in Congress will be treated when it comes to health 
insurance.
  We could have considered each of the 12 individual appropriations 
bills and passed them into law. But the Senate Democratic leadership 
has been derelict in that responsibility.
  The Senate did not get into debate on a single one of those bills 
prior to the end of the fiscal year. I heard what my colleague from 
Iowa said, that one was brought up, then amendments were filed, and 
there wasn't a motion to move ahead. The point is the Senate is a 
deliberative body. Every Senator has a right to offer an amendment. We 
were denied that right by the majority or at least weren't assured of 
that right by the majority, and that is why cloture was not granted.
  Of course, what the American people deserve is fair consideration of 
all the money we appropriate. We don't get that consideration on a 
continuing resolution, we get it lumped into one piece of legislation. 
We should, as the Senator from Wyoming said, be considering separate 
appropriations bills.
  I remember not too long ago that a chairman of an Appropriations 
Committee on the other side of the aisle, when they were in the 
majority, was bragging to the Senate that for the first time in a long 
time the Senate passed every single appropriations bill before the end 
of the fiscal year. If it could be done then, why can't it be done now? 
But it isn't going to be done if we aren't willing to debate the bills.
  It seems to me the American people, the taxpayers, deserve a 
thoughtful and good-faith effort to find common ground on our spending 
matters. It is a duty to pass spending bills.
  Passing a continuing resolution has become a new normal around here. 
That is not right. It is not acceptable. While we wait for the Senate 
majority and the President of the United States to come to the 
negotiating table and end their government shutdown, we should be 
working to fund or reopen areas of government where there is agreement.
  This is what we did when we passed the Pay Our Military Act, where we 
all agreed to pay those both in and out of uniform who defend our 
freedom. We made a commitment to them because of their commitment to 
our country. The military people deserve that piece of legislation.
  This is what we should be doing to open our national parks and 
monuments. That is what we should be doing to ensure the critically 
important work of the National Institutes of Health.
  Why hold these widely supported and critically necessary areas 
hostage? Why is the majority insisting on an all-or-nothing approach? 
Why can't we agree to fund these things we agree on and negotiate the 
rest?
  At the very least, a little bit of common sense ought to prevail. It 
was common sense, for instance, when the minority leader made the point 
about chaplains. It is common sense that chaplains have an obedience 
not only to the government but to a higher authority, and they ought to 
be able to exercise that wherever they are.
  We have a situation that the parks aren't open. We have a situation 
where the World War II Memorial was closed down. Open-air memorials 
have never been closed down when we had shutdowns in the past. A little 
common sense prevailing would avoid a lot of these situations we are 
bringing before the Senate for consideration.
  Remember, the House of Representatives has passed legislation to keep 
the government open, and the Senate has refused it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.


                Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 85

  Mr. COATS. There is an interesting debate going on without achieving 
any results. Let me take a crack at trying to make a more persuasive 
argument to see if my colleagues across the aisle would agree.
  We can disagree on what is an essential function of government, what 
is a constitutional function, what we ought to be funding and not 
funding. That is some of the debate we are in today.
  I don't think anyone can disagree that an essential function of 
government is providing for our national defense, providing for 
homeland security, protecting Americans from terrorist threats, and 
responding to natural disasters. There is an organization in the 
government called the Federal Emergency Management Agency--FEMA is the 
common name--which is there to provide support to first responders 
whenever a natural disaster hits, whenever an intended disaster through 
an act of terrorism threatens this country or threatens Americans. 
These are functions that have to be immediately responded to, and FEMA 
has, over the years, improved significantly its ability to play a 
critical, crucial role in responding to these types of efforts that put 
Americans at risk.
  What I am bringing forward, because we now know that while some 
functions of FEMA are being supported and funded and manned, many of 
those who would be essential should a disaster hit, whether it is 
natural or manmade, have been furloughed and are not available to 
assist in that first response. So I am simply asking that we consider 
seriously and gain support for the funding of FEMA to its full extent.
  We have recently seen natural disasters in the United States. We had 
tornadoes roar through southern Indiana. FEMA was there just last year 
immediately. We are still in hurricane season, though we have been very 
fortunate this year and have not had a major hurricane land on the 
continental United States. Karen was in the gulf, but it dissipated. I 
might remind my colleagues hurricane season runs to November 30, so we 
are not out of the woods yet.
  We have just seen a disaster in the Upper Midwest with an 
unprecedented amount of snow falling affecting ranchers, affecting 
communities; and some of our Northern States--South Dakota, Nebraska, 
Colorado, and others--have seen massive flooding and wildfires 
throughout the West. All of these are disasters that need to be 
responded to and FEMA plays a major role in all of that.
  Who knows what potential terrorist attacks or threats are out there 
where we may need to have an immediate response. So what I am asking is 
that we consider funding FEMA at its current annual funding rate of 
$10.2 billion. This bill will extend funding for FEMA until December 
15, but funding in the bill could end sooner if Congress, hopefully, 
reaches a larger budget agreement before that time. Hurricane season 
doesn't end until November 30, as I said. We can ensure this critical 
government function is not in any way limited by passing this bill, 
which was supported by 23 Democrats in the House of Representatives. So 
it does have bipartisan support.
  I, therefore, ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of Calendar No. 210, H.J. Res. 85, making 
continuing appropriations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency; 
and I further ask unanimous consent that the measure be read three 
times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I wish to commend my 
colleague from Indiana for noting the important role the Federal 
Government plays when it comes to natural disasters. There is not a 
Senator on this

[[Page 15545]]

floor who hasn't seen this Federal response in his or her own home 
State because of a natural disaster. The Senator from Indiana is 
proposing we respond to these natural disasters with the government 
agencies that have been authorized, that are appropriated--usually 
appropriated--the funds to do so. He has picked one of them, FEMA, and 
he has picked it because of the possibility of a hurricane. That is a 
legitimate observation.
  Unfortunately, the Senator from Indiana is not telling the whole 
story. FEMA plays an important role. Wouldn't the Senator like to have 
the National Weather Service fully funded so we could see the hurricane 
coming in advance? Sadly, it is a casualty of the Republican shutdown. 
Wouldn't the Senator like to have the Coast Guard available to have 
aerial observation of the oncoming hurricane and to provide that 
information to save lives? Sadly, it is not included in the unanimous 
consent request of the Senator from Indiana, and many of their 
functions are the victims of the Republican government shutdown.
  I am sorry too that when it comes to the actual damage done by a 
disaster, FEMA plays an important role but not an exclusive role. The 
Senator from Indiana knows this, as I do from Illinois. Listen to the 
other agencies that are a critical part of responding to natural 
disasters: The Small Business Administration, they are usually the 
first on the scene with the Red Cross. Sadly, they are closed down 
because of the Republican shutdown of the government, and the Senator 
doesn't include them in his natural disaster request; DOT--Department 
of Transportation--and the need for emergency highways in the midst of 
hurricanes and tornadoes is not included in the request of the Senator 
from Indiana; the Corps of Engineers, the National Guard and Reserve, 
and the Public Health Service, none of these are included.
  But the good news for the Senator from Indiana is we can take care of 
this together. I am going to suggest a modest modification to his 
request that covers all of the disaster agencies of the Federal 
Government that respond and keep us safe and do everything to put 
families back in their homes and businesses back in business. It is 
just a basic idea. Let's reopen the Federal Government.
  I ask unanimous consent that the request of the Senator from Indiana 
be modified: that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; that 
the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; 
and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table, with no intervening action or debate.
  This amendment is the text that passed the Senate. It is a clean, no-
strings-attached continuing resolution for the entire government and 
every disaster agency of the Federal Government. It is something that 
is already in the House of Representatives and has, reportedly, the 
support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives.
  I hope the Senator from Indiana will stick with me. Let's get the job 
done and accept this modification.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will Senator from Indiana so modify his 
request?
  Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, I think my colleague, the 
Senator from Illinois, has made an important point. There are agencies 
that relate to the role FEMA plays when a natural disaster or our 
homeland security is threatened. I don't disagree with that. Therefore, 
I would be willing to modify my amendment to include the Coast Guard, 
the National Weather Service, and those agencies listed by the Senator 
from Illinois as a part of this. So directing this toward applying to 
natural disasters and threats to our homeland security, I think we 
should include those agencies. I think we could go forward with that 
request.
  But I don't think that is what the Senator has offered. He offered a 
total CR, which we know is not going to go forward under the current 
circumstances, even though all of us want to get to that point. But as 
was discussed earlier by my colleagues, the regular order is usually to 
take appropriations--pieces of appropriations--and pass them on an 
individual basis. That simply is what we are doing, given the 
constraints we have that prevent us from doing that and coming forward.
  I would say this: Three times the House has sent over opportunities 
to take up the full CR that have been rejected by the other side and a 
fourth opportunity to sit down and negotiate how we would go forward, 
which has also been rejected. So it works both ways.
  If the Senator would be able to acknowledge the addition of what was 
listed directly related in his statement, then we could give that 
consideration here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request, as 
modified?
  Mr. COATS. It is sort of a Ping-Pong game.
  Mr. DURBIN. Which request, my request?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. As modified by the Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. DURBIN. Let me see if I can clarify.
  Reserving the right to object, I understand the Senator from Indiana 
acknowledges that just appropriating money for FEMA does not respond to 
natural disasters in America. I have offered a continuing resolution 
which includes all of the disaster agencies. I think what he is asking 
me to do is to rewrite his original unanimous consent request.
  I would just like a yes or no when it comes to my request to modify 
his original request. I am not certain what he has asked of me for 
further modification. So I would ask for clarification either from the 
Senator from Indiana or from the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Would the Senator from Indiana further modify 
his request?
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am not able to modify the request that 
has been made, as I understand it, by the Senator from Illinois, 
because he goes beyond what he listed as being needed to just address 
natural disasters and threats to homeland security. He listed a number 
of agencies that play into that role.
  My understanding--and he can clarify this if I am wrong--is that he 
wanted to expand my request that he consent to adding the limited 
portion of what he mentioned relating to the role of FEMA and our 
national security issues and homeland security issues that we are faced 
with, but he added to that the request for funding of the entire 
functions of government, and that I cannot consent to.
  Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, this is why this approach 
is so awful. Coming to the floor with 11 requests for 11 agencies, we 
estimate there are another 79 requests that need to be made for us to 
fund our government.
  Grow up, Senate. You can't do this one agency at a time. We will be 
here in December doing agency by agency. What we are offering is a 
continuing resolution to fund the government, including all of the 
disaster agencies.
  I object to the original request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from North Dakota.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 3230

