[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15578-15592]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           DEFAULT PREVENTION ACT OF 2013--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 211, S. 1569, the debt 
limit bill.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 211, S. 1569, a bill to 
     ensure the complete and timely payment of the obligations of 
     the United States Government until December 31, 2014.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Following leader remarks the time until 1 p.m. will be 
equally divided and controlled between the two leaders and their 
designees.
  At 1 p.m. the Senate will recess subject to the call of the Chair for 
a special caucus meeting with the President.


Measures Placed on the Calendar--H.J. Res. 84, H.J. Res. 89, H.J. Res. 
                            90, H.J. Res. 91

  Mr. REID. There are four measures at the desk due for a second 
reading.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the measures by 
title for a second time.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 84) making continuing 
     appropriations for Head Start for fiscal year 2014, and for 
     other purposes.
       A joint resolution (H.J. Res 89) making appropriations for 
     the salaries and related expenses of certain Federal 
     employees during a lapse in funding authority for fiscal year 
     2014, to establish a bicameral working group on deficit 
     reduction and economic growth, and for other purposes.
       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 90) making continuing 
     appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for 
     fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes.
       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 91) making continuing 
     appropriations for the death gratuities and related survivor 
     benefits for survivors of deceased military servicemembers of 
     the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2014, and for other 
     purposes.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings 
with respect to these measures en bloc.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The measures will be placed on the calendar.
  Mr. REID. The President issued a warning to Congress:

       The full consequences of a default by the United States--or 
     even the prospect of a default by the United States--are 
     impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration 
     of the full faith and credit of the United States would have 
     substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the 
     value of the dollar in exchange markets.

  The President went on to warn of ``risks, the costs, the disruptions, 
and the incalculable damage'' of failing to avert such a default.
  This is not Barack Obama; this was Ronald Reagan in 1983.
  Four years later in 1987, Reagan again warned Congress about the 
impacts of a default on the economy. He said:

       This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds 
     and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. 
     Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in 
     the financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.

  Yet three decades later, an alarming number of Republicans have 
denied or downplayed the seriousness of a first-ever default on the 
full faith and credit of the United States.
  To these default deniers, east is west, north is south, black is 
white, and right is wrong.
  Let's talk about what raising the debt actually means. It simply 
means we are going to pay our bills. It is not a vote to spend more 
money to authorize new programs or to buy new things. It is a vote to 
pay the bills.
  The Federal Government has already incurred these bills, bills for 
roads and bridges--we have already built them--the warships we have 
already commissioned, wars that have been waged and tax breaks that 
have been charged on a national credit card.
  A vote to avert default is a vote to pay the bills for all these and 
more.
  Many Republicans are in the press today, and have been for the past 
week or 10 days, arguing, Why worry about it? It will all work out.
  These same Republicans who argue that we should default on the 
Nation's bills voted time and time again to spend borrowed money, and a 
lot of it, without any regard for the long-term effect it would have. 
These Republicans voted to sell government bonds to China, Saudi 
Arabia, and Japan to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Republican Senators have come to this floor and lamented raising the 
debt. We have to raise this debt because of two unpaid wars costing 
trillions of dollars; tax breaks for the wealthy costing trillions of 
dollars, all given to the rich with borrowed money; wars fought with 
borrowed money.
  During the Bush administration, these same Republicans were happy to 
run up America's credit cards to the tune of trillions of dollars. 
Their theory was lower the taxes; it will be great for the economy. 
They are now howling about the debts they created, the debts they voted 
for. Never mind that with little help from Republicans in Congress, 
President Barack Obama

[[Page 15579]]

