[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15556-15567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise today to give voice to frustrated 
Nebraskans. I rise to testify to the simple truth that a government 
should not intentionally make life harder for its people. I rise to 
say: Enough. Enough press conferences. Enough brinkmanship. Enough 
dividing people of good will against one another.
  I am still pretty new here, but I can say that in Nebraska and in so 
many other States across this Nation we actually work together--and not 
just on small bills but also on the big issues. I urge my colleagues to 
remember where we came from.
  While I served in the Nebraska Legislature, we dealt with a major 
budget shortfall. We didn't go on TV or Twitter or fight; we legislated 
and we fixed the problem. That is the Nebraska way. We roll up our 
sleeves, we cut through the talking points, and we get to work.
  Nebraskans are pragmatic. They are well informed, and they expect 
results. So when Nebraskans look at the dysfunction we have here in 
Washington, they are frustrated, and I am too. I am very frustrated. I 
am frustrated that this Congress can't pass appropriations bills that 
comply with the law. I am frustrated that this Congress cannot agree on 
a budget. I am frustrated with crisis management instead of responsible 
governance. I am frustrated with being told one thing only to learn it 
is just not true. I am frustrated with the willful ignorance that goes 
on in Washington when it comes to our debt. And I am frustrated with 
the lack of solutions.
  The American people do not want us to just stand in opposition; they 
want us to put forth constructive ideas to solve problems. As a result 
of Congress's failure to agree on a spending plan, the government is 
shut down. The result? Well, in yesterday's Omaha World Herald there 
was a report that Nebraska farmers are unable to cash checks when they 
bring their grain in after harvest. The article noted:

       State law requires elevators to include a lender's name on 
     a check when a farmer has a loan against the grain. With no 
     one at Farm Service Agency offices because of the shutdown, 
     checks can't be cashed when the lender is the FSA.
       ``We've got millions of dollars of grain checks out there 
     that farmers need,'' said Dan Poppe, president of the Archer 
     (Neb.) Cooperative Credit Union, with locations in Archer, 
     Dannebrog and Central City.
       He said entire rural economies count on the money.
       ``It impacts not only our farmers, who are relying heavily 
     on the money, but also the local grocery store, hardware 
     store, the feed and seed,'' Poppe said.

  It is not just farmers and ranchers, it is also our manufacturers and 
our investors. A constituent from Waco, NE, wrote:

       I am a Dow employee living in your district. This impasse 
     is beginning to threaten Dow's investment in new U.S. 
     manufacturing. Not only will a continued delay push back 
     Dow's plans to create thousands of new American jobs, it will 
     harm Dow's competitiveness and directly impact me and my 
     family. Greater economic certainty will help Dow, its 
     employees, and our State thrive.

  The wife of a Federal law enforcement officer from Gretna wrote:

       We are a single income family. We have a 2 and 3 year old 
     and one more on the way. I am due in November. This shutdown 
     will leave us unable to pay our bills.

  A 23-year-old Department of Agriculture employee emailed me saying:

       My wife works two jobs to help make ends meet, but we still 
     live paycheck to paycheck. If this shutdown is not resolved 
     within the next few days, we will be devastated financially.

  A U.S. Air Force veteran wrote to tell me:

       I applied for Social Security disability assistance on the 
     15th of August and my claim had gone for medical review on 
     the 26th of August. I have no money, and I just found out 
     yesterday that because of the shutdown SSA claims are on 
     hold.

  A furloughed Federal worker from Omaha called my office to say: We 
are all tired. We are tired of not getting a budget until the last 
minute. We are all tired. You guys need to do your job.
  I agree. I hear these same messages over and over. Nebraskans are 
tired of the name calling and the blame games. They want to see 
government work, and they want to see it work well. They are not fooled 
by the rhetoric, and they expect us to govern responsibly. I agree. 
That is why I am talking with my colleagues--not publicly in front of 
the cameras but privately--to see if we can forge a way forward. But I 
believe we have to do more than just open the government. That is just 
the

[[Page 15557]]

basics. We have to address our $17 trillion debt. It is smothering this 
country, it is jeopardizing our national security, and it is a threat 
to our children's future.
  Congress will soon vote on increasing the debt ceiling--the sixth 
debt limit increase in the past 5 years. Our national debt has almost 
doubled since 2006, and our debt limit has grown twice as much as our 
economy in the past 2 years. Shouldn't the opposite be true? Meanwhile, 
our economy's lethargic recovery continues sluggishly along at a rate 
of 1 to 2 percent. This is unacceptable.
  Instead of growing our economy by reducing spending, cutting 
regulations, and overhauling an outdated tax code, Congress has 
continued to spend money we just don't have.
  I didn't run for office to shut down the government. I ran for office 
to help hard-working Americans get back to work. I ran for this office 
to stand for middle-class families who aren't asking government for a 
hand up, they are just asking that the government stop holding them 
down. Nebraskans want to know they can provide for their families, and 
I don't think that is asking too much.
  Make no mistake. High public debt depresses economic growth, which in 
turn dampens job creation. Ironically, our country's debt crisis comes 
as the Congressional Budget Office is predicting that tax revenues will 
be at an alltime high--$2.7 trillion in tax revenues. The problem isn't 
that we have too little revenue, the problem is that we are spending 
too much.
  Part of why Nebraskans are frustrated is that our problems are so 
clear. We know exactly what they are. There is no mystery here. The 
American people know you can't keep spending twice what you make. They 
live within a budget--a budget that must balance--and they expect 
government to do the same. Our government is a long way from a balanced 
budget, but we can work at a minimum to try to get there.
  Despite these realities, we are not moving forward. For the past 
several weeks, Members of Congress, the President, and the press have 
been participants in a circus. After 9 days, there is still no end in 
sight. Let me repeat that. After 9 days of a government shutdown, there 
is still no end in sight.
  That is not to say there aren't some good ideas out there. Several of 
my colleagues have offered a number of commonsense proposals that do 
have broad support. These ideas include repeal of the medical device 
tax, which was adopted by the Senate as an amendment to its budget 
resolution by an overwhelming vote of 79 to 20. And this happened in 
March. Other ideas include a commitment to reducing spending, as 
required by current law, but we would increase the flexibility for 
Federal agencies to make smarter cuts. We all agree sequestration is a 
very clumsy way to cut spending.
  That is why we need to provide program managers with the ability to 
determine which programs are wasteful or less efficient.
  It is a matter of setting priorities so we can make wise decisions. 
That is the Nebraska way, and that is what we need to do in Washington 
as well.
  Senator Collins' sequestration proposal would also allow Congress to 
continue to exercise oversight on all spending and related cuts. That 
is important. Even the President has put forth ideas to cut spending by 
$400 billion over the next 10 years. These offers could give us the 
framework for a real discussion.
  Yet we remain at an impasse, unable to move forward. A nation of 
movers, thinkers, innovators, and entrepreneurs should not be caught in 
neutral. We should move forward--always forward, and always building a 
better future. We are the single greatest nation the world has ever 
known. We have stood as a sentinel of liberty and economic prosperity 
for over 200 years, yet we find ourselves no longer able to perform 
even the most basic functions of government. That is not acceptable. 
Our forefathers, our constituents, and our children and our 
grandchildren deserve better.
  I am ready to move forward. I am tired of waiting, and I am willing 
to work with any of my colleagues to find a reasonable solution. So 
let's get to work.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I am privileged to represent the State of 
Ohio, as I know the Presiding Officer is to represent Connecticut, and 
the previous speaker is to represent Nebraska.
  We are home to several large research facilities--medical research 
facilities, aeronautics research facilities, military research 
facilities, some that are overwhelmingly represented to do research in 
pure science. All of them have a major impact in their communities in 
terms of employment with usually very good-paying jobs--scientists, 
engineers, physicians, chemists, and all kinds of people in the 
natural, medical, or aeronautic sciences and all of the support staff. 
These research facilities are always good for communities. And they not 
only provide employment, but they provide great wealth for our country. 
So much of this research helps people in their daily lives and is 
commercialized into businesses, and entrepreneurs take much of this 
research and applied science and create more economic activity, 
prosperity, and good-paying jobs. And that is where this shutdown is 
particularly problematic.
  There are 800,000 Federal employees that have lost jobs as a result 
of this ridiculous shutdown. I have spent much of the last several days 
on the phone talking to people running these institutions, talking to 
smalltown and big-city bankers, entrepreneurs, businesses, union 
officials, and people who represent or run many of these organizations. 
All of them think this shutdown is absolutely unnecessary.
  Just a moment ago the Presiding Officer and I had a conversation, and 
we both shake our heads: Why do radicals in the House of 
Representatives want to inflict this kind of pain--not just on the 
800,000 Federal workers, but on the contractors near these facilities, 
the restaurants, hardware stores and businesses, and the school 
districts that are affected because people aren't bringing home the 
income and aren't paying as much taxes--all that happens when this 
willful government shutdown, orchestrated because a group of people 
want to attach their political platform, ideas, gimmicks, or statements 
to legislation we need to pass?
  It is pretty simple: Pass the continuing resolution. Keep the 
government open. That is not a Democratic or Republican platform. That 
is what we need to do. Don't go around attaching political statements 
in a political platform to a simple ``keep the government open'' 
resolution.
  The same on the debt ceiling. Nobody is wild about increasing the 
debt ceiling. Nobody is wild about passing legislation so we don't 
default. It is not a part of the 2012 Democratic platform to raise the 
debt ceiling, nor is it a part of the 2012 Republican platform. So when 
we have a vote, it is not negotiated: Let's add a bunch of 2012 
Republican party platform rhetoric to something to raise the debt 
ceiling so the government of the United States pays its bills. It is 
not a Democratic or a Republican value to pay the bills this Congress 
ran up. It is our duty.
  We take an oath of office. I took the oath in January 2013. The 
Presiding Officer took his oath. We know running the government and 
paying our bills is what you do as an elected official. Those never 
used to be controversial, until some radicals in the House of 
Representatives decided that this is a political opportunity. We can 
accuse the President of not negotiating. We can tell the public the 
Democrats are willing to shut down the government. The Republican 
Governor of Nevada to the Democratic majority leader from Nevada this 
week called it a Republican shutdown. So it is clearly a group of 
radicals.