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 206, H.R. 3230, 
making continuing appropriations during a government shutdown to 
provide pay and allowances to members of the Reserve components of the 
Armed Forces; I further ask unanimous consent that the measure be read 
three times and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Reserving the right to object, we are again seeing a 
request to fund a small part of our government. This request refers to 
our National Guard and Reserve. These are amazing members of our 
American family who

[[Page 15546]]

have given and sacrificed with great honor and who I find to a one are 
selfless. Not a one of them would say take care of me but do not take 
care of any of the other Americans who are home today or whose 
businesses have been hurt or who don't have the services they need 
because of this government shutdown. I would think the National Guard 
and Reserve would stand tall and say: Let's take care of every 
American. It is what I have sworn my own life to do, and it is what 
this Federal Government should do.
  So instead of just taking a piecemeal approach--again, just asking to 
take care of the Guard and Reserve--I would say to the Senator that it 
is easy to do this. We can take up a unanimous consent request that has 
been offered a number of times on our side to simply open the 
government for all the functions and not those we pick and choose at 
the moment or by saying one American is more important than another 
American or one function is more important than another function. It 
would be like picking your children. We don't do that in our families 
and we shouldn't do it in the Senate.
  I ask unanimous consent that an amendment which is at the desk be 
agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third 
time and passed; and the motions to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  This amendment is the text that passed the Senate--passed the 
Senate--and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government. 
It is something that is already over in the House and reportedly has 
the support of a majority of the Members of the House of 
Representatives. I ask unanimous consent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Dakota so modify 
his request?
  Mr. HOEVEN. Reserving the right to object, the good Senator is 
talking about a resolution that has already gone from the Senate to the 
House. That has already been done. Why do we keep going back to things 
we don't have agreement on, rather than advancing on the things where 
we can get agreement?
  We have instances where our National Guard is not getting paid. We 
have instances where our Reserve members are not being paid. We have 
instances where death benefits are not being paid to members of the 
military who made the ultimate sacrifice.
  We passed the Pay Our Military Act. It went through the House, and it 
went through the Senate. We passed the Pay Our Military Act. All of our 
military members and the civilians who support them should be paid. We 
passed legislation to do that, whether it is Active Forces, Guard, or 
Reserve. We have done that.
  What we are simply asking for here is a measure that would make sure 
that gets done. That is what we are asking for. Let's make sure they 
all get paid. We passed the legislation in both Houses. Let's start 
working on the things we can agree on. That is why I have asked for 
consent to proceed with the measure, and I object to the request to 
modify it.
  Again, I ask unanimous consent that my original measure, H.R. 3230, 
Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act, be considered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. Is there objection to the 
original request?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, because this request doesn't resupply the 
stocks for our Guard and Reserve, it doesn't buy the tools or spare 
parts, it doesn't provide the energy and support they need to keep 
their facilities open, their electric bills can't be paid, their base 
maintenance can't be paid, they can't get their GI education benefits 
or mental health programs they need to make the transition home, 
because I believe--and I think all of us here believe--we should open 
all of those functions, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.


                 Unanimous Consent Request H.J. Res. 84

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, despite all the noise going on, despite the 
fight we are having, I think one thing we can all agree is the most 
important thing for our country is to restore and save the American 
dream.
  With all this talk of an economic recovery, it would shock people 
around this country who are struggling to find a job or perhaps have a 
job but the job is a dead-end job and it doesn't pay enough that they 
can't live off of what they are making--there are a lot of reasons that 
is happening, but one of the reasons that is happening is because in 
the 21st century, the jobs we need in order to make it to the middle 
class require a higher level of skill and education than they did in 
the past. This is particularly chronic and is hurting people who are 
growing up disadvantaged, especially children growing up in dangerous 
neighborhoods, with little access to education and broken families. 
They are struggling to get ahead, and we are seeing the impact of the 
societal breakdown every day.
  We have a program called Head Start. This program helps children 5 
years of age and younger. There are about 1 million kids a year who 
benefit from this program. It helps them get meals, it helps them get 
access to medical screenings, physical therapy for children with 
disabilities, and access to quality prekindergarten education for these 
children. This is not a perfect program. I would like to see reforms. I 
would like to see this program become portable so that children and 
their families can access the best provider possible. But now is not 
the time for this debate. Now is the time to do everything we can to 
protect this program in the short term because as we speak there are 
thousands of children around this country already being impacted. In my 
State of Florida, almost 400 children have already been cut off from 
these services.
  The reason I think this issue is different from the other ones that 
have been debated here is because the one thing you can't get back is 
time. Every day that goes by is one less day of education these 
children get. You can never give them back the time. You can always go 
back and pay somebody the money you owe them, but you can't give them 
back time.
  So I would like to make a request that I hope will be accepted. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate 
consideration of H.J. Res. 84, which makes continuing appropriations 
for the Head Start Program, which was received from the House; I 
further ask that the measure be read three times and passed and that 
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to 
speak before I object to the unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Florida, now wants to 
fund the Head Start Program. That is all well and good. We all 
recognize how invaluable the Head Start Program is. But I must say that 
listening to this request and the previous request and the other 
requests that have come up reminds me of an analogy.
  The Republicans, quite frankly, have torn down the wall of 
government, and now they want to rebuild it brick by brick, but the way 
they want to rebuild it is by stacking the bricks. Here is a stack of 
bricks here, here is another stack of bricks, and here is another stack 
of bricks. Anyone will tell you that if you build a wall like that, it 
will be very weak. It won't hold together.
  Our government is built from a wall of interconnected bricks. Look at 
a brick wall sometime. See how the bricks are interconnected. It 
provides strength. They all rely upon one another. They are 
interconnected. They provide a bulwark. If you stack those bricks one 
after the other, you will have a weak wall.
  Now what the Republicans are saying is: Well, we have torn down that 
wall by shutting down the government. Now we want to build it brick by 
brick, but