has reduced the ratio of deficit to gross domestic product from 9 
percent to 4 percent. This is very good, in spite of the debt he has 
been trying to get charge of; it wasn't his.
  Now that the bill for the Republicans' excesses has come due, the 
bills for wars they supported and the tax cuts they have received, they 
are not willing to pay them. They want to walk out on that check.
  Many of these same Republicans also say we can avoid default by 
prioritizing whom to pay and when we pay them. They say we should pay 
foreign debtholders first. They all agree with that. China would be 
first, then Saudi Arabia, and maybe Japan.
  We shouldn't and couldn't pay Social Security recipients under that 
scenario, veterans or Medicare. No matter how much we would want to, we 
couldn't do it. There would be no money to do it. In addition to having 
shockingly skewed priorities, Republicans are also using very flawed 
logic.
  Here is a real-world example. Let us say the Presiding Officer has a 
mortgage, car payment, and a cell phone bill. The Presiding Officer has 
to decide: Which one should I pay? I can't pay them all. Which one 
should I pay?
  It doesn't matter if the Presiding Officer picks one of them because 
he has defaulted anyway. He can't pay his bills. He likely would never 
be able to buy another car, cell phone, certainly not a house. His 
credit would be ruined for the foreseeable future.
  The same thing would happen to our country. One week from today--and 
that is not a definite time, it could be a couple days before or a 
couple of days after, but we are there; let's say a week from now and 
use that as a point of reference--the United States has no money. It 
can't borrow any money. The Federal Government paid China but failed to 
pay Social Security recipients, unemployment benefits or the salaries 
of our brave men and women fighting in uniform.
  The damage not only to our credit rating, world credit rating, but 
also to our global reputation would be profound and irreversible. The 
risks, the costs, the disruptions and the damage would be incalculable. 
This is what President Ronald Reagan said.
  Why don't they listen to this man they say is such a great leader--
and was. I agree. He was a tremendous President. I didn't agree with 
him all the time, but he was a real leader. He, more than anyone else, 
is responsible for ending the Cold War. There are many who say he 
couldn't fit in the Republican Party of today.
  Robert Dole, who was the majority leader of the Senate from the State 
of Kansas, a patriotic American, said himself he doesn't fit in the 
Republican Party today.
  The stakes couldn't be higher. A global economic recession, and 
possibly even depression, face this great country. This is why 
President Obama reached out to House Republicans, inviting them to the 
White House yesterday afternoon for a serious discussion. Guess what 
they said. We are too busy. We will send a few of us, but we are too 
busy. Remember, the House is led by this same man who said he wanted to 
have a conversation, but they are unwilling to have one with him.
  I was disappointed to hear that the same intractable Republican 
leaders who caused the current government shutdown were unwilling to 
even allow their Members to meet with the President for a constructive 
conversation. Again, they will send--I think they picked 17 out of the 
232 they have. This great conversation is one they don't want.
  They want to talk, but their actions tell another story. They have 
caused enough economic turmoil with the reckless shutdown of the 
Federal Government. If that is not enough, now we have the debt ceiling 
coming in about 1 week. If Republicans force default on the Nation's 
debt, it would be magnitudes worse than the damage they have already 
caused our great country with this senselessly created government 
shutdown.
  Yesterday, Fidelity, the Nation's largest mutual fund manager, with 
$500 billion in assets, announced it would sell all of its short-term 
government bonds because of the threat of default. Today there will be 
more.
  Yesterday, government bonds were considered the safest investment in 
the world. Will they be so tomorrow? Time will only tell. If the United 
States fails to pay its bills, that safe haven will disappear very 
quickly.
  We are going to vote Saturday on the ability to proceed to a clean 
debt ceiling. We will find out how Senate Republicans wish to proceed. 
Economists say the consequences of not paying our bills, not extending 
the debt ceiling, would be immediate and catastrophic. This isn't a 
bunch of Harvard leftwingers.
  Even Republican economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin said debt deniers are 
dead wrong. He said a failure to raise the debt ceiling leads to very 
bad economic outcomes and chaos in financial markets.
  Fidelity's move is only the first sign of economic chaos and will 
continue to spread the closer America comes to defaulting on its bills. 
With every day that passes, it is more and more important for 
Republicans to stop denying the reality of default and start working 
with us to find common ground.
  All we have said is open the government. Let us pay our bills. We 
will negotiate with them on anything. We will have a conversation with 
them about anything. Open the government. Let us pay our bills. Then we 
will negotiate.


                     Recognition of Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The minority leader is recognized.


                            The Debt Ceiling

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to start this morning by 
quoting something my good friend the majority leader said back in 
2007--back when Congress was weighing whether to raise the debt 
ceiling. Here is what the majority leader said back then:

       Until we change the policies that led down this path, we 
     will be back year after year, digging the hole ever deeper.

  And, of course, that is essentially what so many Americans are saying 
today: If we are going to address the debt ceiling, then let's also 
address the root causes of the debt. It just makes good sense.
  One would think our friend the majority leader would continue to 
agree with this logic as well, but that is not what he has been saying 
lately. He is basically saying that it would be irresponsible for 
Congress to address the most pressing problem we face in the country, 
that it would be reckless to raise the debt ceiling if that also meant 
doing something about the debt. In other words, he now seems to think 
the best thing to do about our crushing Federal debt is to do nothing 
at all. That is why my friend the majority leader introduced 
legislation this week to now allow another $1 trillion to be added to 
the debt with no strings attached at all; none, just a $1 trillion debt 
ceiling increase: Just keep raising the credit card limit and letting 
someone else deal with it later on.
  We now have a debt close to $17 trillion--nearly double what it was 
in 2007. We are borrowing nearly $2 billion a day--$2 billion a day--
and apparently our friends on the other side are fine with that. They 
want us to give Washington a free pass to borrow and spend $1 trillion 
more. He is so comfortable with all of this, my friend the majority 
leader rejected the President's own proposal this week to do a short-
term increase followed by a negotiation on reforms.
  Well, in my view, we were sent here to solve problems, not to defer 
them. We were sent here to confront the challenges of the moment, not 
ignore them. That is why the majority leader's proposal just won't fly, 
because it is completely at odds with the wishes of most Americans. And 
that is something the President and a lot of other Senate Democrats 
agreed with when a Republican President was asking for a debt limit 
increase. Of course, the problem is a lot more serious now than it was 
back then.
  Here is something else. Neither side wants to default on our debts. 
Neither side will allow it. That is certainly the case, and people 
should know that. It is irresponsible to do nothing about the debt, and 
it is irresponsible to be stirring up anxiety about default, but that

[[Page 15580]]