[[Page 15558]]

  Back to what I was saying about these great research facilities. The 
Presiding Officer has them in Connecticut, I have them in Ohio, and the 
Senator from Hawaii has them in her State. An administrator of one said 
it is asymmetrical, killing and building a major scientific endeavor. 
It is a lot harder and takes a lot longer for a group of engineers, 
doctors or scientists to construct a very important scientific endeavor 
than it does to kill one.
  Fifty years ago, Speaker of the House Rayburn from Texas at one time 
said--and I will clean this up: Any mule can kick down a barn. It takes 
a carpenter to build one.
  I will make it more personal. A dozen years ago I was involved in a 
car accident and broke my back. I was in good health and exercised, but 
for 3 days I didn't get out of bed. I remember the first day I got out 
of bed and tried to walk. My leg muscles had atrophied. It takes a lot 
of time to build up those leg muscles, and it took 3 days for them to 
atrophy. I was in my late 40s then and in good shape.
  That is also the way science is, in the same sense that it takes a 
long time and a lot of investment of public dollars and a lot of brain 
power and really high-quality, talented scientists, engineers, doctors, 
or medical researchers to do these projects. And then we are going to 
lay them off for 2 or 3 weeks because somebody has some political idea 
they want to attach to a continuing resolution. Somebody wants to take 
their political platform and put it on legislation that the government 
pay its bills for their political gain.
  A leader of one of these major institutions in Ohio told me he had to 
bring in many of his managers and employees and tell them there were 
going to be layoffs and furloughs. In some cases, with no end in sight 
because of this government shutdown, what are they going to do? Their 
scientific endeavors get interrupted and in some cases may not be 
repaired or rebuilt. So many of the best scientists and engineers are 
going to say: I am not coming back and doing this.
  So the radical Republicans in the House of Representatives say: OK, 
we can keep the government open if you repeal part of ObamaCare.
  If the President had done that and said: OK, keep the government 
open, and we will repeal this section of ObamaCare, what would have 
happened next? Then there would have been another continuing resolution 
or another end of the fiscal year or another opportunity these 
politicians would have seized to again threaten to shut the government 
down and gut something else, some other law they don't like. In other 
words, if there is a law they don't like, and they are in the position, 
then they are going to say: I am going to shut the government down if 
you don't change this law. If the President says yes to that, what 
happens the next time? Then, I am going to ask the President to get rid 
of two laws I don't like or I will shut the government down or I am 
going to block the government from paying its bills because I don't 
like a law passed back in 1993 or 2007. We can't operate the government 
like that.
  NASA Glenn Research facilities, one of the great NASA facilities in 
the country; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a major research facility 
near Dayton, OH; Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus--thousands of 
employees, engineers, scientists, technicians, highly-skilled people, 
very educated, run eight of the national energy labs. Case Western 
Reserve University Medical School and Engineering School, Ohio State 
University, University of Cincinnati--I could name one after another. 
These places can't operate if every 6 months or 1 year they are subject 
to a potential government shutdown unless the President does what some 
radical Members of Congress want.
  So when people say: First, open the government; second, pay our 
bills; and, third, let's negotiate--we have already negotiated the 
dollar figure on the continuing resolution. Every time the continuing 
resolution expires or the fiscal year ends, every time we have to pay 
our debts when the debt ceiling limit is reached--if we have to play 
this game, it is going to mean a potential government shutdown or 
disruption at Battelle, NASA Glenn, Ohio State's medical school funding 
and research funding, and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. If that is 
the way this crowd believes we should run a government, they don't have 
much regard for government.
  Every time they have had a chance, they tried to privatize Medicare, 
they tried to privatize Social Security. They don't like EPA, Head 
Start, or Meals On Wheels. They don't like these government programs. I 
understand that, but play it right. Don't threaten to close the 
government unless we change the law which Congress passed, the 
President signed, and the Supreme Court affirmed. But if it was my 
political platform in 2012--even though it was defeated in front of 
tens of millions of voters--and I don't like what you are doing, then I 
am going to threaten to shut down the government. Our country is too 
important and too big for that.
  On an international scale, the President of the United States didn't 
go to China for a major economic conference because he had to be here 
because the government was shut down. Other countries--particularly 
China--made fun of us. Other countries basically were asking: Is the 
United States abdicating its leadership role? And the Peoples Republic 
of China is not slowing down in their investment in scientific research 
or modernizing their infrastructure.
  If we allow this kind of government shutdown and this kind of 
activity by radicals in the House of Representatives, this is not good 
for our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, amid all the rhetoric and the blame games 
and, yes, even theatrics, I want to make sure the American people 
actually understand what President Obama and the majority leader are 
asking us to do. Their position is that Congress should raise the debt 
limit--actually suspend the debt limit through the end of 2014 and 
increase our national debt by another $1.1 trillion without doing 
anything to solve our underlying fiscal problems, including the $17 
trillion in debt we have already run up.
  I cannot imagine there is anyone in this Chamber or within the sound 
of my voice who thinks that is a good idea. At some point, if we keep 
maxing out our credit card rather than dealing with our debt problem, 
our spending problem, we come back to the bank, so to speak, and ask 
for our debt limit to be increased another $1.1 trillion, where will 
this end? I can tell you where I think it will end: It will end in 
disaster. Ultimately, at some point our creditors will lose confidence 
in our ability to repay that money. At some point interest rates are 
going to not be zero or next to zero, they will be up around the 
historic average, 4 percent or 5 percent, and we will have to pay China 
and our other creditors more and more of our Federal budget just to pay 
interest on the national debt.
  At some point that becomes unsustainable. It will hurt our national 
security. It will hurt the safety net programs we all care about, to 
protect our most vulnerable. Unfortunately, the President and the 
majority leader remain dug in. Notwithstanding the charts we have seen 
on this floor that talk about negotiations, there have been no real 
negotiations. The President called Speaker Boehner last night to tell 
him: In case you missed the message, Mr. Speaker, from when we met at 
the White House last week, we are still not negotiating.
  What is that all about? The President could have sent him a text 
message with as much information as that conveyed.
  I am told the President has invited the Republican Members of 
Congress to the White House to meet with him tomorrow. I hope that 
meeting is more productive than the meetings he has already held or the 
phone conversations he has had with the Speaker. I can only hope the 
President has reconsidered his unsustainable position, that he is not 
willing to negotiate.

[[Page 15559]]