[[Page 15547]]

we will just stack them. We will have a brick here and a brick there.
  This is what I am getting at with that analogy. The Senator from 
Florida wants to fund the Head Start Program--all well and good--but 
the Head Start Program is not a separate brick in that wall, it is 
interconnected to so many others.
  A variety of other Federal programs are used in the Head Start 
Program. For example, States use the Child Care and Development Block 
Grant Program. They use the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families--
TANF--Program. They use the social services block grants to provide 
wraparound services. In this way, for example, they can use some of 
those funds to extend the Head Start day from half a day to a full day. 
They can extend it from a full day to later hours for parents who have 
different working hours and working conditions. Under a shutdown, we 
don't have these other programs. So you might have the Head Start 
Program, but these other ones are all shut down.
  Head Start providers use funding from the Child and Adult Care Food 
Program, which is funded under a whole different auspices of the 
government, but this food program comes in to provide healthy meals and 
nutritious services. I say to the Senator from Florida, I have visited 
a lot of Head Start centers, and they have nutritious food for these 
kids. That doesn't come under the Head Start Program, that comes from 
the Child and Adult Care Food Program. That is also shut down right 
now.
  So, again, you could fund the Head Start Program, but all these other 
programs interlock and provide the support necessary for a good Head 
Start Program.
  I might also say that the Head Start Program is a need-based program. 
So if someone wants to get their child into a Head Start Program, 
sometimes documentation is used and needed--documentation such as last 
year's tax returns. What was your income? Well, as long as the IRS is 
closed right now--out of 94,000 active IRS employees, 87,000 are 
furloughed--the IRS is not processing those.
  The point I make to all and to the Senator from Florida is that it is 
not enough just to say: I want to reopen the Head Start Program. All of 
these bricks are interlocked. That is why it is so important to get the 
government running again.
  If the Senator from Florida wants to cut funding for some of these 
other programs, there is plenty of opportunity to do that through the 
legislative process and the appropriations process. But just to say we 
are going to fund the Head Start Program, I say, with all due respect, 
that is a cruel irony to hold out to all of the families who use the 
Head Start Program that somehow, yes, we want to fund Head Start, but 
all the other things that go to support it and make it work, we are 
taking that away, and like a wall built of stacked bricks, it will fall 
over because it won't have the other supports that are needed.
  So I respectfully object to the request from the Senator from 
Florida.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Kentucky.


                Unanimous Consent Request--H.J. Res. 70

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, let's be very clear here today. Republicans 
have come to the floor to reopen the government. We have offered 
request after request to reopen the government. We have offered to 
negotiate. From the other side, we hear: We will not negotiate, we will 
not compromise, and we will not reopen the government.
  We have offered 13 different compromises today to reopen the 
government. We are willing to open the government.
  They say: You must agree to everything or we will open nothing. We 
will not compromise.
  We say to them: Why don't we open the parts of government we agree 
on?
  Can we not end this farce of putting security guards in front of the 
World War II Memorial? My goodness, it is an open park. They spent more 
money closing it than we spend keeping it open. We spend more money 
guarding the World War II monument than we do protecting our Ambassador 
in Libya. It has become a farce.
  Eighty-five percent of your government is open. We have offered today 
to open another 10 percent. Compromise means coming together and voting 
on some of the things on which you agree.
  Every program we have wanted to open today--the national parks, NIH, 
Veterans Affairs, allowing funerals, for goodness' sakes, for our 
military heroes who have died in action--they say: We agree to it, but 
we won't agree to it.
  So let's be very clear. Republicans have offered today very specific 
proposals for opening the government. The Democrats have uniformly 
rejected every appeal to open the government. So when one of our heroes 
can't have a funeral, when one of our people cannot be buried in 
Arlington Cemetery, when a World War II veteran goes to the monument 
and is barricaded and kept from viewing the monument to celebrate their 
service, be very clear that Republicans have asked to open the 
government, and the Democrats have rejected opening it at every point. 
In fact, they are very explicit with their strategy. We will not 
negotiate, they say. The President says he will not negotiate under 
pressure. My question is, When will he negotiate?
  We have had one good thing happen for the American taxpayer in the 
last 5 years. The bad thing is $7 trillion has been added to your kids' 
and your grandkids' tab. One good thing happened, and it happened under 
duress, and it happened with regard to the debt ceiling. The sequester 
actually cut the rate of growth of spending. It didn't cut spending, 
but it is cutting the rate of growth of spending. The sequester 
happened under duress. The other side loves debt, loves spending, and 
doesn't care how much your kids or grandkids will have. They don't 
care. They have rejected every compromise.
  What we are saying is that $7 trillion of debt under President Obama 
is too much. The country is struggling. Economists say 1 million people 
are out of work because of the economy and because of the debt and 
because of the burden. And what do they want to do? Heap more debt on 
your kids and grandkids. I say enough is enough.
  Let's reopen the government. Republicans today have said we will open 
the government. Let's open the parts we can agree to.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of 
Calendar No. 207 for H.J. Res. 70 to open the national parks, to make 
continuing appropriations for the year 2014; that the measure be read 
three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it was my 
understanding that the Senator from Kentucky was going to make a 
request relative to the Veterans Administration. The request relative 
to the national parks has been made earlier today. Is the request for 
the National Park Service?
  Mr. PAUL. Yes. And I can go on. I want it to be very clear that the 
Senator is objecting to funding the national parks, so when people go 
to the national parks, they know they can call his office. We want to 
open the national parks, and we want to make it very clear that the 
Democratic side is objecting to funding the national parks.
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would like to clarify a few points relative to 
statements made by the junior Senator from Kentucky.
  The first statement: The Democrats will not negotiate. Well, let me 
remind the Senator from Kentucky--and I am sure he has not forgotten 
this--the spending level for the continuing resolution is the 
Republican's spending level which we agreed to in negotiation, $978 
billion on an annual basis.
  Mr. PAUL. It is the law.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.

[[Page 15548]]


  Mr. DURBIN. It is the figure Republicans placed as part of the 
negotiations, which the majority leader agreed to. That was a 
negotiation which led to that number which Speaker Boehner agreed to.
  Secondly, this argument by the Senator from Kentucky that the 
Republicans are here today to open the government--let me at least 
remind the Senator from Kentucky that it is their failure to pass the 
continuing resolution by the Republican majority in the House that has 
closed the government for 9 straight days. We passed the continuing 
resolution to keep the government open at Republican spending levels. 
The House has refused. This is a Republican shutdown.
  Point No. 3.
  Mr. PAUL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. Let me finish my statement. I reserved the right to 
object and I have the floor--I stand corrected. The Senator from 
Kentucky has the floor, but I can stand and speak reserving the right 
to object to his unanimous consent request. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The right is at the sufferance of the Senator 
who has the floor.
  Mr. PAUL. I will suffer longer.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Kentucky because I went through 
a period of suffering a few moments ago.
  The point I would like to make to the Senator from Kentucky about the 
national parks is one I hope he will understand. We want to open the 
entire government including the national parks and other lands, 
recreation facilities that are owned by the Federal Government beyond 
the national parks. When it comes to the World War II memorial the 
Senator made reference to, I was just there. We had a group of honored 
veterans from World War II who came from Illinois last week and I met 
them. They had access to the World War II Memorial. The reason there 
was any restriction was because the Republican shutdown took the 
employees away, which made it impossible for them to man their post.
  Here is my offer to the Senator from Kentucky. It is not new, but it 
tells the story. Do the Republicans want to reopen the Government? Here 
is your chance.
  I ask consent the Senator's request be modified as follows: That the 
amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, the joint resolution, as 
amended, be read a third time and passed; the motions to reconsider be 
considered made and laid on the table, with no intervening action or 
debate. This amendment is the text that has passed the Senate, it is a 
clean continuing, no-strings-attached resolution for the entire 
government including the national parks and many other important 
things. It is something that is already over in the House. It could be 
called in a matter of minutes and passed by a bipartisan majority in 
the House.
  Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. I am not opposed to a clean CR. If we want to have a clean 
CR at a level at which we can balance the budget, I am all for it. If 
the Senator would accept a modification of a top-line number of $940 
billion to replace $988 billion where appropriate throughout the 
continuing resolution, I can support his unanimous consent for a 
continuing resolution to go back over to the House.
  Mr. DURBIN. Does the Senator object to my modification?
  Mr. PAUL. I am offering a new modification to your modification and 
asking unanimous consent that the Senator accept as a new top-line 
number, where 988 appears, that $988 billion appears throughout the 
continuing resolution, that if your objective is to have a clean CR, 
let's have a clean CR. I am happy to do it. But we need to do it and 
restrain the growth of spending in our government because your party 
has added so much our country is drowning in a sea of debt.
  If you will agree to a top-line number of $940 billion to replace 
$988 billion throughout the continuing resolution where appropriate, I 
would agree to your consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois so modify his 
modification?
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, holding the floor at the 
sufferance of the junior Senator from Kentucky, I would like to ask him 
to respond to a question without yielding the floor.
  Mr. PAUL. Sure.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator tell us when was the last time our 
Federal Government had a surplus in the budget and who was the 
President at that time?
  Mr. PAUL. Could I ask for a germane question?
  Mr. DURBIN. Not really.
  Mr. PAUL. Part of the answer is it was divided government. The 
interesting thing about divided government is divided government can 
work better, and with more conversation, I think we could get beyond 
this impasse. I think if we would negotiate--and here is the problem. I 
know now there are some in your party saying you will negotiate but the 
President said at least, oh, 20, maybe 30, maybe 40 times on national 
television he will not negotiate until he gets his way and that is 
still essentially what you guys are saying. You will negotiate after 
you get your way. The problem is, we think you will not negotiate 
unless there is a deadline, because the thing is, when you finally did 
negotiate--and here is my question to the Senator from Illinois through 
the Presiding Officer--did you vote for the sequester?
  The sequester was not a Republican bill, it was voted on by many 
Members of your party. The numbers are yours.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Kentucky has 
expired. Procedurally----
  Mr. DURBIN. I object to the modification to reduce the top-line 
budget number. This was a number negotiated between Speaker Boehner and 
the majority leader. Speaker Boehner said this was a number he could 
pass. I believe since we took a $70 billion cut in the budget 
resolution that has already passed in the Senate, I will not agree to 
further cuts in the programs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection to the request?
  Mr. DURBIN. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original request of 
the Senator from Kentucky?
  Mr. PAUL. Is there objection to the original--the modification of my 
motion? I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DURBIN. I believe what is pending is the original unanimous 
consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the original unanimous 
consent request?
  Mr. DURBIN. For the record, the last time we had a surplus was under 
a Democratic President, President William Jefferson Clinton, and I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, what is the order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I yield 1 minute of my time to the Senator from 
California.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. While the junior Senator from Kentucky is on the floor, I 
want to make sure the American people know the answer to the question 
my friend from Illinois asked him--who was President the last time 
there was not only a balanced budget but a surplus? The answer is Bill 
Clinton. And I was here when we had that vote. So, I think, was the 
Senator from Illinois. We did not get one Republican to join us in that 
budget that actually worked so well that we had a surplus until the 
Republicans put a huge tax cut for billionaires on the credit card, and 
two wars.
  Let's be clear here, what this is about. We have to open the 
government, we have to pay our bills, and then let the good Senator 
from Washington go negotiate with Congressman Ryan, the chairman of the 
Budget