doesn't mean the American people are wrong to ask that a debt limit 
increase include reforms aimed at actually tackling the problems that 
got us in this position in the first place, especially since what our 
country has routinely done in the past is just that.
  Going back to the Eisenhower administration, requests to raise the 
debt ceiling have often been tied to important fiscal reforms--nearly 
two dozen times going back to the Eisenhower administration. That is 
how we got the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings reforms in the 1980s. That is how 
we achieved balanced budgets in the 1990s. That is how we secured 
significant spending reductions in President Obama's first term--
spending reductions on which he later campaigned.
  Now President Obama seems to think Congress should just increase the 
borrowing limit on his already maxed-out credit card without a single 
negotiation. He seems to think the representatives of the American 
people should just do what he says when he says it and because he says 
it, no questions asked--no questions asked. You know, that is not just 
irresponsible, it is not the way Presidents of both parties have dealt 
with this problem in the past. Reagan negotiated, Clinton negotiated, 
and if President Obama wants America to increase the credit limit, he 
will negotiate too.
  I would also like to address one of the President's favorite talking 
points these days. He says he won't negotiate over ``the bills Congress 
has already racked up.'' Look, if the President actually believed his 
own talking point, he wouldn't threaten to veto virtually every 
Republican attempt to get spending under control. We have tried 
endlessly. The only times we can even get him to discuss sensible 
budget reforms is when he is absolutely forced to--when Washington has 
to deal with things like the debt ceiling. So let's drop the tired 
talking points and just get about negotiating.
  I know the President doesn't like the fact that Americans elected a 
divided government, but they did. We have a divided government, and no 
matter how much he tries to divide us, at the end of the day he is 
going to have to deal with a Congress he doesn't entirely control.
  The American people can be persuaded to raise the debt ceiling, but 
they are not in any mood to simply hand over a blank check. They are 
looking for sensible reforms. So if the President wants to increase his 
credit limit, let's get to the table and negotiate. He has been 
inviting Members of Congress to the White House this week. In fact, we 
were told earlier today that Senate Republicans have been invited to 
meet with the President tomorrow morning. That is a good start but only 
if it means he has decided to drop his refusal to negotiate on 
solutions. But if this is just a meeting where he simply reiterates 
that he won't negotiate, then it certainly won't be very productive.
  I yield the floor.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.
  Under the previous order, the time until 1 p.m. will be equally 
divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
  The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I received an email this morning from an 
old friend. He is the father of a disabled veteran. This veteran is a 
quadriplegic--a victim of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He has gone through 
multiple surgeries. At some point most people would have given up on 
him. In fact, they even talked about, at the age of 24, his being sent 
to a nursing home for the rest of his life. His father said: No, we are 
not going to let that happen to our son. He brought him to Chicago, 
where he received extraordinary treatment at the Rehabilitation 
Institute, and he started his slow, steady climb back to life. He is 
home now. He is a father, married, has two small children, and his mom 
and dad live with him to help out. The people in the community he lives 
in--it is not in Illinois, it is in North Carolina--have been so 
generous, building the perfect home for him and his wheelchair and 
giving him as many opportunities as he could possibly enjoy in his 
life.
  This is a great story of a great family and a great American hero. 
But his father wrote me an email today and said: We are worried. We are 
worried about the November disability check. Senator, we need it. We 
need that check.
  I wrote back to him and I said: I will move Heaven and Earth and do 
everything I can to make sure that payment is made.
  And I believe it will be made. Somehow, it will be made. But I had to 
tell him that we are facing an unnecessary crisis in America created by 
politicians on Capitol Hill.
  Shutting down the government of the United States of America? What 
does that say about our Nation? What does it say about us in the Senate 
and the House that we have reached this point, that we are deciding 
today on the four or five bills that just passed the House? The House 
has decided what little agency of government, what little spending 
program they will approve each day--each day. It is estimated it will 
take them almost 2\1/2\ months to fully fund the government at this 
pace--2\1/2\ months of uncertainty as they decide day by day what 
little program, what little agency they will reopen. Well, that is just 
plain wrong, and every time they have offered that, we have said to 
them: Open the government. It is essential.
  There was a story 2 or 3 days ago about five American families who 
were notified that they had lost their sons and daughters, who were 
killed in Afghanistan. Traditionally, the U.S. Government comes through 
quickly after that tragic information is shared with the family and 
gives them a financial helping hand to arrange for them to come to 
Dover, DE, for the arrival and return of their fallen hero. But because 
of the government shutdown brought on by the Republicans, there was a 
question as to whether we could even make that payment.
  Luckily, a charity stepped forward--Fisher House. This is an 
extraordinary charity that does so many great things for veterans who 
are disabled and need help. They said: We are going to step in and help 
these families until the government gets its act together, until the 
politicians reopen the government.
  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced yesterday this new 
development. Well, God bless the Fisher House charity, but it shouldn't 
have been necessary. If we had done our job, it wouldn't be necessary; 
the government would be open; this family whom I love, with this 
disabled veteran, wouldn't be worried about that next check if we 
simply did the responsible thing and opened the government.
  Then there is a second issue which, although hard to believe, is even 
larger in scope. The Republicans refuse to give us a chance to extend 
the debt ceiling of America. What is the debt ceiling? This morning I 
listened as the minority leader said it is raising the credit card 
limit. No, it isn't. That is not an accurate statement. It is raising 
the authority of our government to borrow money to pay for what we have 
already spent. Many of the same politicians who voted for the spending 
bills now don't want to pay for them. They do not want to extend this 
debt ceiling--the credit of the United States. That is totally 
irresponsible. It is like ordering the biggest meal on the menu and 
then refusing to pay when the bill comes. That is where they stand. 
That is what they are arguing.
  But it gets even worse. It will be the first time in the history of 
the United States of America that we will have defaulted on our 
national debt--the first time we have called into question the full 
faith and credit of the United States of America. How serious is that? 
Let me tell you how serious it is. Pick up the morning paper. ``World 
leaders fear a default by U.S.'' in the Washington Post. I read it, and 
it says:

       That default scenario is bringing increasingly urgent pleas 
     from foreign leaders, some who describe their grave concern, 
     others who chide the United States about the risks of 
     political brinkmanship, beg its leaders to act responsibly 
     and wonder whether the world's superpower is showing some 
     cracks.

  Now, are you ready for this? Do you know who was preaching to us 
yesterday about responsibility in governing

[[Page 15581]]

the United States of America? Are you ready for this? This is a quote 
from Russian President Vladimir Putin:

       This is highly important for all of us. I am hopeful that 
     all the political forces in the United States will be able to 
     resolve this crisis as quickly as possible.