  The Founders of this great country created a Constitution for us with 
coequal branches of government. Congress is not better or worse than 
the executive branch. We are coequal. We cannot function without one 
another. We can pass a law, but it cannot become the law unless the 
President signs it. The President cannot pass a law without Congress. 
So we have to learn to work together.
  In the context of the recent history I want to recount for everybody, 
the President's refusal to negotiate is simply unsustainable and quite 
remarkable. Over the last 30 years, virtually every major domestic 
policy reform has involved at least some kind of bipartisan compromise.
  In 1983, a conservative Republican President worked with a liberal 
Speaker of the House and Senate leaders from both parties to save and 
preserve Social Security. That was in 1983. At the time those Social 
Security amendments were signed into law, Republicans had the same 
Senate majority the Democrats have today, 54 Republicans then, 46 
Democrats. Meanwhile, the Democratic House majority was significantly 
larger than the Republican House majority today. Yet both sides did 
what so far we have been unable to do and that is come together, 
negotiate and reach an outcome. Ronald Reagan, back in 1983, then 
signed that negotiated outcome into law. In the end, the majority 
Senate Democrats voted for those Social Security amendments, as did a 
majority of Senate Republicans.
  Three years later, in 1986, liberal Democrats and conservative 
Democrats joined together to enact another landmark reform bill. Once 
again the President's party controlled the Senate but not the House. 
Once again, there was not a refusal to negotiate; rather, there was a 
negotiation and a bipartisan outcome--notwithstanding the normal 
partisan rivalries that will always exist. In June 1986, 97 Members of 
this Chamber, a massive, overwhelming supermajority, voted in favor of 
the Tax Reform Act which lowered Federal income tax rates and broadened 
the base. The final version of that bill was supported by a majority of 
Senate Democrats and a majority of Senate Republicans as well. That was 
the kind of historic accomplishment that seems to be slipping through 
our fingers today by virtue of the refusal to negotiate. That was a 
historic accomplishment that dramatically simplified the U.S. Tax Code 
and made it more conducive to economic growth--a lesson we would do 
well to recall and emulate today.
  Fast forward a decade to 1996. A Democratic President, Bill Clinton, 
joined together with the Republican House and Senate and, despite 
partisan pressure enough to go around and all sorts of heated rhetoric, 
Democrats and Republicans joined together and reformed our welfare 
system, helping millions of disadvantaged people to get off welfare 
rolls and make the transition from dependency to work, dignity and 
self-reliance. That was a great accomplishment. In the end, 78 
Senators, including most Senate Democrats and every single Senate 
Republican, voted for that.
  One more prominent example. In 2001, a conservative Republican 
President worked with a prominent liberal Democrat to enact a major 
overhaul to our education laws. Indeed, the No Child Left Behind Act 
was a direct result of President Bush's negotiations and collaboration 
with the late Senator Ted Kennedy. The final legislation 87 Senators 
voted for, including a majority of Senate Democrats and a majority of 
Senate Republicans.
  I am not necessarily saying every single one of those pieces of 
legislation was something that was perfect in every way. I think we 
have learned there are things that still needed to be done, 
particularly when it came to education reform, but the three Presidents 
I mentioned, two Republicans and one Democrat, worked together to make 
substantial compromises in order to pass Social Security reform, tax 
reform, welfare reform, and education reform. But they also understood 
that politics is the art of the possible and they did not treat the 
word negotiate as a dirty four-letter word.
  I want to emphasize one more time that Republicans stand ready to 
work with President Obama in addressing our country's most serious 
fiscal and economic challenges. Yet rather than to pursue serious good-
faith negotiations over things such as entitlement reform and tax 
reform, things that would actually be good for our economy and good for 
our country, President Obama decides to erect and then knock down 
strawmen.
  For example, when Republicans talk about entitlement reform, he says 
we want to eliminate the safety net. When Republicans talk about tax 
reform, he says we want to give tax breaks to rich people. That is 
campaigning, that is not governing.
  Here is the reality, though. Republicans do not want to eliminate the 
safety net, we want to improve the safety net, particularly Medicare 
and Social Security. We don't want to give special tax breaks just to 
the wealthy, we want to give all Americans a simpler, flatter, fairer 
Tax Code that is more conducive to economic growth. We want the type of 
Tax Code the President's own bipartisan fiscal commission, Simpson-
Bowles--the recommendations they made in 2010. Yet the President 
ignored it, walked away, and has done nothing to contribute to that 
debate.
  We understand, being elected officials ourselves, that all elected 
politicians have to campaign for office. It goes with the territory. 
You cannot get here unless you run for office and you win an election. 
But at some point the campaign has to end. At some point we have to 
govern. At some point the partisan rhetoric has to give way to actually 
accomplishing things and solving problems. At some point America's 
elected leadership needs to demonstrate real leadership and a 
willingness to govern.
  President Obama has now reached a critical point in his Presidency, 
in his second term. He will be remembered for one thing or another. He 
will be remembered either as a President who was willing to step up 
when America needed that kind of leadership, when Congress needed 
bipartisan cooperation in order to solve our Nation's biggest 
challenges, or he will leave a legacy, if he does not do that, of a 
President who refused to do his job in order to try to win the partisan 
battles.
  We need something better and America deserves better. We need a 
President who will govern and not campaign perpetually.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, our distinguished Republican whip referred 
to negotiations that occurred regarding welfare reform, tax reform, 
education reform, No Child Left Behind. These negotiations occurred, 
yes, but they certainly occurred not in the context of a threat of a 
government shutdown or the threat of government defaulting on our 
obligations. There is a very big difference in the context in which 
these negotiations occurred. That is not what we have before us today.
  This past Saturday I came to the floor to share some thoughts on the 
impact of this government shutdown on Hawaii's Federal employees. In 
those remarks, I tried to remind my colleagues that we have to think 
beyond the most recent news cycle. Shutting down government hurts the 
confidence of the American people in our institutions. It drives people 
away from public service and it undermines our national security and 
our economy. If we are going to live up to the legacy of our Nation as 
the world's indispensable Nation, we have to rise above zero sum 
politics. We have to show our allies and our adversaries that our 
political process can withstand grave disagreements. Our process is 
intended to allow for vigorous debate but to ultimately find common 
ground.
  Over 6 months ago, the Senate passed a budget. So did the House. A 
little over 6 days ago the U.S. Government shut down. How did this 
happen? The reason is that Republicans have blocked now 21 attempts to 
negotiate a Federal budget agreement in a timely fashion. That is how 
negotiations are supposed to happen--not with the

[[Page 15560]]

threat of a government shutdown, not with the threat of defaulting on 
our obligations and debt.
  Instead, after 6 months of failing to come to the table, tea party 
Republicans are holding the U.S. Government--and, if we default on our 
debts, the world economy--hostage.
  Enough is enough. The Senate is prepared to negotiate on fiscal 
issues. The President is ready to negotiate on fiscal issues. We can 
find a way forward so we can all agree on the path. But first Congress 
needs to do its job. It needs to reopen the government and make sure 
the United States pays its bills. These are fundamental 
responsibilities.
  Just to be clear, defaulting on our debt would be the most 
irresponsible action I can imagine. It is the most easily avoidable 
catastrophe in history. We are not talking about a natural disaster, we 
are talking about a totally avoidable catastrophe. Yet some Republicans 
in the House believe a default would not be a big deal. In fact, one 
Member of the House actually said that a default would ``bring 
stability to world markets.''
  That is an opinion that no one outside of the tea party bubble agrees 
with. In fact, economists, small businesses, bankers, big businesses, 
realtors, and nearly everyone in between have been clear: Default would 
be a catastrophe for our economy--and not just our economy either. Our 
currency, our bonds, and the full faith and credit they are backed by 
are the linchpin of the global economy. How a default from the world's 
most trusted Nation could possibly bring stability to world markets is 
incomprehensible.
  We have to stop the ideological games and irresponsible rhetoric, and 
then we can negotiate on fiscal issues and other policies--mindful of 
the work we were elected to do and mindful of the people, families, and 
communities that elected us to serve them.
  Today I would like to share some more stories from Hawaii families 
and businesses about how the government shutdown is impacting one of 
the key drivers of Hawaii's economy--tourism.
  Each year millions of people from all over the world flock to Hawaii. 
Our State has so much to offer. They come to enjoy our blue oceans and 
sandy beaches. They come to visit our breathtaking national parks and 
wildlife refugees. They also come to learn and pay respect at our 
historical attractions, such as Pearl Harbor.
  Last year Hawaii welcomed over 8 million visitors--a record number. 
Combined, these visitors spent $42 million per day, of which $5 million 
supports State and local government activities that benefit our 
communities. In 2012 about 20 percent of our State's gross domestic 
product was generated by tourism. That economic activity supports 
175,000 jobs in Hawaii.
  Due to our location in the center of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii's 
tourism industry relies on critical government services to keep people 
moving and commerce flowing. These include the work done by our air 
traffic controllers, our customs and TSA personnel, and agricultural 
inspectors. Many of these workers are on the job, but they are not 
getting paid right now. Thanks to them, our transportation systems are 
operating safely and effectively. As a result, visitors are still 
flocking to our resorts, our beaches, and other attractions. Even with 
the tea party shutdown, 2013 is on track to be another strong year for 
tourism in Hawaii.
  Unfortunately, at the same time, there are small businesses around 
the State that are being impacted by this shutdown. For the last 7 days 
our national parks, wildlife refugees, and historical sites have been 
closed to the public. These Federal sites are critical to many small 
businesses, particularly in our rural communities.
  Over the past week I have heard from many people--especially small 
business owners--whose livelihoods are being impacted by the closure of 
these Federal sites. One tour operator wrote to me:

       Our business is losing money, as do our tour guides who 
     cannot perform the tours to the National Parks. We have to 
     return the money to a lot of our clients because their tours 
     have to be cancelled. Our tour guides are losing income as 
     well, as they will not be able to do the tours.

  National parks are some of the main attractions in Hawaii. People 
travel thousands of miles from all parts of the world, spend a lot of 
money to come and visit, and then the main things that attract them are 
closed and they are not able to see them. For a lot of people, these 
trips are once in a lifetime, and if they don't see them now, they will 
never be able to see them again.
  A restaurant owner from Hawaii Island wrote:

       Well, we are in a small town on the Big Island of Hawaii. 
     Our economy is totally tourist driven. We are dependent on 
     people going to the National Park and stopping at our place 
     to eat. Since the shutdown, our revenue has dropped a lot and 
     we have had to cut hours for employees to compensate for the 
     lack of business.
       I'm tired of all this Republican childish actions and wish 
     all politicians would drop the partisan nonsense and do what 
     is right for the American People.
       Thank you for your concern.