[[Page 15549]]

Committee, and yes, we can see our way to a balanced budget. But let's 
not play these games of government by piecemeal spending.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, as we now know, the government has been 
closed for business for more than a week. Across the country, 
newspapers are now filled with stories about how the shutdown is 
costing us jobs and slashing paychecks and interfering with everything 
from Head Start to the VA claims. This shutdown has already cost 
American workers and families a lot of pain and its impacts are only 
going to get worse. That is why what we heard this weekend from Speaker 
Boehner was so frustrating.
  Speaker Boehner said:

       The American people expect in Washington when we have a 
     crisis like this, that the leaders will sit down and have a 
     conversation.

  Listening to Speaker Boehner, you would think a government shutdown 
fell out of the sky last week and caught everyone by surprise. The 
truth is it was completely avoidable. Senate Democrats tried to start 
negotiations to avoid this shutdown 18 times before October 1, and each 
time an extreme minority of Republicans stood up and said no. Speaker 
Boehner himself even spoke out in favor of delaying negotiations.
  This shutdown did not happen by accident. We did not have to have 
this crisis. This shutdown happened because tea party Republicans and 
the Republicans who would not stand up to them chose brinkmanship over 
negotiations for 6 straight months. Now that we have reached this 
point, Republicans say they are ready to have a conversation--but only 
if we allow the government shutdown to continue.
  Democrats are more than happy to talk about the budget, but 
Republican insistence on keeping the government closed during these 
negotiations makes no sense at all. It suggests that they are not 
thinking about how this shutdown is impacting our families and our 
businesses, which cannot afford talk at the expense of action.
  I would like to talk about some of those impacts today. At a time 
when we should be focused on creating jobs and growing our economy, 
this shutdown is hurting workers and businesses and our recovery. From 
the sandwich shops that rely on Federal employees who come by for lunch 
every day to construction companies that cannot get contracts because 
of all the economic uncertainty to major corporations such as Boeing, 
that are considering furloughs, it is clear the shutdown is putting 
both public and private sector jobs at risk. Because Federal workers at 
agencies such as the IRS and Social Security Administration are out of 
work, thousands of potential home buyers will be unable to get their 
mortgages approved, which could damage our housing recovery which has 
boosted our economy.
  Our Nation's veterans deserve our gratitude and our respect and all 
the support we can offer. But this shutdown is creating uncertainty for 
these men and women who have heroically served our country.
  Veterans make up nearly 30 percent of the Federal workforce--30 
percent. They are feeling the effects of furloughs. The shutdown has 
worsened the backlog in disability claims at the Department of Veterans 
Affairs, and veterans across the country are now watching and waiting 
for an end to this shutdown because, if it goes long enough, their 
benefits could be threatened. Nearly 640,000 veterans in my home State 
of Washington alone are at risk of losing their VA benefits if this 
shutdown extends past October. It should not have to be said, but they 
deserve much better. So do the struggling families who are now 
wondering how much longer they will be able to put food on their table.
  This shutdown will stop funding for the Special Supplemental 
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which 
helps more than 8.9 million struggling moms and young children get 
healthy food. Many of our States are now scrambling to find money to 
keep those WIC operations going. The USDA now estimates that we will 
only be able to continue as usual until the end of October, until their 
funding runs out.
  Other struggling parents wonder where they will send their children 
while they are at work. More than 7,000 children and their families 
have lost access to Head Start due to this shutdown. And, by the way, 
that is on top of the 57,000 slots as a result of the sequestration 
that has impacted so many.
  As much as Republicans may not want to acknowledge it, the effects of 
this shutdown are far-reaching and severe and, should this government 
stay closed, it will only get harder for agencies to continue providing 
services that are so crucial to our families and communities. So when 
Speaker Boehner says the American people expect their leaders to sit 
down and have a conversation--you know what. That is what I have been 
saying for the last 6 months. But what I will not accept and what I 
strongly believe the American people will not accept is starting a 
conversation while we are in this shutdown, which is hurting our 
economy and some of our most vulnerable children and families, and does 
even more damage. Now is not the time to talk about avoiding a 
shutdown, it is the time to actually do it.
  Speaker Boehner has said there are not votes in the House to pass a 
clean continuing resolution that will simply keep our government open. 
If that is the case, I would like him to prove it. Speaker Boehner 
should bring up the Senate's clean continuing resolution and allow 
Democrats and Republicans to vote on it. Then he should join Democrats 
in preventing a default, without delay and without strings attached 
because, I want to be very clear, a default on U.S. debts would be 
unprecedented and devastating.
  I held a hearing a few weeks ago in our Senate Budget Committee to 
talk about the impact of brinkmanship and uncertainty on our economy. 
The economists who joined us warned us that for families in my home 
State of Washington and across the country, default would mean mortgage 
rates and student loan costs would rise, making it harder to afford 
home ownership or even afford tuition; that home prices and stock 
prices would fall and businesses of all sizes would have trouble 
financing their activities, which would of course lead to layoffs and 
surging unemployment.
  I am not going to let the tea party cause Washington State families 
that kind of hardship. But after we have reopened the government, 
prevented this default, and made sure our families and communities are 
no longer paying the price for tea party brinkmanship, I would be more 
than happy to begin the negotiations that Democrats have been out here 
requesting to have for months. It is clearer every day that there is 
bipartisan support for those responsible steps. Democrats and 
Republicans may not agree on much, but I think a lot of us on both 
sides of this aisle have had enough of tea party brinkmanship and seen 
enough of governing by crisis.
  We are ready, together, to resolve our differences in a way that 
works for the American people and our economy, and I sincerely hope 
Speaker Boehner will not let the tea party stand in our way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, the U.S. Treasury says that in exactly 8 
days it will not have enough money to pay the government's bills. We 
are not in this position because the Secretary of the Treasury or the 
President spent more than they were supposed to. The Constitution 
allows them to spend only what Congress tells them to spend, and that 
is exactly what they have done.
  We are not in this position because investors refused to buy our 
bonds. Investors are lining up around the block to buy those. We are in 
this position for one reason and one reason only: Congress told the 
government to spend more money than we have. Congress told the Treasury 
to run up our debt to pay for it, but now Congress is threatening to 
run out on the bill.