  So now we are being preached to by President Putin about how to run a 
country. Well, that is embarrassing, and it is totally unnecessary. The 
failure to extend the debt limit of the United States is irresponsible 
and reckless.
  It isn't only the Russians who are calling us to task but our closest 
ally, the United Kingdom. This is what an analyst in London's financial 
district had to say:

       The outlook for the British economy is decent but still 
     fairly fragile. Anything like a U.S. debt default with 
     significant global repercussions would be bad news for the 
     U.K.

  That is a quote from Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global 
Insight in London.
  The Japanese, now emerging from a terrible economic circumstance, one 
of our greatest creditors, are worried about their debtor, the United 
States, paying its debts. Is anyone else embarrassed by this? We all 
should be. This is the creation of politicians in Washington.
  The Republican shutdown, the Republican refusal to extend the debt 
ceiling is irresponsible and reckless. It will not only hurt these 
foreign nations, it will not only hurt the reputation of the United 
States as an economic leader in the world, it is going to hurt families 
and businesses all over the United States. But don't take the word of 
this Democratic Senator; go to the Business Roundtable, one of the 
strongest supporters of the Republicans in Congress. They sent us a 
letter last week and called the default on America's debt catastrophic, 
begging Republicans and Democrats not to do anything this senseless.
  What impact will it have on families? Hold on tight. Watch what 
happens as we get up to this cliff or go over it when it comes to the 
debt ceiling. You can follow it every day. If you have a mutual fund, 
if you own a stock, if you have a savings account, or if you have a 
retirement account, you can watch it melt away as the politicians give 
their speeches on Capitol Hill.
  It is totally irresponsible and reckless.
  We need to open this government. We need to pay our bills. We can sit 
down and negotiate everything and anything--that is the offer that has 
been made--only after we have met our responsibilities.
  Let me also add that Speaker Boehner said last week and some of us 
were relieved to hear it: There will never be a default on America's 
debt. He followed that up within 24 hours with a list of nonnegotiable 
conditions before he would agree to that. That is not responsible. It 
is reckless. It is reckless political conduct. How can we do this to 
the families, to businesses, to the farmers, and to our allies around 
the world?
  It is time to say, as the Chaplain of the Senate did yesterday, 
enough is enough. It is time for grownups to stand up on the other side 
of the aisle and join grownups on this side of the aisle to do the 
right thing: Open the government, pay our bills, sit down, and honestly 
negotiate through these issues. We don't have much time. October 17 is 
the deadline. Today is October 10. We have 1 week before the bottom 
falls out of our economy and the economies around the world.
  I listened to economists on the other side, the so-called really 
conservative economists, say: It really doesn't matter. We can default. 
We really don't need to extend our debt ceiling. These flat-earth 
economists are the same folks who are in denial when it comes to other 
scientific evidence in so many other areas, whether it is climate 
change or evolution--you pick it. They are entitled to their views, as 
fringe as they may be, as extreme as they may be. But to think that 
Members of Congress, Members of the Senate are buying this line of 
baloney is hard to understand and impossible to justify to the American 
people.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I think one of the things we ought to be 
observing, here at least, is courteous rules among ourselves. This is 
meant to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. If we follow 
the rules, follow the regular order, follow the committee process, and 
follow the ways through the committee processes for resolving 
disagreements and disputes, I think we can get through this.
  I believe on both sides of the aisle there are pragmatic people 
devoted to this country who want to solve the two major problems we 
have facing us right this minute; that is, to reopen government, 
because we are now in the 10th day of a shutdown; and, No. 2, to meet 
the debt obligations of the United States of America as mandated in the 
14th Amendment of the Constitution.
  I call upon my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and on both 
sides of the dome: Let's reopen government. Let's pay our bills. And 
let's get through the regular committee processes to solve our 
problems.
  There are those on the other side of the dome in the House of 
Representatives that are proposing a new supercommittee. We have been 
there, and we have done that. After the 2011 crisis, when we faced our 
debt limit, there was a process put in place called a supercommittee. 
It went nowhere. This new idea will go nowhere as well. It is a new 
process that will only result in more delay.
  I think we have two supercommittees. I call them supercommittees 
because they are great committees. They are wonderful committees. That 
is the Budget Committee chaired by Senator Patty Murray and her ranking 
member Senator Jeff Sessions, himself a distinguished judge from 
Alabama, so he knows about conflict resolution. There is the 
Appropriations Committee that deals with discretionary spending, 
chaired by me and my vice chairman Senator Richard Shelby, again a 
seasoned fiscal conservative who knows how to concentrate on the bottom 
line so we can be a more frugal government but also be an effective 
government. Let that committee do its job.
  There is also the Finance Committee chaired by Senator Max Baucus. I 
know the ranking member Senator Grassley from Iowa is on the floor. He 
has an incredible history of being a compassionate conservative and he 
knows the Tax Code and knows the values of Iowa--which is, let's put 
country above party.
  Instead of inventing new committees and new processes, free us up to 
do our job. Free us up to be able to do what the committee process is 
meant to be able to do.
  For me and the Appropriations Committee, we moved all of our 
appropriations bills. We are ready to come to the floor. We are ready 
to go to conference if called up, if we have a method for being able to 
move. We are ready to do it.
  Senator Murray on the Budget Committee is ready to go to conference 
with the House. But 21 times she was blocked by 6 naysayers primarily 
representing a tea party, small faction within the Republican Party.
  The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, has traditionally 
understood that you maintain the values of the country, that you are 
fiscally conservative, but you follow the rules that were established. 
The rules of the Budget Committee passed by the Senate in the Budget 
Control Act say they were supposed to have their job done on April 15. 
Well, we moved the budget on March 23, over 200 days ago, and over 20 
requests to go to conference with me, with Congressman Paul Ryan, and 
with his House counterparts to work out what our discretionary spending 
should be. What should our revenues be? What should we evaluate in 
terms of our mandatory spending where we can take a look at it but not 
shrink those earned benefits like Social Security and VA benefits that 
people count on and work their whole life for and even put their life 
on the line? We have to be able to do our job.
  I will tell you what has been the latest situation that has so 
shocked me. We are on the verge of being a deadbeat nation. We are on 
the verge of being a