  One gentleman from Maui reminded me that private businesses don't get 
to pause on meeting their commitments when the government is closed. He 
wrote:

       My daughter and son-in-law have a tourist based clientele 
     for their bicycle crater tour business on Maui. When 
     Haleakala National Park was closed down, they lost their 
     income and are still having to pay office expenses, etc., 
     etc., as well as their home expenses, but nothing is coming 
     in, as everything is going out.
       They are losing hundreds to thousands of dollars a day, 
     their employees who have families aren't able to work with 
     the business closed, tourists who come to Maui to have a good 
     time, part of which was the bike ride down from Haleakala, 
     are angry and disappointed and some even think this is 
     somehow Maui government's fault!

  He goes on to say:

       My daughter has six children, mortgage payments. Money is 
     going out, but none is coming in. My family are diligent 
     middle class people who work hard, pay their taxes, vote in 
     every election--responsible citizens who do their part 
     always.
       If this ridiculous federal government shutdown continues 
     for any length of time, my family will lose their business 
     and be at poverty level in no time, as will all their 
     employees. Everyone I know, on either side of the political 
     spectrum, thinks the shutdown is ridiculous and unnecessary.

  I also heard about the impact of the shutdown on the visitors 
themselves who go to Hawaii. One person from Hawaii whose family 
members traveled to Hawaii to visit wrote:

       My family has travelled 6,000 miles on a once in a lifetime 
     trip--sorry--no Pearl Harbor (Dad was a lifer Navy man) no 
     Volcanoes National Park--no Puukohola--these sites are 
     essential to our culture and tourism alike--many are without 
     work--it is just ridiculous over a LAW that has been declared 
     Constitutional--their antics change nothing--just hurt our 
     country.

  Another local bed-and-breakfast owner on the Big Island shared the 
perspective of some of her international guests:

       Aloha, I have a bed and breakfast in Hilo and I feel sorry 
     for my guests who have saved for a once in a lifetime 
     vacation to Hawaii. They have come from all over the world to 
     see our Beautiful Volcano National Park! These Guests do not 
     understand how the government can CLOSE and deny them access 
     to the Park.
       This week I have guests from Montreal, Canada; Singapore, 
     Germany, France and Japan! They may NEVER have the 
     opportunity to visit here again. This is Shameful for our 
     country. Not only is this behavior bad for our Country but 
     bad for the world.

  The tea party shutdown is also impacting Hawaiian visitors to our 
Nation's Capital. Yesterday I met with 81 students from Millilani 
Middle School on Oahu. They made the long trip from Hawaii to 
Washington, DC, in hopes of seeing historical sites, visiting museums, 
and learning about their country and our democracy. The trip was saved 
for and planned for months in advance. The sites and museums were 
scheduled. Their tickets and reservations were already paid for. They 
could not rebook their travel even though the shutdown has closed many 
of the sites they planned to visit. I took them on a tour of the 
Capitol myself because it was the only way they could see these halls 
of government. These students are here to learn about our democracy. 
Many of them asked me about the shutdown

[[Page 15561]]

and how we were going to get government back on track. What kind of 
message will they take home with them about how our government 
operates?
  These are just some of the stories that illustrate the real impact of 
the tea party shutdown on communities, families, and people in Hawaii. 
So many of the folks whose letters I have shared work hard to earn an 
honest living. They go to work each day, striving to show our visitors 
aloha while building something for themselves and their families to be 
proud of. They play by the rules, meet their commitments, and do what 
they can to be good community members. Yet, through no fault of their 
own, many of these Hawaii small businesses are losing income and their 
livelihoods are being affected.
  It is past time for the House to take the responsible action to pass 
the Senate bill to keep government running and services going. It is 
not fair to our veterans, our students, and their families when they 
can't visit our Nation's historical and national treasures just because 
a small minority in Congress has chosen recklessness over 
responsibility. It is not fair that this shutdown and these senseless 
default threats have gone on for a week. This behavior is harming our 
economy and undermining our credibility around the world. We need to 
stop the tea party temper tantrum, we need to open the government, we 
need to pay our bills, and then we can negotiate on other matters.
  I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I appreciate the time to be on the floor. 
I want to continue talking about what I think are the real problems 
with where we are today.
  What we are hearing in the press is that there is no agreement on a 
continuing resolution, that there is conflict and lack of discussion in 
Washington, that the debt limit is coming up, yet Washington is not 
capable of solving its problems.
  I made some points yesterday about the reason we are not capable of 
solving our problems is that there is an absence of leadership. We are 
not only bankrupt financially, we are bankrupt when it comes to our 
leadership.
  I want to dispel the rumor that our problems are not insolvable. They 
are imminently solvable. We have $126 trillion worth of unfunded 
liabilities for which Americans are responsible. We have $17 trillion 
worth of debt, and we have $94 trillion of total assets in this country 
if you add what the Federal Government and everybody else owns. So the 
difference between $128 trillion and $94 trillion is $34 trillion, and 
then another $17 trillion--that is $51 trillion we are going to have to 
account for. What is in front of us--and by the way, the Affordable 
Care Act will add $6.7 trillion to those outstanding liabilities net of 
any tax revenues and tax increases it collects.
  So what are we to do? What are the American people to think? They see 
impasse, lack of conversation, lack of compromise, lack of resolution, 
and no reconciliation. So I wanted to take a few minutes today to kind 
of give a little history, first of all, and then outline what is 
possible--I am not saying we must do it--over the next 10 years that we 
could do that would put us on a pathway to where we would be solving 
the problems and not leaving our children an inheritance of debt.
  I made the point yesterday that the median family income in this 
country today in terms of real dollars is exactly where it was in 1989. 
We are going backward. We are going to go backward this year. What that 
really means is that the standard of living is declining. The American 
public is getting further and further behind.
  One of the quotes I use--and I don't know if it is accurate--has been 
attributed to Alexander Tytler, a Scottish historian. Let me read it:

       A democracy--

  In this case a constitutional Republic--

     is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a 
     permanent form of government. It will continue to exist until 
     the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves 
     generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, 
     the majority always votes with the candidates who promise the 
     most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that 
     every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal 
     policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

  Where are we in that line? Is $50 trillion in negative net worth not 
a sign that we are going there? Is declining median family income not a 
sign that we are going there?
  What we have seen in this last so-called recovery is the wealthy have 
done very well but nobody else has. So what we are seeing is history 
repeat itself in terms of what has been outlined and observed in the 
past.
  Alexander Tytler was also accredited with this, but nobody can prove 
it:

       The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from 
     the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During 
     these 200 years, these nations always progressed through the 
     following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from 
     spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; 
     from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; 
     from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from 
     dependence back into bondage.

  I think we are somewhere in here, if history speaks accurately, or at 
least his observation of history.
  So what we ought to be about is making sure we cheat history--all of 
us, together, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, 
Independents--we ought to be about cheating history. How do we do that? 
Are the problems we have in front of us so big that we can't solve 
them? I don't think so. Are positions so hardened that we can't think 
in a long-term way about solving the problems that are in front of our 
country?
  When we talk about the debt ceiling--I have been accosted a lot in 
the news media in the last 48 hours because I don't believe the debt 
ceiling equals default on our obligations in terms of our sovereign 
debt. It just so happens Moody's, the rating agency, agreed with me 
today; that, in fact, they are not the same thing and they say there 
should be no effect. That doesn't mean we should. I am not proposing we 
should. But the scare tactics of saying the Earth is going to collapse 
if we somehow fail on time to raise the debt limit is not true. The 
Earth will collapse for Americans if we don't address the underlying 
problems facing our country--this $50 trillion in unfunded liability 
and negative net worth.
  Here is what we know has happened in the last few years, and it 
proves the point. It is why median family income is going down. It is 
because our debt is growing twice as fast as our economy.
  Here is our GDP increase over the last few years: $1.199 trillion. 
Here is our debt: It went up $2.405 trillion. To say that another way, 
that is 2.4 billion millions. These numbers are unfathomable, but the 
graph shows it all. Our GDP has increased. So what is happening is that 
for every $1 in debt we go into, we are getting a deepening decrease in 
return in our economy, and it is continuing to go down. So the more we 
borrow, the less well off we are in terms of being able to grow our 
economy. So the problems in front of us and what we see is what I would 
say as careerists don't want to solve the problem because the thing 
that comes to the careerist's mind is how does that affect the next 
election.
  I don't care what happens in the next election in this country; what 
I care about is whether we are going to address the real problems and 
secure the future for the country. Whether they be Democrats or 
Republicans, liberals or conservatives, I don't care. We are all in 
this together. When our living standard goes down, we all go down 
together.
  So how do we solve this problem? The first thing in any addiction--
and we have an addiction to spending--is to recognize we have an 
addiction. We have an addiction to spending. We have an addiction to 
not living within our means. We just passed $600 billion in