[[Page 15550]]

  If that strikes you as bizarre, you are not alone. The United States 
is the only democracy in the world where the legislature debates 
whether it should pay the bills it has already incurred. The United 
States is the only democracy that regularly considers whether to run 
out on its bills; that is, to voluntarily default on its debt.
  Congress exercises direct control over the amount the Federal 
Government spends and the amount the Federal Government brings in 
through taxes and fees. Our national debt is simply a function of those 
two things--the money coming in and the money going out--and so 
Congress exercises direct control over the amount of debt we have. If 
Congress is unhappy with the size of the debt, it should change how 
much it spends or how much it brings in. There is no other option. The 
idea that we can somehow renege on our debts without paying a huge 
price is a fantasy, a dangerous fantasy.
  Consider what happened in 2011, the last time the government came up 
to the edge of a voluntary default. Even the possibility that the 
government would not make good on its debts spooked investors and 
pushed up interest rates. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, 
the interest rate increase from the last time the United States even 
talked about default will cost the government $19 billion over 10 
years. That is $19 billion that could have brought back funding for 
Head Start, Meals On Wheels or our military. That is $19 billion that 
could have eased the interest rates on student loans or been invested 
in medical research. That is $19 billion that could have been used to 
pay down the debt. Instead, that is $19 billion that was just flushed 
down the drain. Does anyone here care about wasteful government? Well, 
then, that is it.
  The last time the government came to the edge of a voluntary default, 
consumers and businesses got spooked too. The S&P dropped by more than 
17 percent, $800 billion in retirement assets vanished, mortgage rates 
went up nearly three-quarters of a point, costing every new homeowner 
real money. The net result was less consumer spending, fewer business 
investments, lower home ownership rates, and slower job growth.
  That is what happened the last time Congress came to the edge of a 
voluntary default. What happens if Congress actually defaults? If that 
happens, there is widespread concern among economists of every 
political persuasion that we would plunge into another recession.
  Government debt may seem to be an abstract and complicated thing, 
but, in fact, it is pretty simple. The government owes money to two 
main groups of people. It owes payments on U.S. bonds, which are mostly 
owned by foreign governments, and it owes money to the American people 
for things such as Social Security payments and Medicare reimbursements 
for hospitals and physicians. It owes paychecks to the military and 
retirement checks to veterans.
  If the Treasury does not have enough money to make all of its 
payments, then it will likely try to minimize the damage to America's 
credit rating, and that means making payments on the bonds held by 
foreign investors, leaving others to absorb the losses.
  Who will not get paid? Will it be seniors who rely on Social Security 
to live? Will it be hospitals that rely on Medicare to operate? Will it 
be our servicemembers who rely on paychecks to help their families back 
home? Will it be Federal contractors, large and small, who support 
millions of jobs nationwide?
  The Treasury makes 80 million payments a month and many of them will 
be delayed. As more time passes, unpaid bills will pile up. From there, 
it just gets worse. The Federal Government's inability to pay its bills 
could set off a chain reaction of defaults, sending the financial 
system into turmoil. Millions of people who rely on Federal payments 
might not have the money they need to keep current on their student 
loans or their mortgages or their small business loans. That could 
cause interest rates to spike, leading to a wave of further defaults, 
while the financial markets would be faced with the very real 
possibility that the United States would not have enough money to make 
payments on its bonds.
  American Treasury bonds are considered safe investments. They are 
considered so safe that they are used as collateral in millions of 
financial transactions around the world. If the United States does not 
have enough money to pay its bills, parties to these transactions will 
demand more collateral or different forms of collateral. That has a 
domino effect throughout the economy. The end result could be the kind 
of freeze of the credit markets that we saw after the failure of Lehman 
Brothers collapsed in 2008, the freeze that triggered the financial 
crisis.
  The idea that we can renege on our debts and not pay a huge price is 
a dangerous fantasy. I have heard some extremists in Congress argue 
that even if the United States runs out of money to pay all its bills, 
it will not be so bad because the Treasury will be able to keep current 
on its bond payments and avoid a technical default.
  That is a heck of a best case scenario, making bond payments to 
foreign governments, mostly China and Japan, while holding up Social 
Security payments, hospital payments, and military payments here at 
home. It is a terrible idea. People count on those payments to live.
  It is also a terrible idea that would not work. Just ask top Wall 
Street executives, including the CEO of Goldman Sachs who said publicly 
and unequivocally that prioritizing bond payments would still create 
``insurmountable uncertainty for investors,'' causing a spike in 
interest rates that would immediately increase monthly payments on 
student loans, mortgages, other personal debt, and would cripple job 
growth. Like it or not, the threat of default will cause this country a 
lot of pain.
  I want to make this absolutely clear: If we run out of money to pay 
our bills, the world will view this as the first default in the history 
of the United States. Wall Street and the global financial markets will 
view this as the first default in the history of the United States.
  This fight is about financial responsibility. Financially responsible 
people don't charge thousands of dollars on their credit cards and then 
tear up the bill when it arrives. Financially responsible Nations don't 
do that either. When we put our name on the line saying that a debt is 
backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States, we follow 
through. We protect our good name. We protect our good credit.
  For many things that we do in Congress, we can make a mistake and 
then back up and fix it. A default on our national debt is not one of 
those things. If we default and pay late, the damage could be 
irreversible.
  The first time we flirted with default was the first time in history 
that America's credit rating fell. If we actually default, some 
economists estimate we will add $75 billion a year to the debt in 
additional interest payments. That is three-quarters of $1 trillion 
over the next 10 years. There are a lot of good things to do with that 
money. Flushing it down the drain is not one of them.
  If we default on our debt, we could bring on a worldwide recession, a 
recession that would pummel hard-working middle-class people, people 
who lost their homes and jobs and retirement savings and who are barely 
getting back on their feet. Maybe we can escape a recession--maybe--but 
we are playing with the lives of every American, and it is not what the 
American people sent us to do. This is no time to act out dangerous 
fantasies.
  We must raise the debt ceiling. We must raise it now. A bedrock 
financial principle of government is to tell the world that the United 
States always pays its debts in full and on time. That is who we are.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in taking the floor 
to stress the urgency of action. I agree with my colleague from 
Massachusetts and her comments about the devastating impact the failure 
to pay our

[[Page 15551]]

bills would have on our economy, on our Nation's reputation, and on the 
worldwide economy. That would make absolutely no sense at all and would 
put our Nation at great risk.
  I thank the Senator for taking the time to explain the specific 
consequences if we were to allow the U.S. Treasury to be put in the 
position where it could not honor all of the obligations that have 
already been incurred.
  This is not about increasing spending. This is about paying the bills 
we have already incurred. Whether it is for those who hold our bonds, 
those who are entitled to a payroll check or those who are entitled to 
a contractor's check, we have to honor our bills. That is what 
America's great reputation is all about.
  I thank the Senator for bringing that up.
  The combination of a government shutdown combined with not paying our 
bills will have an impact on our economy that will be very hard for us 
to overcome. We have already been harmed. This government shutdown has 
already hurt America. It has hurt us internationally.
  This past week President Obama was supposed to be at the Asian 
economic summit. The Presiding Officer--the Senator from Delaware who 
serves on the Foreign Relations Committee--knows very well the 
importance of that particular conference.
  The headliner of that conference should have been President Obama 
pointing out how important the rebalanced Asia is to America's economy 
and that we are open for business; instead, America was closed for 
business. The headliner at that economic summit was President Xi of 
China. That is not what this Nation needed. We were harmed by that 
government shutdown and the President's inability to travel to Asia. 
Make no mistake about it, it hurt America.
  Our economy has already been hurt by the shutdown. Every day that the 
government is shut down, it hurts our economy. I can give a lot of 
specific examples. For instance, there was a report in this morning's 
paper about the State of Colorado and how it recently experienced one 
of the worst floods in its history which caused a devastating impact on 
its economy. They are now telling us that this shutdown is approaching 
the economic damage to Colorado that nature did to it a couple of weeks 
ago by the floods. However, there is a major difference: We can't stop 
what nature does--we can try to mitigate it--but we can stop this 
government shutdown. This is a government problem that we have imposed 
on the people of Colorado, the people of Maryland, the people of 
Delaware, and the people of our entire country.
  This shutdown has hurt the taxpayers of this country. I have heard my 
conservative friends say that we want to make sure we don't spend so 
much money. We want to help the taxpayers. In this short period of time 
already the shutdown has cost the taxpayers of this country a reported 
$2 billion. That is just wasted taxpayer dollars. We have a 
responsibility to care for the public funds. The way to do that right 
now is to open government and stop wasting taxpayer dollars.
  I have been on this floor many times to talk about the harm we are 
doing to the Federal workforce. Yes, we are harming the Federal 
workforce; there is no question about it. I am particularly sensitive 
because this region has more Federal workers--of the 800,000 who have 
been furloughed, over 300,000 come from this region. By the way, 30 
percent are veterans. The people who have served our Nation are now 
being furloughed because of this government shutdown. Maryland's 
workforce is about 10 percent of Federal workers. So this has had a 
real impact on the State I have the honor of representing in the 
Senate. Each one of those 800,000 people whom we represent is real. 
They are not just numbers. These are real people who have been harmed 
by the closing of the Federal Government.
  Let me speak about a couple of people whom I have heard about or who 
have called me. Kayla is a 15-year-old who I spoke to on the telephone. 
She told me about how her parents are worried. Both of her parents are 
Federal workers, and she, a 15-year-old, sensed the fear in her parents 
as to whether they will be able to pay their bills. We put that family 
at risk by failing to keep government open.
  Melissa Ayres is a furloughed Federal worker at the Social Security 
Administration. Her husband was unemployed for 2\1/2\ years as a result 
of our economic downturn. Now his company is recovering, but Melissa 
was the principal wage earner. She stated:

       I have always been the primary earner until Monday. Now I 
     think: What do I do to support my family?

  The government shutdown has hurt Melissa Ayres and her family.
  I heard from a farmer on the eastern shore of Maryland's Cecil 
County. He is part of the conservation stewardship program. I know the 
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Delaware, is well aware of that. 
But what this person has done is taken some income away from his 
farming activities by planting buffer crops. Those buffer crops help 
with reducing the amount of pollutants that run off into the Chester 
River, in this case, which will flow into the Chesapeake Bay. So he is 
being a good steward of the environment, and he enrolled in the 
conservation stewardship program. As part of that, he gets a payment 
from that fund, because he is giving up some of the income of his 
farming activities in order to help us preserve the Chesapeake Bay. 
During this shutdown, that payment is not being made.
  He has put himself in a tough position. He did the right thing. He 
has put his family at risk. He told me he has a young child who is 
undergoing certain treatment for his eye. He doesn't know whether he 
has the money for his child to continue in that medical treatment. He 
needs the check for his participation in this program.
  This government shutdown has had a real impact on real people.
  Johnny Zuagar who works at the Census Bureau--I should say used to 
work at the Census Bureau because he has been furloughed. Of the 5,000 
employees at the Census Bureau, less than 40 are currently working--
forty out of 5,000. The budget he has for his family is based upon his 
paycheck. If he doesn't get his full paycheck, he can't pay his bills. 
So his question is which bills should he pay and which not pay.
  That is the situation we are putting people in as a result of this 
government shutdown.
  Marcelo Del Canto was here earlier this week. He works with helping 
in the fight against substance abuse. He has been a Federal worker for 
8 years. He is in the unenviable position that he and his wife both 
work for the Federal Government, and they have both been furloughed. He 
is a Marylander and just recently bought a home in Maryland. He has a 
mortgage. If he doesn't get a paycheck, how does he pay his mortgage? 
The mortgage company is not going to say: Oh, government shutdown. You 
don't have to pay your mortgage payments.
  This shutdown is having a real impact on real families in my State of 
Maryland and in every State in this Nation.
  Then there are agencies that just can't do their work that will hurt 
our country. The Environmental Protection Agency currently has 93 
percent of its workforce on furlough. That means we are at risk with 
our public health--clean air, clean water. Our environment is at risk. 
The Chesapeake Bay is at greater risk because the people out there 
doing the monitoring and doing the enforcement are not there. 
Scientists are not doing what they need to be doing in order to help us 
with public health and to deal with our environment.
  Let me tell my colleagues that it is also directly hurting our 
economy. In Baltimore, one of the most important economic development 
sites, Harbor Point, in downtown Baltimore, which is being developed is 
a RCRA site, which requires the approval of the Environmental 
Protection Agency in order to move forward with the economic 
development plan. The people who would do that approval process are on 
furlough. That project is now on hold and the economic development that 
would help Baltimore and our State economy is now on hold.

[[Page 15552]]

  The shutdown is having a real effect on real people.
  The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, which is 
located in the State of Maryland, does work that is so important for 
innovation, for science, and technology. They do work to help us have a 
competitive edge internationally. Ninety-one percent of their workforce 
is on furlough. How do we expect to be competitive?
  This year, the SAMMI Awards were recently given out. The SAMMI Awards 
are given to Federal workers who excel in public service. These are our 
frontliners. These are the people who are serving their nation, and we 
want to honor them. I want to recognize some of the people who were 
being honored at the SAMMI Awards this year. One is Daniel 
Madrzykowski. He works at NIST. I mention him because he has been there 
for 28 years. The work he does is to figure out how he can keep our 
first responders who fight fires safe. He does the research as to how 
they can go into a building in a safer way. Well, he is furloughed, and 
our first responders are at a little bit greater risk today as a result 
of the government shutdown.
  The shutdown is having an effect on real people.
  I read with interest how we celebrated the Nobel Prize in medicine 
going to James Rothman and Randy Schekman for the incredible work they 
did. I don't know if I can explain what they did, but I will tell my 
colleagues that it is incredible. They were able to reach that pinnacle 
in their careers and reach their accomplishments because during their 
career they were supported by the National Institutes of Health. NIH 
does basic research which is so important--the building blocks for 
discovery in America. It provides incentives for young people to go 
into science and to go into research.
  Will we have the next group of Nobel laureates? Today it is less 
certain than it was a week ago. NIH cannot support those types of 
research grants today. Their people are on furlough. America is not 
open for business. Real people are being hurt by what is happening.
  It is not just in government employment. I can talk about private 
sector employment.
  It was just reported today that Lockheed will be laying off 400 
Maryland workers as a result of the shutdown. I can give many more 
examples of private companies that are laying off people as a result of 
this shutdown.
  The bottom line is this: We hear from some of our Republican 
colleagues in the House that we have to negotiate, we have to pick 
winners and losers; we have to wait for a crisis to occur in a 
particular agency before they will consider a special bill to open some 
of those agencies. So let me just conclude by the quote I cited once 
before on the floor of the Senate from the Baltimore Sun papers. It 
says, in regards to negotiations and what we should do:

       The gun isn't raised to Mr. Obama's head or to the 
     Senate's. The Democrats have no particular stake in passing a 
     continuing resolution or in raising the debt ceiling other 
     than keeping public order and doing what any reasonable 
     person expects Congress to do. No, the gun is raised at the 
     nation as a whole. That's why descriptions like ``ransom'' 
     and ``hostage'' are not mere hyperbole, they are as close as 
     the English language gets to accurately describing the GOP 
     strategy.