[[Page 15582]]

global deadbeat nation. What is a deadbeat? A deadbeat is someone who 
does not meet their financial obligations.
  Over the last 3 days, we have heard about how the families of the men 
and women who died in the line of duty serving their country and are 
entitled to a death benefit were not going to get it because of the 
government shutdown.
  The Fisher family--well known for serving military families, well 
known and so deeply cherished--offered to step forward to pay that. The 
philanthropy of the United States, instead of the public responsibility 
of the United States.
  I want to thank the Fisher family for stepping forward. But, my gosh, 
what humiliation. We are the United States of America, with the 
strongest and best military in the world, and to honor its obligation 
to its own, the United States has to borrow money for a death benefit. 
That is deadbeat. I think it is humiliating. I think it is despicable. 
It shows just how low we have sunk.
  We can get it back. It is in our power because this isn't being 
inflicted on us. This is what is being inflicted on us by other 
Americans sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of 
America. When they took that obligation, they didn't take that 
obligation to just uphold the Amendments they like--like the second 
one--but they took that obligation to uphold all of the Amendments.
  Let's start with the 14th, which says that the debt of the United 
States of America should not be called into question. That is clearly 
in the Constitution. No matter what, America will pay its bills. The 
reliability of the United States of America to meet its debt 
obligations is the financial glue that helps to hold the global economy 
together.
  I am not going to go into doomsday or Armageddon or whatever. But if 
you actually read what the ambassadors of China and Japan--one a great 
ally and the other a formidable competitor--say: We are holding your 
debt. Pay your bills, or a fiscal crisis will begin to unravel in your 
country and around the world.
  We cannot be a deadbeat nation. If we are a superpower, we must first 
of all show our power by meeting our financial obligations. How we get 
our public house in order by reducing our public debt is the subject 
again of the Appropriations Committee, the Budget Committee, and the 
Finance Committee. We have the capability to do it. I am really calling 
upon my friends on the other side of the aisle--and there are many. And 
it is not that we are pals. It is because we have come together out of 
mutual respect to solve mutual problems, being of help to each other 
mutually, that we have been able to keep the government functioning and 
doing it in a way that is smart and affordable.
  So I say, please, let's reopen government. I am calling upon the 
House to pass the Senate continuing fiscal funding resolution that 
would reopen government on November 15 and that process to lay the 
groundwork for resolving our appropriations bills and canceling 
sequester.
  I call upon those six that are blocking us--meaning the Senate--from 
going to the Budget Committee to do this. Those are two simple acts 
within our power to do. I hope that we can do it.
  I intended today to speak about how the shutdown is affecting 
Maryland. We are really being hard hit. Maryland and Virginia have the 
largest concentration of Federal agencies, both civilian and military, 
in America. And, gee, we are proud of that. We are so proud of the fact 
that we have the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug 
Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 
which works with our private sector that enables us to sell products 
around the world.
  We are so proud of the fact that we have the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to make sure that 
we are looking out for large and small, whether it is to make sure that 
our mattresses are not flammable or that our cribs and swimming pools 
are safe for our children. I am proud of those agencies.
  I am sorry that my Federal employees are not working. It is having a 
terrible impact on the Maryland economy. Both our comptroller and our 
Governor are talking about the significant amount of lost revenue that 
we are having because people aren't working and they aren't buying. If 
you talk to small businesses where these agencies are located, it is 
just terrible.
  I just want to tell one story. The Social Security Administration is 
headquartered in Maryland in a community called Woodlawn, a wonderful 
community with a vibrant, civic engagement. It is just great. Across 
the street from the Social Security Administration is a small business 
called the Salsa Grill. It is usually crowded with lunch hour people, 
early morning coffee, those little baby showers that we women like to 
have or a birthday party the guys are throwing for one of their pals at 
lunchtime. The Salsa Grill last Friday, instead of 30 customers, had 3. 
The owner was quoted as saying if the shutdown goes on much longer, he 
won't be able to hang on any longer. This is what makes our economy 
great.
  I talked to one of the largest automobile dealers in Maryland. The 
showrooms were empty in the Baltimore-Washington corridor last weekend, 
even though they had wonderful cars, new cars. They were ready to do 
deals for the old 2013 models they wanted to move out--empty; empty. 
This ripples through our economy. This is not just, ``Oh, we are going 
to contain government.'' We are hurting ourselves.
  The fight about ObamaCare is over. Let's say goodbye to that fight. 
Let's get on to the fiscal issues of the United States of America. I 
say here, as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am ready to 
negotiate. I am ready to meet, to compromise, to see how we can have 
our domestic and defense discretionary spending done in a way that 
begins to reduce our public debt but will also have a progrowth way of 
public investments, making sure our country is safe, that we are 
building roads, building the superinformation highway, educating our 
young people, and doing research and development.
  I know my time is up, but I believe very strongly that we have to 
solve our problems. I am ready to say to the other side of the aisle 
that I am ready to work together. That is because I have done it in the 
past. We actually like doing it, for us pragmatists to get into a room, 
solve problems, give and take, and actually learn from each other. I 
could give many examples of that.
  Right now we need to set the example for the world that we are the 
greatest deliberative body. We have to get back to deliberating instead 
of delaying.
  Please, for the House, pass the continuing funding resolution. For 
the Senate, limit your objection to the Budget Committee going into 
conference. Let's reopen the government, let's pay our bills, and sit 
down and negotiate in a way worthy of a great country, and let's honor 
the Constitution of the United States.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments by the 
distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee. As she said, she 
is ready to meet, ready to negotiate, ready to compromise, ready to 
work together.
  I come today to say tomorrow Republican Senators are finally going to 
get a chance to talk with President Obama about reopening the 
government and dealing with the debt this Nation has, dealing with the 
debt limit.
  Until very recently, President Obama has been far more interested in 
speaking with the press than in actually speaking with Republicans. 
Then we have this invitation to the White House. This morning in the 
Washington Post, what the administration says--it is a front-page 
article and it continues over to page 4--it says the White House 
``emphasized that Obama will not be negotiating.''
  We have the chair of the Appropriations Committee saying she is ready 
to meet, negotiate, and compromise, and the White House says President 
Obama will not be negotiating.
  The question is, why are we going over to the White House in the 
first