[[Page 15562]]

January of increased taxes on the American economy, most of that coming 
from the people who are doing much better during this tepid recovery. 
Will that solve our problems? Can we tax our way out of this? Can we 
have confiscatory tax policies that will not hurt our economy and get 
us out of this? The answer is no, and everybody recognizes it.
  What else does everybody recognize? They recognize that a big portion 
of the problem is entitlement spending, and no political party wants to 
be blamed for being the person who ``fixed'' entitlement spending 
unless we do it together. So we have a great opportunity to, together, 
modify our mandatory spending programs and make significant savings. 
But having spent the last 9 years with my colleague from Delaware who 
is on the floor oversighting the Federal Government, I can tell my 
colleagues there are more things we can do other than that.
  So I thought I would spend a few minutes to go over a publication I 
put out a couple of summers ago, and it is called ``Back in Black.'' It 
is not perfect. I will be the first to admit it. I know we will not 
ever pass $9 trillion worth of savings over 10 years. But here is $9 
trillion worth of options we could look at and take half of them and 
actually get on the road to health.
  What would getting on the road to health look like? It would be 
rising personal incomes, not declining personal incomes as we are 
seeing today. It would be rising median family incomes. It would be 
faster economic growth.
  Mr. President, am I out of time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used his 10 minutes.
  Mr. COBURN. My request was for 30 minutes when I came to the floor. 
Evidently, that wasn't made. Is the order of the day 10 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.
  Mr. COBURN. I would ask for just a short period of additional time if 
my colleague from Delaware would allow it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. May I ask unanimous consent that the doctor be afforded 
another 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. I will spend some time tomorrow then going through what 
this is. But it is solving our problem in such a way that it doesn't 
kick the can down the road, which is what we are getting ready to do.
  What I would say in conclusion is by increasing the debt limit, we 
let the politicians off the hook because then they don't have to make 
the hard choices required for us to live within our means.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have a parliamentary inquiry, if I may.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware will state his 
inquiry.
  Mr. CARPER. I have no objection; I can stay 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I 
would like for the Senator from Oklahoma Dr. Coburn to have a chance to 
explain what he wanted to say. I don't mean to interrupt.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I would just inquire if there are other 
speakers after Senator Carper.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no apparent order of speakers, and if 
there is no objection, the Senator from Oklahoma can take an additional 
20 minutes.
  Mr. COBURN. I thank the Chair. I truly thank my colleague. He is a 
great colleague to work with. People are always telling stories about 
how people don't work together. I can tell my colleagues that the 
Senator from Delaware Mr. Carper and I work together. He is my 
chairman, and I am the ranking member on the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee, where most of this information came 
from, and he helped dig it up.
  What I say is we have an opportunity to do that. We have an 
opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to come together, forge a 
compromise, make major changes that are necessary and absolutely 
required if we are going to have a secure future. I think we ought to 
look at it.
  So we put together a plan that has $3 trillion--that is $300 billion 
over 10 years--in discretionary spending; that is nonmandatory. It has 
$1 trillion in defense spending, which is about what we already have. 
Health care entitlements is $2.7 trillion, and we can go into the 
details of that. Tax Code simplification, $1 trillion to come back to 
the Federal Government. Interest payment savings of $1.3 trillion, and 
Social Security reform that says it will be healthy for the next 75 
years. That comes to $9 trillion that our kids aren't going to have to 
pay back. That is $9 trillion in money we are not going to borrow. So 
even if we just took half of that--$4.5 trillion--and said we are going 
to get on the path to health, we are going to float that $3 trillion 
that is sitting in cash in Americans' bank accounts and give them the 
confidence back to invest it in our country, it would make a massive 
difference in our country because what is going on right now is a 
crisis of confidence.
  The American people don't trust Congress. I think we got a pretty low 
rating this week and deservedly so. The approval rating of President 
Obama is at his all-time low. So how do we fix that? We don't fix that 
individually. We don't fix that by pointing out what is wrong with the 
other person. We fix that by coming together and solving real problems 
that will give the American people confidence that we have their best 
interests at heart--not in the short term, as Alexander Tytler was 
talking about, but in the long term; that, in fact, we want to secure 
the future for our kids and grandkids.
  I think we ought to be about cutting up the credit card. I know I am 
in the minority in the Senate. I don't believe we should have another 
debt limit increase. I think the thing to force us to make these hard 
choices--because there is certainly not the political will to do it--is 
to put ourselves in the position where we are forced to make the hard 
choices.
  We are going to make them eventually. Everybody agrees with that. We 
are basically going to make these changes because there will come a 
time when we will not be able to borrow money no matter what interest 
rate we pay. So we are not talking about defaulting on our sovereign 
debt. We are not talking about not paying interest on our sovereign 
debt. We are talking about forcing ourselves into a position where we 
have to prioritize what we spend.
  What do the GAO reports tell us? In the last 3 years, the GAO has 
given Congress wonderful information which Congress has not acted on. 
What have they told us? They have told us we have 91 different health 
care workforce training programs--91. They have told us we have 679 
renewable energy initiatives, none of which have a metric on them. They 
have told us we have 76 different drug abuse and prevention programs 
run by the Federal Government. They have told us the Department of 
Defense has 159 different contracting organizations, none of them being 
held accountable. They have told us that at Homeland Security, where 
Senator Carper and I chair and vice chair the committee, they have six 
different R&D facilities, three of which are doing exactly the same 
thing. We have 209 science, technology, engineering, and math 
programs--209. We have 200 different crime prevention programs. We have 
160 homeowners and renters assistance programs. We have 94 private 
sector green building assistance programs, none with a metric, and the 
agencies don't even know how much money they are spending on them. They 
told us we have 82 teacher quality programs run by the Federal 
Government, half of which are not in the Department of Education. I 
will not continue, but my colleagues get my point.
  What have we done about those things? Nothing. Where is the oversight 
on them? There is none. So the whole idea for me--I am thinking about 
the future more than I am a political career--is I think we ought to be 
working on those things. I think the American public expects us to work 
on them.
  I will finish by saying we have been running the credit card for a 
long time. Do we, in fact, have the right or the privilege or the 
ability to ask for an

[[Page 15563]]