  It is time for Speaker Boehner to put down the gun. It is time for us 
to open government and to make sure we pay our bills, and then, yes, we 
want to negotiate. For 6 months, we have been trying to negotiate a 
budget. Open government, pay our bills, and then let's negotiate a 
responsible budget for this Nation.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the twin 
manufactured crises that are facing the country: A hobbled government 
and the threat of default.
  I have seen some describe this as a game, and I have heard others say 
it is just partisanship posturing. But this situation is neither. This 
is serious business. In fact, I am deeply troubled about this--not only 
as a Senator representing the State of Rhode Island, but as an 
American--about where my country is going.
  I am dismayed that some on the other side have decided that for 
whatever reason--and those reasons seem to keep changing--the only way 
to achieve their goal--and their goals seem to keep changing--is to 
shut the government down and suggest that defaulting on our debt will 
have no consequences.
  It would be a nice fiction if we could say: Well, America really 
didn't have to pay its bills. That we don't have to pay for the 
trillions we spent in Iraq and in Afghanistan, or for the significant 
tax cuts under President Bush that benefited the wealthiest Americans. 
I didn't support the operations in Iraq, and I didn't support those tax 
cuts. I think we could have invested the money much more wisely and 
helped America.
  But the reality is all these bills are coming due, and the United 
States Treasury has to pay them.
  Some of my colleagues on the other side are suggesting: Well, we can 
prioritize payments. No one will be upset. No one will be hurt if we 
don't pay the bills as they come due. We will just pick the ones we 
want to pay.
  But these are not Democratic bills. They are not Republican bills. 
These are America's bills. They were approved by the Congress of the 
United States under Republican Presidents and Democrat Presidents, 
under Republican Congresses and Democrat Congresses. And as they come 
due, they must be paid.
  But we are here today in this manufactured crisis that essentially 
locks out and blocks the American people from accessing their 
government--from accessing basic government services. Women and 
children receiving food under the WIC program, Head Start--a whole 
panoply of Americans who are literally being denied benefits they 
earned, or benefits that are necessary not just for their health, but 
for the health and vitality of the fabric of America. Then, on top of 
that, is the added threat of a default on our obligations--already 
accrued, already authorized, already appropriated obligations--not new 
borrowing for new expenditures. These bills are coming due.
  We have seen this ever-changing theme from the other side about why 
they have to do these things. At first it was an effort to repeal 
ObamaCare. Then it was a 1-year delay of health insurance under the 
Affordable Care Act. Then it was just a delay of part of the law. Then 
it was repealing a tax that was part of the law. Now, we have heard 
about Canadian oil pipelines, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 
and cutting Medicaid. The rationale keeps changing and suggesting that 
the reasons behind this lockout are not only unclear to the American 
public, they are unclear to the proponents. In fact, some are 
suggesting that this is also about cutting Social Security and Medicare 
and other programs that are central to every family in this country. 
Indeed, it seems as though they have transitioned from ``let's take 
ObamaCare and repeal it'' to ``let's take the New Deal and repeal 
that.'' In fact, one of our colleagues in the House apparently 
suggested he didn't know what he wanted; he just knew he wanted 
something in exchange for an open government that is functioning and a 
government that pays its bills.
  It is hard not to draw the conclusion that many of my colleagues on 
the other side have simply committed themselves to extracting major 
policy concessions, whatever they can get, by threatening to default on 
our debt and by continuing to lock out the American people from its 
government. They are sadly using potential economic chaos to get their 
way.
  Now I don't think Republicans are debating seriously--and we have 
heard this argument from them for years going back--for decades, in 
fact--to the initial debate on Medicare, that it is evil socialized 
medicine. Now I am sure during the discussion of the New Deal, there 
were criticisms of growing central government, but to seriously take 
away these programs I think would cause the American people to stand up 
and say no, since most if not every American fundamentally depends on 
them. Particularly as they get to the

[[Page 15553]]

point where they are retired or they are approaching retirement.
  So now the Republican story has shifted, as they have gotten closer 
and closer to what seems to be some of their real motivating factors: 
shrinking government dramatically, not just those parts that are 
popular. Now they are beginning to hint that this is about something 
more fundamental. This is about tearing up the basic social contract 
where people have worked all their lives, paid into Social Security, 
and will get Social Security benefits. For them, this is about tearing 
up the social contract that if you have worked, you have paid into the 
Medicare system, you will get Medicare benefits.
  Of course now they have shifted their current story again, and now it 
is all about negotiation, that we have not negotiated. That is why they 
have to shut down the government and default on the debt of the United 
States. The irony, of course, is that Democrats have been, indeed, 
trying to go into serious and bipartisan negotiations about our budget 
for many months. Indeed, months ago, in March, as I recall, the Senate, 
after taking 47 rollcall votes, passed a solid, balanced, and sensible 
budget plan and asked to negotiate with the other body in a conference. 
Indeed, at the beginning of the year, the Speaker called for following 
the budget process, for following regular order.
  At one point, the other side even demanded that Senators and 
Congresswomen and men should not be paid if there was no budget 
resolution. But, sadly, months later, after we had passed our budget, a 
handful of colleagues in this body, on the Republican side, have been 
blocking us from going to conference. They are insisting that as any 
precondition to a bipartisan conference we could not talk about raising 
revenue, or take actions that will ensure the government be able to pay 
its bills. They have essentially stopped regular order.
  For his part, the Speaker of the House refused to appoint conferees 
for months, as well, apparently fearful that Republicans might have to 
actually vote on some of their proposals that have been incorporated 
over the years in various Republican budgets with respect to Medicare, 
Medicaid, and other programs.
  But now as we approach default, my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle are saying: Oh, it is time to negotiate on the budget.
  It was time months ago when we asked to go to conference. It was time 
weeks ago. Now it is time to ensure that we pay our bills and we open 
the government.
  We have come to the Senate floor 21 times so far to seek to go to 
conference to negotiate with the House on the budget. What do we hear? 
When we ask to go to negotiate, no. But, when we ask them to open the 
government, to pay our bills, they say no let's negotiate. That is not 
the way to conduct the business of this government. It is not the way 
to provide the confidence our economy needs to go forward. It is not 
the way to provide families the confidence they need to face the rigors 
of daily life--of educating children, of taking care of their health 
care, of contributing to their community.
  We have had consistent and constant objections, which frustrate our 
ability to go to conference and negotiate, over many, many, many 
months. But after all their other rationales--defund ObamaCare, delay 
ObamaCare, delay the personal mandate--now it has come down to let's 
negotiate, when indeed, Republicans have rejected that approach 21 
times on the floor of the Senate.
  It is time for the other Chamber to reopen the government and agree 
to pay our bills. They can do that by bringing to the floor very 
quickly--and they can procedurally: a clean CR--a term of art that was 
Washington speak until a week or two ago, but now everyone knows. It 
simply sets for a few weeks the amount of money we can spend and allows 
us to open the government.
  Americans are being hurt by the shutdown, and they will be hurt even 
more grievously if we default on our debt. It is continually amazing to 
me that the other side persists in shutting down the government and 
threatening to default on the debt.
  But, you have a response by the other side, particularly, that is 
consistent with what we heard during their primary campaign for the 
Presidency: Let's shut down some government agencies. Now it is the 
other side of that coin: Republicans will just open a few government 
agencies, not the whole government, but the ones--and they change or 
they increase each day--that they think are important. Each day they 
seem to have another idea about: Well, we have to open this. It will be 
a good headline. It will be a good talking point.
  For example, they have talked about opening the national parks, the 
Smithsonian, and other museums. But, let's remember that in the House, 
Republicans have proposed cutting the allocation for the Department of 
Interior Appropriations Bill by $5.5 billion from last year.
  So we have to go forward and we have to resolve this situation. We 
cannot allow this lockout to continue. We have to do what Leader Reid 
has said quite succinctly: open the government, pay our bills, go to 
conference on the budget, and then negotiate everything that is within 
reason to negotiate. Let's do that for the American people. We are 
ready to do it. I hope our colleagues will agree to do it also.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Delaware is 
recognized.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I would like to start by reading a letter I 
received this week. So many of us in the Senate are operating with 
furloughed staff, and we are doing our best to read and respond to the 
letters we are getting from home, the calls that are coming into our 
offices. This one touched me in particular. It began:

       My name is MSgt Corey P DiLuzio. I am an Air Reserve 
     Technician at Dover AFB. I have served this great nation for 
     12 years without question or reservation. Every time I have 
     been called upon, I have answered the call, left my family 
     behind, and served proudly as maintainer for the C-17 
     aircraft. I know you understand the reach and the mission 
     requirements for such an aircraft. I tell you this not for a 
     thank you or any type of acknowledgement. I tell you this--

  Master Sergeant DiLuzio writes--

     because I am also a husband to a woman who has stood by my 
     side in support for every deployment. I tell you this because 
     I am the father of a three-year-old boy who doesn't even 
     question the answer Daddy's at work. I understand a man in 
     your position has made . . . sacrifices as well, however, 
     today I had to tell my family I am unable to work. Not 
     because of anything I have control of, but because of 
     decisions made by individuals who will not miss a paycheck; 
     individuals who will always know when the next check is 
     coming. I write this understanding that it will fall on deaf 
     ears, and I am usually one that remains quiet and follows the 
     orders for those appointed above me, however, enough is 
     enough. Please do your part in resolving this issue so I can 
     get back to serving my country and my family.
       Sincerely yours, MSgt Corey DiLuzio.

  It pains me that the master sergeant thought his letter would fall on 
deaf ears, that no one here--that neither I nor any of my colleagues--
would hear or care about the concerns of a man--his wife, his family--
who has served this country and who stands ready to continue serving 
this country but whose family is being harmed by the mindless, 
purposeless shutdown of the government that is now in day 9--this first 
government shutdown in 17 years, and by all indications one that will 
continue into another week.
  I start by saying to Master Sergeant DiLuzio: I am sorry. I am sorry 
for the needless pain and difficulty this shutdown is imposing on your 
family and so many other families across this country. Roughly 800,000 
Federal employees have been furloughed at different times in the last 9 
days, and while some may be returning to Active service, they will be 
getting IOUs rather than regular paychecks. All over this country, 
private contractors, as we have heard from other colleagues today, are 
also laying off people because they cannot get the permits or work 
permission or the site access they need to move forward.
  This shutdown is continuing to harm our country, our reputation, our 
economy, our families. It is a needless, manufactured, self-imposed 
wound.