[[Page 15583]]

place if the President is not interested in negotiating? Is it just to 
give him a photo op? I went to meetings like that during the health 
care debate more than 3 years ago. The President at the time would 
invite Republicans to a meeting and then he would reject every idea we 
would offer. If he had been more willing to accept Republican ideas, 
negotiate then, we would have had a bipartisan health reform bill that 
was accepted by the American people instead of a law that continues to 
have more people opposed than in favor of it.
  That is going to be my message to the President tomorrow morning when 
we meet. This needs to be a real discussion, a real negotiation, when 
we agree on how we can reopen the Government, reduce our debt and help 
our economy grow. This is the sixth time in 5 years that President 
Obama has requested an increase in the debt ceiling. How much is he 
asking for? According to the majority leader, I understand it is $1 
trillion to extend between now until after the 2014 election.
  That is an incredible amount of money. Just trying to figure out how 
much money that is, it is over $1 million a minute. It is $1 million 
every minute between now and 14 months from now. The President needs to 
realize that is unsustainable. We have a $17 trillion debt. It is a 
debt on the back of our children and our grandchildren. We have 
families all across the country who have aspirations, anxieties, and 
anger about even the idea that their children and grandchildren will 
not be able to get careers, get jobs.
  If we as a nation are going to incur more debt, we also have to find 
real savings. We cannot continue to increase our credit card debt, 
another new credit card after the President has maxed out the last one, 
and send this bill to the American people. It is time to set 
priorities. We want to get moving on real solutions, not just to our 
short-term problems but the long-term issues that face us as a nation 
as we try to work together in governing this Nation.
  The House of Representatives has passed 12 individual continuing 
resolutions. These bills would open many different parts of the 
government right now, parts that we all agree should be kept operating. 
The House voted to pay for FEMA, Head Start, the National Institutes of 
Health, to open our national parks. Those bills have been sent to the 
Senate. They have been sitting here without action at all.
  Here in the Senate I know a lot of Democrats are saying they support 
these functions. We see this picture on the front page of the 
Washington Post this morning with the mayor, Mayor Vincent Gray, the 
mayor of Washington, DC, on the steps of the Capitol, talking to the 
majority leader saying, ``Sir, we are not a department of the 
government. We are simply trying to be able to spend our own money.'' 
Yet the majority leader, who is blocking these votes to allow the 
District of Columbia to do what they are requesting and what the House 
has said yes, they should be able to do, the majority leader is saying, 
``Don't screw it up, OK? Don't screw it up.''
  The majority leader continues to object to votes on these bills. 
History supports bipartisan action of the House and not the 
stonewalling of the President and the Democratic leadership in the 
Senate.
  In the middle of the last government shutdown, Congress passed and 
President Clinton signed laws to allow a wide variety of specific 
programs to function. It is a precedent we should be following today.
  The President also keeps saying he will not negotiate on the debt 
limit. He tries to make people believe that never before has Congress 
included ``issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing 
to do with the debt''--this is the President's quote--in its 
negotiation over the debt limit.
  The facts are not on the President's side. Even the Fact Checker in 
the Washington Post gave the President four Pinocchios on that claim, 
essentially saying it was completely not true. Negotiations have 
actually occurred many times on the debt limit.
  From 1978 until 2013, the debt limit has been raised 53 times. Of 
those votes, the debt ceiling increase was linked to something else 
more than half the time. So more than half of the debt limit increase 
votes since 1978 carried other provisions. They were not, as the 
President claims, clean increases.
  The President wants to ignore that history. The President wants to 
pretend that raising the debt limit is something that has to be done 
without any deliberations, negotiations, dissent, and on his terms 
alone. He says he will not negotiate at all.
  It is strange to be coming from his mouth because that is very 
different from the position that came out of his mouth when he was 
Senator Obama. That was not that many years ago. In 2006, Senator Obama 
voted against a debt limit increase because he said it was a sign that 
Washington cannot pay its bills. Senator Obama complained that the 
Federal debt had increased by $5 trillion in 5 years. Under President 
Obama, Washington's debt has grown by more than $6 trillion in 4 years.
  Senator Obama said, ``The more we depend on foreign nations to lend 
us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of 
foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.''
  Under President Obama, foreign holdings of Federal debt have 
increased by 82 percent.
  Senator Obama said that, ``Washington is shifting the burden of bad 
choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.'' He 
said at the time, ``America has a debt problem, and a failure of 
leadership.''
  A debt problem and a failure of leadership.
  President Obama is now asking for his sixth increase in debt in less 
than 5 years. Why is this, then, not a debt problem and a failure of 
leadership?
  Senator Obama was right to say at the time we have a debt problem. 
President Obama should remember what made him say that in 2006, and do 
something about it now. He should join Republicans willing to talk 
about real entitlement reform as part of negotiations over raising the 
debt ceiling. He should be willing and anxious to talk about his health 
care law and how it is going to become a major factor driving 
Washington's debt even higher in the future if we do not replace it 
with responsible reforms today.
  The President should embrace bipartisan continuing resolutions passed 
by the House as a way of reopening as much of the government as 
possible while we have responsible and reasonable discussions, 
deliberations, and negotiations. President Obama should stop posturing, 
stop playing games, and stop punishing the American people as he has 
been doing under this current government shutdown.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday we learned that for the 
remainder of the government shutdown one of America's great charitable 
organizations, the Fisher House Foundation, will provide survivor 
benefits to military families who have lost a loved one on the field of 
battle. Fisher House is really just almost too good to believe, a 
wonderful charity that has helped military families all across our 
country, including folks in seven different facilities in Texas, from 
the VA North Texas Health Care System to the William Beaumont Army 
Medical Center in El Paso, the Carl R. Darnall Medical Center, the 
Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, to the Brooke Army Medical Center 
in San Antonio, the Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, and the 
South Texas Veterans Health Care System. I personally extend my thanks 
and express my gratitude to Fisher House for making such a tremendous 
commitment to our military heroes and making such a generous offer for 
the families of the fallen.