extension and a raising of our debt when, in fact, we have not acted 
responsibly with our spending? Nobody else in the country gets their 
credit raised when they have not acted responsibly. They actually check 
your credit score. They know what kind of bills you are paying, whether 
you are getting further behind. So should we, in fact, tear up the 
credit card? Should we force some good old adult supervision on 
Congress, where we will actually be forced to make difficult decisions 
about priorities on how we spend America's money? When I say 
``America's money,'' I mean the people out there working hard every 
day. They may not be the highest tax payers, but it is unconscionable 
to me that when we spend their money, we are wasting 15 to 20 percent 
of it all the time.
  So I think we ought to tear it up. The way we tear it up is we just 
tear it up. We tear the credit card up. We shred the credit card, and 
we say: You are going to live within your means. You are going to start 
making the hard choices. You are addicted to spending. You are addicted 
to not being responsible with the dollars you have.
  Congress needs to be in a 12-step program, and it should start with 
us.
  Mr. President, I thank my colleague the Senator from Delaware for his 
patience and his friendship.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, Dr. Coburn is a tough act to follow, and I 
am not going to try to do that. But I am happy to serve with him. We 
come from different parts of the country, different kinds of training, 
upbringing, and careers, but we have ended up here together in the 
Senate for the last 9 years and have had an opportunity to lead, first, 
the subcommittee on Federal financial management--it is a subcommittee 
of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--and this 
year to be the Democratic and Republican leaders of the committee. I 
enjoy working with him. I find that we have the opportunity to do some 
really good for our country, and I thank him for letting me be his 
wingman.
  I want to just follow on with what Dr. Coburn has said, by asking us 
to think of how we spend money and what we spend it for in this 
government of ours. Then I actually have an op-ed that I read recently 
in our local paper in Delaware that I would like to read into the 
Record from Dr. Bob Laskowski, who is the CEO and the president of 
Christiana Care Health System, one of the largest hospital systems not 
just in our State but one of the largest in our part of the country.
  Before I do that, I want to follow on to some of Dr. Coburn's 
comments by talking about our spending in the Federal Government. I 
would like to think of it as a pie. It is a big pie. A little more than 
half of the spending pie goes for something we call entitlements--
things we are entitled to by virtue of our age, our station in life, or 
we might be entitled to Medicare if we are 65 or older, or Medicare if 
we are disabled and unable to work, or we may be entitled to early 
Social Security benefits at age 62, full retirement Medicare benefits 5 
or so years after that. We may be entitled to benefits because we 
served in the military or we are a veteran or somebody with a 
disability. Those are all programs that are called entitlement 
programs. A lot of people say they are uncontrollable, we cannot do 
anything to control them, and they have grown like Topsy.
  Today, if you think of the spending pie, over half of it is for 
entitlement. Roughly, closer to another 5 to 10 percent of spending 
today is for interest on the debt. If interest rates were not so low, 
it would be a lot more than 5 or 10 percent. Fortunately, we are 
blessed to have very low interest rates, but still our interest as a 
percentage of that pie is somewhere, I think, between 5 and 10 percent.
  The whole rest of the Federal government is called discretionary 
spending, which means we actually have some discretion on how that 
money is spent. It is not an entitlement program, but we actually have 
to pass spending bills. We call them, usually, appropriations bills. 
There are about a dozen of them that cover everything from agriculture 
to defense, to housing, to the environment, to education, to 
transportation--you name it. That part of the budget--roughly, close to 
40 percent, 35 to 40 percent--is called discretionary spending. More 
than half of that discretionary spending is for defense--I would say 
roughly 20 percent of the whole pie, maybe a little more than 20 
percent. About 15 percent of the whole pie--a little less than half of 
the discretionary spending--is for nondefense matters.
  So if you think about it, it goes something like this: For the 
spending pie, over half of it is entitlements. Allegedly, those are 
things we cannot reduce, control. I do not agree with that. Another 5 
or 10 percent is for interest. Then we have roughly 40 percent for 
discretionary spending, the lion's share of which is for defense, and a 
little less than half of it is for nondefense spending. Think about 
that--entitlements, interest, defense spending. You set that aside, and 
for the whole rest of the government you have about 15 percent. That is 
domestic or nondefense discretionary spending.
  We could actually eliminate domestic discretionary spending in its 
entirety--get rid of everything, everything we do in government other 
than entitlement programs, interest, and defense--and we would still 
have a deficit.
  For people who say we can only focus on domestic discretionary 
spending or squeeze that to reduce the deficit further, the deficit is 
down from about $1.4 trillion about 4 years ago to about half that 
today. So we have made progress. It is still way too big, but we cannot 
get from here to where we want to go in terms of a balanced budget by 
just focusing on domestic discretionary spending.
  I would like to say there are three things we need to do. Dr. Coburn 
has heard me say this more times than he wants to remember. The 
Presiding Officer has heard me say it a time or two as well.
  There are three things we need to do if we are serious about deficit 
reduction, facing the reality of today.
  No. 1, entitlement reform. These are the President's words: 
entitlement reform that saves money, entitlement reform that saves 
these programs for our kids and our grandchildren, and entitlement 
reform--these are my words--entitlement reform that does not savage old 
people or poor people, but it is sensitive to the least of these in our 
society.
  The second thing we need to do is to focus on revenues. We need some 
more revenues. If you look at our country last year, when our deficit 
was about $700 billion--the year we just finished--as I recall, revenue 
as a percentage of gross domestic product was somewhere in the area of 
17 percent, maybe 18 percent--revenue as a percentage of GDP. Spending 
as a percentage of GDP was over 20 percent, maybe around 21, 22, 23 
percent.
  The difference between revenues as a percentage of GDP down here at 
17, 18, 19 percent of GDP and spending at 21, 22, or 23 percent, that 
difference right there is about a $700 billion deficit from the last 
year.
  At the end of the day we need to make the revenues come closer to, 
actually, the spending. I suggest that we need to take a page out of 
the book they did in the second term of President Bill Clinton when we 
had run chronic deficits since 1968. President Clinton asked Erskine 
Bowles, who was then his Chief of Staff, to work with a Republican 
Senate and Republican House--a Republican Congress--to see if we could 
come up with a budget plan that included revenues, included spending, 
to actually balance the budget.
  As we all know the story, famously it worked. A Democratic President, 
working with a Republican House and Senate, with the help of Erskine 
Bowles and Sylvia Mathews--now Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who was 
Erskine's Deputy Chief of Staff, later Deputy OMB Director--they got 
the job done. They reached across the aisle and worked it out. The 
deficit reduction plan was a 50-50 deal--50 percent on the revenue side 
and 50 percent on the spending side. They grew the heck out of the 
economy. As a result, we had four balanced budgets in a row--I think 
1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.

[[Page 15564]]

  Harry Truman used to say: The only thing that is new in the world is 
the history we forgot and never learned. I think as we try to figure 
out what to do with today's deficits and how to get on an even more 
fiscally responsible track, it would be smart to look back about 15 
years and see how it worked then.
  For folks who might be watching this around the country, we actually 
have a budget law. I think our budget law was adopted in 1974. There is 
an expectation in our Nation's budget law for the President to present 
us in the Congress with a budget--one budget, not a capital budget and 
an operating budget but one budget. It is different from the States. It 
is different from my State, where I was Governor of Delaware for 8 
years, where we have a capital budget and an operating budget. But we 
have one budget.
  The President usually submits a budget in January, maybe February. 
This year it was a little late. The expectation here in the Congress, 
under the law, is that by, say, the end of April--a couple months 
later--the House and the Senate would have passed something called a 
budget resolution.
  A budget resolution--what is that? It is not a budget. A budget 
resolution is a framework for a budget. It includes not nitty-gritty 
line-item spending plans for everything--defense and nondefense--but it 
says, roughly, we will spend this much in these programs, and 
generally, we will raise this much money in these ways from these 
revenue sources. It is not very specific, but it is a framework for the 
budget. I like to think of it as the skeleton, and later on, when we 
pass appropriations bills, when we pass revenue measures, we put the 
meat on the bones. That is where the real specificity comes along.
  For a number of years we have not been able to pass in the Senate, in 
the House, a budget resolution--they are usually different--and then go 
to conference, create a conference committee to create a compromise. We 
have found it difficult to actually come up with a compromise budget 
resolution--a compromise, a spending plan, a framework for the 
appropriations bills and revenue measures.
  This year started more promising because in the Senate here, in 
April, under the leadership of our Senate Budget Committee chairman 
Patty Murray of Washington, we actually passed a budget resolution--
sadly, without Republican support. We passed one, and it was one of 
those like the Clinton years, a 50-50 deficit reduction deal. It did 
not eliminate the deficit, but it kept it going in the right track. 
Half of the deficit reduction was on the spending side, half on the 
revenue side.
  Over in the House, they passed a different kind of budget resolution. 
The budget resolution they passed did a little entitlement reform. But 
that 15 percent of the spending pie I was talking about--the 15 percent 
that is domestic discretionary spending--was reduced, as I recall, from 
15 percent to like 5 percent. Think about that. We would be talking 
about--aside from entitlement spending, interest on the debt, and 
defense spending--having about the whole rest of the government be like 
5 percent of our spending. That is not my vision of what our government 
should be about. That is not my vision. And I do not think that is the 
vision of a lot of people in this body and in this country.
  So the three things we need to do: No. 1, entitlement reform. It 
saves money, saves the programs. It does not savage old people, poor 
people. The second thing, we need some additional revenues.
  I remember Kent Conrad, when he was our Budget Committee chairman, 
gave a presentation at a meeting a year or so ago. He talked about 
revenues. He talked about tax expenditures. As to the tax expenditures 
that he talked about, he said over the next 10 years we will see about 
$12 trillion to $15 trillion go out of the Treasury because of tax 
breaks--tax credits, tax deductions, tax loopholes, the tax gap--$12 
trillion to $15 trillion go out of the Treasury for those tax 
expenditures. He said more money will come out of the Treasury for 
those tax expenditures--tax breaks, tax credits, tax deductions, tax 
loopholes--than all the appropriations bills we are going to pass. 
Think about that.
  He said we have a new way to appropriate money, we just do it through 
the Tax Code. I would say to our Republican and Democratic friends, 
this is where I think Senator Conrad was coming from. If we cannot 
figure out how out of $12 trillion or $15 trillion of tax expenditures 
a year, maybe 5 percent of those that could be reduced or could be 
eliminated because they serve no useful purpose, something is wrong 
with us. If we can do 5 percent of, say, just $12 trillion in those tax 
expenditures, 5 percent would be about $600 billion over the next 10 
years. Match that with entitlement spending reductions, that is about 
$1.2 trillion. That is a pretty good next step to take in narrowing our 
deficit on top of what we have already done.
  The third piece, in addition to entitlement reform that saves money, 
saves the programs for the long haul, and does not savage old people or 
poor people, some additional revenue, generally from eliminating or 
reducing tax expenditures, the third piece--and Dr. Coburn was talking 
a little bit about this. He was talking about the way we spend money. 
We have a culture in the Federal Government. We have had it for a long 
time. Big companies have this culture too, and some States as well as 
counties and cities. I call it a culture of spend thrifts as opposed to 
a culture of thrift. What Dr. Coburn and I attempt to do with the folks 
on our committee is look at everything we do in the Federal Government 
to the extent that one committee can. We like to work with the Office 
of Management and Budget, OMB, with the General Accountability Office, 
GAO, the Office of Personnel Management, with the General Services 
Administration, all of the inspector generals across the agencies, 
throughout the Federal Government. We like to work with nonprofit 
groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste and others.
  We do this in order to figure out what we are doing. How are we 
spending the taxpayers' money? Are there ways we can do those things, 
realize the goals we are trying to achieve, by spending less money or 
getting better results for the same amount of money? We need to do that 
in everything.
  One of my colleagues said to me, when I said I was coming over to 
speak tonight: What are you going to talk about?
  I said I think I will talk about regular order. We talk a fair amount 
about regular order around this place. We do not always follow it. 
Regular order, for the people watching who are tuned in wondering what 
is regular order, means following the rules. In this case, we have a 
Budget Act that says the President submits a budget the early part of 
the calendar year. Congress adopts a budget resolution. We do that 
about the beginning of May. Then we do our work on preparing 
appropriations bills and revenue measures. In order to go to a 
conference on a budget resolution, we have to get agreement. The 
majority leader will come or the Budget Committee chair will come to 
the floor and say: I ask unanimous consent to go to conference with the 
House and to name conferees and begin working out a compromise between 
the House and the Senate.
  For many years it was perfunctory. The unanimous consent request was 
made. We would go to conference with the House. We would go to work on 
a budget resolution between the two bodies. This year, every time that 
request has been made--and it has been made dozens of times by 
Democrats and by at least one Republican--dozens of times--there has 
always been an objection to keep us from going to conference to work 
out this compromise.
  As much as anything, we need to create an environment where we can 
focus on doing the three things I talked about: entitlement reform, tax 
reform that raises some revenues through deficit reduction, and try to 
focus on everything we do and say how do we get a better result, how do 
we get a better result for less money or the same amount of money.
  I would say to my Republican colleagues who continue to object: Stop.