[[Page 15554]]

  I wrestle with this because we are facing twin manufactured crises, 
as Senator Reed of Rhode Island just finished saying: hobbled 
government due to this shutdown on the one hand and the steadily 
increasing risk of default on the other--these twin manufactured crises 
seeking some purpose that is unclear from day-to-day. When this 
government shutdown started, it seemed to be aimed at what, repealing 
the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare, and then 1 day later it 
seemed to be aimed at delaying the Affordable Care Act, and then when 
that clearly was unsuccessful, it seemed to be aimed at seeking some 
partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act and now it is an ongoing 
crisis in search of a purpose. The menu of potential demands is 
growing, and the impact on our families and our communities is growing 
as well.
  The House has been wasting its time on mini microappropriations bills 
in an attempt to give reporters and folks back home the sense that they 
are actually doing something, when it is just misdirection. They think 
all the activity will keep the American people from noticing that 
Speaker Boehner is not bringing up the one bill that could reopen this 
government in a matter of minutes--a so-called clean continuing 
resolution, a simple extension of current spending levels.
  I know to all who watch--Master Sergeant DiLuzio and many others--we 
sometimes speak in language that is opaque, that is difficult to 
understand. We talk about sequester and continuing resolutions and so 
forth. So I am going to try and work through these issues in a way that 
is accessible and direct.
  Let's be clear. This government is shut down right now because the 
House would not pass a 6-week extension--an extension to November 15--
of what is required to keep us open. Today that would be just over 4 
weeks. We are literally fighting over a 4-week funding bill. How absurd 
is it that all of this is over a measure that would have only funded 
the government in the first case for another 4 weeks from now. There 
is, frankly, nothing about this situation that is not absurd.
  Every day the House Republicans show up with a new strategy, a new 
press conference, a new message, and, as I said, all the while not 
explaining exactly why the government is shut down. Initially, it was 
shut down to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but 
that is moving forward, as it was always going to be because it is an 
enacted program.
  So what is the current message from the House? They say they are the 
only ones ready to negotiate, that they are alone at the table, sitting 
there with jackets off, in their bright, starched, white shirts, 
waiting for Senate Democrats to meet them at the table and negotiate. 
Another farce, another fantasy.
  I am, frankly, tired and frustrated with the games that seem to be 
played here. I would like to highlight, if I could, a few of our real 
efforts to work collaboratively, to answer the question, why won't you 
negotiate, by saying we have been negotiating.
  Once the House votes to keep the lights on and to pay our bills, we 
will continue to negotiate. I have a simple question. Does the House 
want us to continue to be a closed-door nation, a nation where we have 
locked out hundreds of thousands of Federal workers? Does the House 
want to threaten that we will become a deadbeat nation, a nation that 
fails to meet its obligations built up over many administrations and 
many Congresses, Republican and Democratic, or are we going to reopen 
the government, become an open-door nation, and are we going to pay our 
bills and become a responsible nation, as we have been in the past?
  How did we get here? As a member of the Budget Committee, let me 
first start, if I could, with the budget resolution. That is how our 
rules work. We are supposed to begin with a budget resolution that sets 
a framework for what we are going to spend in the next fiscal year.
  For the last 3 years I have been serving here as a Senator, over and 
over on this floor the call was: Why won't the Senate pass a budget? 
Well, this year this Senate passed a budget resolution with significant 
Republican input. Between this floor, where we ultimately passed it, 
and the committee on which I serve, the Senate adopted more than 40 
amendments offered by my Republican colleagues.
  We compromised. We worked toward a shared goal. Week after week, as I 
said, Republicans had asked in past years: When is the Senate going to 
pass a budget? Yet we did, more than 6 months ago--200 days ago, to be 
precise, we passed a budget in this Senate.
  Our chair, Senator Murray of Washington, has tried to take our budget 
to conference with the House to do as the rules provide, to reconcile 
and to responsibly negotiate over our fiscal differences--18 times. She 
has tried over and over and over to take us to conference and 
responsibly open formal talks with the House to resolve our fiscal 
differences. Every time that motion has been blocked, denied, barred, 
all by a very small group of tea party Republicans in this Chamber who 
have refused to let us go ahead and negotiate as the rules say we 
should.
  I also serve on the Appropriations Committee. Once the budget is 
framed, once the budget is resolved, we are then supposed to move to 
appropriations and set our spending levels. As a member of that 
committee, I have been a part of the process in which we have, in fact, 
passed 11 spending bills out of committee, 8 of them with bipartisan 
support.
  In order to try to move that process forward, months after the budget 
was passed, we brought the Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development bill to this floor. It passed out of committee by a vote of 
22 to 8, with 6 Republican votes, a strong bipartisan bill to be passed 
out here on the floor.
  What happened? It was blocked. Again, a small number of the other 
party came and objected and blocked the passage of that bill, a bill 
that would put Americans to work and strengthen our infrastructure and 
help support the housing recovery, a bill that would have moved us 
forward.
  Despite every attempt to fund this government through what we call 
regular order, the budget process and the appropriations process, we, 
even after that, came to the table, ready to compromise on this 
continuing resolution.
  The Senate budget calls for a top-line spending number of $1.058 
trillion, a balanced approach that reduces Federal spending in some 
areas, raises revenue in others, and makes progress by replacing the 
sequester. That is the budget we passed in the Senate. It would call 
for spending $1.058 trillion. The House budget instead called for $988 
billion. As you have heard our leader Senator Harry Reid say on the 
floor this week, he compromised. He agreed to a short-term funding bill 
at $988 billion, a $70 billion cut for this fiscal year, a major and 
painful concession for Democrats, particularly those of us on the 
Budget Committee who had not voted for a $988 billion number.
  We have already slashed spending. People are already suffering 
through the sequester, another thing that was enacted due to comparable 
tactics the last time there was a near default in 2011. The sequester 
has resulted in across-the-board spending cuts. It has been dangerous 
and painful and which I have spoken about on this floor repeatedly, 
reading letters from Delawareans, such as the master sergeant, 
commenting on how it is not the smart way to make cuts, it is an 
across-the-board way, an irresponsible way to make cuts.
  That same Air Force base, Dover Air Force Base, suffered furloughs 
for hundreds of airmen and their families because of the sequester 
cuts. We had worked out a budget that would have replaced it and would 
have avoided those sequester cuts in a balanced and responsible way. 
But instead, in order to compromise, our majority leader agreed to a 
$70 billion cut for this fiscal year. It was tough for a lot of 
Democrats to swallow. So, frankly, when I see House Republican leaders 
go on TV and say Democrats will not negotiate, Democrats will not 
compromise, I have to say: That is not the case. That is not the facts 
I have before me. We have compromised. We have negotiated. In

[[Page 15555]]

fact, we have tried for months on this floor, more than 6 months, to 
get the compromise, to get the negotiation to move this forward. 
Instead, we find when we give an inch, they take a yard.
  Today there are some, some in the other party, suggesting that if 
they are not granted a great big wish list, they will force us to 
default on our country's sovereign debt. We keep hearing from the other 
side about the need to compromise and negotiate. I could not agree 
more. The whole way this body is supposed to work is by following the 
rules, following the process, going to conference, negotiating and 
achieving a responsible result.
  We have repeatedly solicited Republican input, accepted Republican 
amendments, and made painful compromises. Now my message is simple: We 
should be following the rules. We should be following the process of 
this body. We should turn on the lights. We should pay our bills. I 
would be happy, honored to continue working with Republican colleagues 
to find real solutions to our fiscal problems, the way we are supposed 
to, in a conference negotiating over the budget that was passed here 
more than 6 months ago.
  To the colleagues with whom I share this Chamber but with whom we 
have some differences over why this government is shut down today, I 
hope you will listen to Master Sergeant DiLuzio and his family and to 
the thousands and thousands of other Americans who are writing in and 
calling our offices. They deserve better. This country deserves better. 
We need to show we can be the model of democracy that achieves 
responsible principled compromise.
  To my colleagues and my friends in the other party: Stop blocking 
progress. Let's go to conference on the budget. Let's negotiate. But, 
first, let's get our folks back to work. Let's get the government open. 
Let's move forward in a way that honors the best of our traditions and 
our rules.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

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