[[Page 15584]]

  Secretary Hagel was quoted when he announced that Fisher House was 
going to fill the gap left by the cutoff of Federal funds, saying he 
was ``offended, outraged, and embarrassed that the government shutdown 
had prevented the Department of Defense from fulfilling this most 
sacred responsibility in a timely manner.''
  I agree with his outrage and sense of offense and embarrassment. But 
I want to recall how we got here. If our friends across the aisle had 
simply agreed to delay the individual mandate and to eliminate the 
special congressional carveout under ObamaCare, this never would have 
happened.
  We have now reached day 10 of the shutdown. Over the last week and a 
half, administration officials have done as much as they possibly can 
to make this shutdown as painful as possible. They made the decision to 
barricade the World War II memorials and monuments along the National 
Mall, hoping to keep out our veterans, many near the end of their 
lives, for whom these monuments were built as a way of honoring their 
sacrifice. They kept these barricades in their way to impede or perhaps 
prevent them from visiting things such as the World War II Memorial.
  The Obama administration we know has temporarily closed or interfered 
with privately run parks and historic sites, such as the Claude Moore 
Colonial Farm in Northern Virginia.
  Why would the administration, in order to turn up the heat or 
increase the pain of the shutdown, impose itself to shut down a 
privately run park? Well, there is a reason for that, and it is because 
this is a cynical game--not one designed to get to a solution but one 
to gain political advantage. It should be offensive, embarrassing, and 
outrageous--to use the words of Secretary Hagel--for a political party 
to try to use a shutdown for such craven political gain.
  Meanwhile, our Democratic friends have refused to support legislation 
that would reopen our memorials and national parks and fund the 
National Institutes of Health. I heard the distinguished assistant 
majority leader come to the floor a few days ago and decry the fact 
that cancer research for children was being temporarily stopped because 
of the shutdown. We have come to the floor and offered a bill that 
would reopen it, along with clinical trials, and it has been refused by 
our Democratic colleagues. We have come to the floor--and the House has 
passed these bills--and said: Let's fund the Veterans' Administration 
to make sure the backlog of disability claims gets taken care of and so 
our veterans who have given so much and sacrificed so much don't have 
to wait on getting their disability claims processed. That was objected 
to by the majority leader. They also objected to funding our military 
Reserves. As I said, they seem intent on maximizing the pain in hopes 
of gaining political advantage. That is outrageous, that is 
embarrassing, and it should be embarrassing.
  Before I conclude, I want to say to all the military families out 
there who have lost a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father, or 
a mother on the field of battle--I want to leave you with the words of 
a great American President who said:

       I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of 
     your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of 
     the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours 
     to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