[[Page 15565]]

Please stop. Let us actually have a chance to gather in a room in this 
building and see what we can hammer out to address, not a short-term 
continuing resolution but actually a thoughtful, comprehensive spending 
plan as we did 15, 16 years ago when the Republicans were in the 
majority here, House and Senate, and we had a Democratic President. We 
got the job done and helped to continue the longest running economic 
expansion in the history of this country.
  I mentioned Bob Laskowski, president and CEO of Christiana Care 
Health System, a large regional health care system. He did a great job. 
We are very proud of him in our State. They provide care to a lot of 
people. He is a doctor and a health system leader. I thought his 
perspectives on health care reform and the Affordable Care Act were 
important enough to share on the floor.
  This comes from an op-ed that appeared in one of our local statewide 
papers called the News Journal, a Gannett publication. His op-ed was in 
the News Journal this past week. I am going to read it. It is not that 
long. It goes like this:

       With some in Washington promising to speak out against 
     implementation of the Affordable Care Act until they ``can no 
     longer stand,'' it might be a useful reality check to visit 
     an emergency room in any town or city across America.

  He goes on to say:

       There you will find thousands of Americans each day that 
     really cannot stand. It is not just because an injury, 
     illness or disease has put them on their backs.
       Too often, it is because an eminently treatable ailment has 
     been allowed to turn into something much worse--for the 
     simple reason that the patient doesn't have health insurance 
     and couldn't afford to see a doctor until things became so 
     bad that the emergency room was their only option.
       In the continuing cacophony of criticism around so-called 
     ObamaCare, this crucial fact keeps being lost: Our health 
     care system remains badly broken--and in the absence of 
     reform, it will continue to get a lot worse.
       I see this--as a physician and as a health care executive; 
     but more importantly, I experience this as the friend of too 
     many neighbors with no health insurance.

  He goes on to say:

       I think that might be the reason why 3 in 4 Americans 
     surveyed in a recent Pew Research poll say they oppose 
     efforts to sabotage the law: because they know that the 
     people threatening to derail and defund the Affordable Care 
     Act are not offering a better solution.

  Ironically, the part of the Affordable Care Act that we are 
attempting to implement and stand up across the country right now, the 
health exchanges or marketplaces, is a Republican idea. It was first 
offered as an alternative to HillaryCare back in the first term of 
President Clinton. It is a Republican idea, a business idea.
  But I do not care whether it is a Democratic or Republican idea. It 
is a smart idea to use large purchasing pools, enable people who 
otherwise would buy health insurance for one person or five people or 
for a small business--it is a way for them to bring down the cost of 
their care, use competition to get better options. It is a smart idea.
  The idea of another criticism, the individual mandates, people being 
individually mandated to get health care and if they did not they would 
maybe face some kind of fine--modest at first, it grows in time--that 
is not a Democratic idea. Ironically, that is an idea we got out of 
Massachusetts. The author, the Governor who signed it into law, was the 
Republican nominee for President last year, Mitt Romney.
  So what we have tried to do is take some Republican ideas and some 
Democratic ideas and, frankly, some good ideas.

       And over half of those who ``oppose'' the law today, say 
     they want it fixed, not scrapped.

  I agree with that--fixed, not scrapped.

       They know that in the absence of reform, there are still 
     too many people who use the emergency room as their only 
     source of medical care; too many families and businesses who 
     cannot keep up with the ever-rising cost of health care 
     premiums; and too many Americans who find nothing but 
     frustration when navigating our health care system--who still 
     fill out too many forms, are prescribed too many tests that 
     do not help them and get passed from office to office without 
     anyone guiding them overall care.
       Beginning [last week], millions of uninsured Americans 
     began to shop for quality, affordable health care through the 
     health insurance marketplaces. These marketplaces are a key 
     element of the Affordable Care Act and represent an important 
     step toward putting quality health care within reach of all 
     Americans.
       Just as Medicare has enabled seniors to get the care they 
     need to live longer and healthier lives, increasing access to 
     health insurance is vital to unlocking a healthier country, 
     by ensuring something that millions of Americans do not have 
     today: The opportunity to stay healthy through regular doctor 
     visits rather than seeking help only when they get sick.

  In some cases very sick.

       It is worth remembering: Health care reform is not about 
     special interests. It is about people like us, our families 
     and our neighbors. It is about fellow parishioners and Little 
     League coaches. It is about a neighbor who cuts himself 
     making dinner and a spouse who finds a worrisome lump.
       Everyone we know and everyone we love--will need our health 
     care system at some point. Three years after America debated 
     the need for health care reform, millions of Americans who 
     work hard, pay taxes, and raise families still cannot afford 
     to see a doctor. That is wrong.
       And even though the resistance of some states to fully 
     adopt the Affordable Care Act will tragically still leave 
     some families in those states in the lurch, we now at long 
     last have the unprecedented opportunity to create a system 
     that will work better for us all.
       We should also remember: Over time, the Affordable Care Act 
     promises to improve the system as much for the shrinking 
     majority of Americans who have health insurance as for those 
     who do not.
       Access is just the first step. The act provides a blueprint 
     for a new model of care, one that rewards doctors for more 
     coordinated care. Here at Christiana Care [and throughout 
     Delaware] we have seen what happens when we provide that kind 
     of care through reengineered medical practices, known as 
     ``medical homes,'' where doctors are enabled to not only 
     efficiently meet patients' needs but to anticipate them as 
     well.
       This coordinated approach makes getting care simpler and 
     makes the lives of those getting care easier. It makes 
     quality better; and, by making care simpler, better, and more 
     accessible, it saves money.
       No law as big or ambitious as the ACA can possibly get it 
     all right on the first try. But let us not forget: When 
     Medicare was signed into law, critics warned seniors would 
     languish in long lines, and that we would all long for the 
     good old days before reform took place.
       Today, Medicare has helped hundreds of millions of 
     Americans live longer, healthier lives--while reducing the 
     poverty rate among seniors by 75 percent.

  Dr. Laskowski goes on to write:

       I believe if these historic changes are given a chance, we 
     will collectively create a system that is defined not by 
     volume, but by value. Over the next several years, I know we 
     can make health care in America more ``people focused'' and 
     less transactional by realizing the best way to provide 
     better outcomes at lower cost is by partnering with patients.
       As we in health care listen to our patients, we will learn 
     what our patients truly value. Then we will be able to free 
     up resources to help patients get healthy faster and stay 
     well.
       The Affordable Care Act is a map toward that future. 
     History is being made.

  I will close by saying: While many of our colleagues argue that the 
Affordable Care Act will lead to rising insurance costs and lost jobs, 
the truth is that in Delaware and throughout the rest of the country, 
millions of Americans are already learning they will be able to find 
quality health care, insurance plans for a more affordable price.
  In Delaware and much of the country, millions of Americans will be 
able to find quality insurance plans for less than $100 a month. I have 
told my constituents and my colleagues since this debate over health 
care reform began, this law is not written in stone. We want to make 
the law better wherever we can, just as we have made the Medicare 
prescription drug program better, which was largely supported by 
Republicans. But we actually made it better in the Affordable Care Act.
  I would urge my Republican colleagues to enable us to reopen our 
government, to reassure Americans and our creditors in this country and 
around the world that we will honor our debts. Then let's get to work 
right away to improve the Affordable Care Act and these insurance 
marketplaces and come to a consensus on a bipartisan budget resolution 
that lays out a spending plan that will get us from where we are to 
where we need to be.

[[Page 15566]]

  Last word. I spent some time in the Navy, and the Presiding Officer 
spent some time in the military. One of the Presiding Officer's sons 
may be on Active Duty today. Some of the time we used to fly in and out 
of Japan in Navy P-3 airplanes.
  I learned not long ago that in Japan they spend about 8 percent of 
GDP for health care. In this country, we spend about 17 or 18 percent. 
Think about that. They spend 8 percent of GDP for health care. We spend 
17 or 18 percent. They get better results. For the most part they have 
lower rates of infant mortality and higher rates of life expectancy 
than we do.
  The other thing is they cover everybody. Tonight when folks go to bed 
in this country, this evening some 40 million will go to bed without 
health care coverage. The Japanese, smart as they are, cannot be that 
smart. We cannot be that dumb. We cannot be that dumb.
  There are ways to get better results for less money, including in the 
provision of health care. We can work together. If we work together, we 
can make that a reality.
  The last thing I will say is I think the Presiding Officer has heard 
me tell how I love to ask people who have been married a long time what 
the secret is for being married 40, 50, 60, 70 years. People give me 
very funny answers. Some are actually hysterical. But every now and 
then some of them are serious, almost poignant. And I will close with 
one of them tonight.
  A couple of years ago I met a couple who had been married over 50 
years.
  I said to them: What is the secret for being married 55 years?
  They said: The two Cs.
  The two Cs.
  I said: What is that?
  They said: Communicate and compromise.
  Think about that. Communicate and compromise. I said: That is pretty 
good advice.
  I got to thinking about it later, and I thought that is also some 
pretty good advice and maybe the secret for a vibrant democracy--to 
communicate and to compromise. We think we were willing to compromise 
on the short-term spending resolution that is the continuing resolution 
by agreeing to the numbers set by the Republican House leaders. They do 
not regard that as a compromise, but I think it was an attempt to 
compromise.
  We need to find compromises in a conference on the budget resolution. 
That is where we should put our money, that is where we should put our 
efforts in the weeks to come.
  I would add one more C. Communicate and compromise, as important as 
they are, maybe a third C would be collaborate. That would be a good 
one to add. So three Cs: Communicate, compromise and collaborate. It is 
what the American people sent us here to do.
  I know the Presiding Officer feels that way, and so do I, as does Dr. 
Coburn. There are a bunch of us who feel that way. So let's do that.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, pending before the Senate is a unanimous 
consent request on H. Con. Res. 58, a bill to urge the Department of 
Defense to allow military chaplains to perform duties during the 
shutdown.
  Earlier today, I objected to this bill because I misunderstood its 
purpose, and I would like to withdraw that objection at this time.
  The bill will urge the Department of Defense to allow military 
chaplains, including contract personnel, to perform religious services 
during the shutdown and permit services to take place on property owned 
by the Department of Defense.
  Today, just as the Department of Defense and the administration 
solved the problem with military families and their death benefits upon 
the loss of one of their loved ones serving our country, I urge, and I 
know others will as well, the DOD to ensure that all active-duty 
members are able to exercise their First Amendment rights and 
participate in religious ceremonies while they are serving. So that is 
something I hope we can resolve.
  I also want to raise some issues that relate to the shutdown. I 
raised some earlier, but these are additional concerns I have with 
regard to the shutdown.
  The impact of this shutdown is being felt across the board, across 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and, indeed, across the country. It 
is felt by small businesses, States and municipalities are feeling it 
already and anticipating much more of an impact as time goes by, and, 
of course, families are feeling it very acutely. Yesterday I sent a 
letter to Speaker Boehner emphasizing the detrimental impact the 
shutdown was having on my constituents in Pennsylvania.
  Just by way of a couple of examples that apply to Pennsylvania and to 
the Nation, domestic violence programs across the country have been 
impacted directly by the shutdown. The offices that oversee grants 
under the Violence Against Women Act have had to shut down and are not 
able to issue grants or provide reimbursements to local programs.
  I would say parenthetically that it took many months for the Violence 
Against Women Act reauthorization to go forward. There were a lot of 
problems along the way, a lot of objections. Fortunately, we have the 
program reauthorized, but now, because of the shutdown, we are having 
problems with women who are victims of violence getting the services 
they are entitled to.
  We are hearing as well from folks in our domestic violence shelters--
shelters that rely upon Federal funds and that have already been 
impacted by the sequester--the across-the-board indiscriminate cuts 
that have been in effect since March. These shelters may have to 
further reduce services to vulnerable victims of domestic violence.
  In the words of one State advocate: We are hanging on by our 
fingernails.
  Meaning they are hanging on in terms of just being able to provide 
services, with funding either limited or funding being jeopardized.
  Women trying to escape abusive relationships should not be hampered 
by the failures here in Washington to end this shutdown.
  In terms of Social Security, we know Social Security checks are going 
out, fortunately, but in Pennsylvania, on average, 2,900 new claims are 
processed each week. That is the typical weekly total for new claims. 
This means Pennsylvanians who have reached retirement age and have paid 
into the system their entire careers are now forced to wait for 
benefits.
  You have to ask yourself: Why should a domestic violence center, with 
people who work to help domestic violence victims, have to wait for a 
political dispute where one wing of one party engaged in an ideological 
exercise allows a government shutdown, and, therefore, that domestic 
violence center doesn't get the help it needs, and the women, mostly 
women who are impacted, don't get the help they need.
  The same could be said of someone who reaches retirement age and 
expects, and has a right to expect, their Social Security eligibility 
will be processed. Why should they have to wait for Washington?
  In Pennsylvania alone, when it comes to small businesses, 30 loans, 
on average, are made each week by the SBA, for a total of $13 million 
each and every week. The loss of these loans is hindering entrepreneurs 
from growing their businesses and from obtaining much-needed capital. 
Again, why should a business owner--a small businessperson who gets 
help from the SBA and has an expectation of getting that help--and, 
remember, we average 30 of those loans every week in Pennsylvania 
amounting to $13 million--why should that all be stopped because 
someone in Washington has an ideological point to make? It makes no 
sense, and it is an outrage.
  The shutdown is also impacting infrastructure in public lands across 
the country. Until the government is open, the maintenance of our 
Nation's basic infrastructure is impacted. In Pennsylvania, a lot of 
that basic infrastructure

[[Page 15567]]

involves our waterways--the locks and dams. That whole system which is 
in place for Pennsylvania and many other States, the maintenance of 
those locks and dams, is deferred. We all know what happens when you 
defer maintenance on something as fundamental as infrastructure.
  I have been informed that repairs that were scheduled to take place 
on locks along the Lower Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania are 
suspended. If you have a problem with those, with a lock--and locks and 
dams generally, but in particular focusing on the Monongahela River--
you stop the flow of commerce or you slow it down substantially. When 
you slow down or stop the flow of commerce, that affects jobs and the 
economy of southwestern Pennsylvania. If just one of these locks were 
to fail, it could have a detrimental economic impact on the whole 
region.
  How about national parks? We have heard a lot about that topic this 
week and last week. The closure of national parks is negatively 
impacting Pennsylvania's economy. According to the National Park 
Service, the communities and businesses surrounding Pennsylvania's 
national parks and memorials are losing up to $5.7 million in spending 
by nonlocal visitors for each week the government remains closed. That 
is just national parks and just in Pennsylvania--almost $6 million--and 
that is just the beginning of what could be a much more substantial and 
detrimental impact to the State's economy.
  I would go back to the point I made several times--and all of us have 
made these arguments in different ways--and that is that we know for 
sure there is a very simple way out of this predicament for Washington 
but, more importantly, for the country, and that is for the Speaker to 
put on the floor a bill which both parties now agree will pass. It is a 
clean funding bill. All it does is fund the operations of the 
government, albeit at a much lower level--$70 billion less--than our 
side wanted.
  We compromised greatly at the beginning of this process, despite what 
some have said. So we have compromised to make sure we can fund the 
government. It is about time for the Speaker to put this bill on the 
floor. They can vote on it very quickly, and it would pass very 
quickly. It is only 16 pages long. And that is the key to resolving and 
ending this tea party shutdown.
  I urge the Speaker to do that. I have urged him, as we all have in 
various ways, and we respectfully suggest that could happen tomorrow. 
Thursday would be a good day to end all of this so we can get people 
back to work, we can have the functions of government operating to such 
an extent the economy can grow, and we can have a lot of debate and 
discussion about how to fund the government long term or what to do 
about our fiscal challenges--what to do about a whole range of issues. 
But it is time for the government to open, and it is time for the House 
to act to do that.
  It is also time to make sure we pay our bills.
  Thirdly, it is important we continue to negotiate, just as we 
negotiated a long time ago, many weeks ago, to reach the point where we 
can have a bill that would fund the operations of the government.
  Some people in the House chose to take a different path which led to 
the shutdown. It is about time we get them back on the right path, 
which is to open the government, pay our bills, and then have 
negotiations and discussions and compromises to move the country 
forward.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________