  Those noble and inspiring words in that prayer are the type of 
tribute we should be giving to those families who have lost loved ones 
on the field of battle, not the sort of shortsighted political 
treatment that has been given by the efforts across the aisle to shut 
down every reasonable opportunity to alleviate some of this hardship 
and to mitigate some of the pain.
  We have done it together successfully when it comes to paying our 
uniformed Active-Duty military. We got a unanimous consent agreement 
between the parties to make sure our Active-Duty troops are getting 
paid. Why is it we can't do the same thing with the survivors of those 
who lost their lives on the field of battle?
  When I asked unanimous consent yesterday for the majority leader to 
agree to that piece of legislation, he asked to delay consideration of 
that request until the Defense Department could announce its proposal 
with the Fisher House. Again, I commend the Fisher House for stepping 
up and trying to fill the void, but why should we not do our job? Why 
should Congress not act? We should act and I hope very soon. We can do 
our job and honor these fallen and their families in an appropriate way 
by coming together as Republicans and Democrats and making sure these 
survivor benefits to the families who have lost loved ones on the field 
of battle are paid on a timely basis without being caught up in the 
political games occurring inside the Halls of Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, a colleague recently described on this 
floor his experience flying in a private aircraft when a fire broke out 
in the cockpit of the plane. He observed that putting out the fire 
distracted the pilots from flying the aircraft and that they 
precipitously lost altitude. This tea party shutdown and the tea 
party's threat to our country's credit, like that fire in the cockpit, 
are distracting us from flying the plane.
  I dispute the notion that those who caused the shutdown have good 
standing to come to this floor and criticize the way the Obama 
administration is implementing a shutdown that we don't want on our 
side of the aisle and that the Obama administration does not want. The 
tea party and Speaker Boehner, for their insistence on lighting that 
fire in the cockpit, are answerable to history and their consciences.
  In the spirit of getting back to flying the plane, I will talk about, 
as I usually do, a real and looming crisis--not the manmade fire the 
tea party has lit in the cockpit of our government. That tea party 
shutdown could end tomorrow if the Speaker of the House would simply 
call up the measure the Senate passed. He refuses to do so, and it is 
his continued indulgence that keeps this shutdown going.
  Climate change is for real. It is not manmade, nor is it something 
the Speaker can turn off with a vote. It is coming at us, and it is 
time to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and 
ocean.
  Regrettably, one of the reasons Congress is still asleep is that the 
worst culprits--the big corporations that do the worst carbon 
polluting--are pretending it is not that bad, it is not that serious, 
and they should keep doing what they are doing; the status quo is fine. 
It causes me to wonder why it is that corporations seem never to admit 
they are wrong. Why is ``oops'' a word they can't seem to use?
  When it turned out that people would be a lot safer with seatbelts, 
did the car industry say: Oops. We should have put those in and put 
seatbelts in the cars. No. They fought and they had to be defeated, and 
then we got seatbelts.
  When cigarette makers found out their product made people really 
addicted and really sick, did they say: Oops. We better figure out a 
way to not kill so many people. No. They fought and they lied for 
decades.
  When it turned out that lead paint damaged children's brains, did the 
lead paint companies say: Oops. We better warn folks about that and 
clean it up. No. They fought against protections and had to be 
defeated. Indeed, they are still fighting.
  When it turned out that aerosol refrigerants and propellants were 
eating away at the Earth's ozone layer, did the manufacturers say: 
Oops. That is dangerous, and we better come up with a safer product. 
No. They fought the change, but they lost, and now they are making 
money making new safer products.
  When acid rain was killing off the fish in the northeastern lakes, 
did the big utilities say: Oops. We better clean

[[Page 15585]]

up our emissions. No. They fought the changes until they were forced to 
clean up.
  When the flame-retardant industry found out its product was dangerous 
and ineffective, did they say: Oops. This flame-retardant stuff is 
hurting people and doing creepy things in nature, so we better knock it 
off. Nope. It is still fighting while whales turn into swimming toxic 
waste.
  Now that carbon pollution has blown through 400 parts per million of 
CO2 in the atmosphere--a first in human history--and 
launched the most rapid acidification ever seen in the oceans--and by 
that I mean going back to geologic time--are the polluters saying: 
Oops. We better take our billions of dollars in profit and trillions of 
dollars in capital and invest seriously in new fuels and power sources. 
Fat chance.
  Corporations that are harming people never say ``oops,'' and for two 
big reasons. One reason is there is a lot of money at stake. They would 
not be in the business if they were not making money, and they don't 
want to stop. The other reason is that corporations don't have 
consciences, they have reputations. A reputation is something you can 
manage. Huge chunks of Madison Avenue and K Street are dedicated to 
managing corporate reputations. So with no conscience and only a 
reputation, you manage the problem that you are harming people.
  By now, the strategy for managing a corporate reputation while 
hurting people is well developed. It is a common one across cigarettes, 
acid rain, lead paint, flame-retardants, refrigerants, and now carbon 
pollution. There is a playbook, and guess what. The big carbon 
polluters are following the playbook: one, pretend to care--that is 
important; two, attack the science, and if you can't attack the 
science, attack the scientists themselves; three, claim it will cost 
consumers a fortune; and four, make your goal not victory but doubt.
  Pretend to care.
  I don't know if you remember those phony-baloney Exxon ads that were 
all over the place a while ago with guys in lab coats, and they had 
these Lucite molecules floating around. They wanted you to believe they 
were out there looking for tomorrow's clean fuels. Well, you got had.
  Since 2005 ExxonMobil has been making tens of billions of dollars in 
profit every year. It is hard to pick through their numbers, but 
sources report that over that same time it only spent tens of millions 
per year on clean energy--about what it spent on advertising. They 
spent as much advertising their clean energy, it appears, as they did 
investing in it, and it was a tiny fraction of their profits, let alone 
their revenues.
  Remember BP and their green Sun baloney? BP pulled completely out of 
solar and completely out of U.S. wind investments once it had laid down 
a fat barrage of advertising about being beyond petroleum. Pretend to 
care.
  Attack the science and even the scientists themselves.
  The polluters have to do this through proxies. Nobody will really 
believe it if Exxon's fingerprints are all over the attack on the 
science, so others do the dirty work.
  One example is Virginia's tea party attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, 
who attacked the top climate scientist at the University of Virginia. 
He used his powers of office--the special powers of office that are 
entrusted to attorneys general. Having been an attorney general, I know 
something about how precious and special those powers are. He used 
those powers to harass and subpoena a college professor. UVA's lawyers 
stuck up for the professor, and the Virginia Supreme Court threw that 
nonsense out. But for the polluters behind it, it was right out of the 
playbook.
  You may remember the polluters whipping up a phony scandal called 
climategate, pretending that a group of climate scientists were doing 
dishonest work. The scientists had to endure audit after audit, every 
single one of which gave them a totally clean bill of health. It turned 
out it was the cooked-up, phony scandal that was dishonest, but the 
polluters had a field day in the meantime. It was right out of the 
playbook.
  Claim it will cost consumers a fortune.
  This is a playbook classic. The big polluters are always talking 
about how it will cost you to clean up their act. Implicit is that they 
are going to put all the costs on to you and that they are not going to 
eat any of it and that their shareholders are not going to bear any of 
it.
  Let's get past that. What they conveniently overlook is that, for 
instance, under the Clean Air Act--yes, complying with the Clean Air 
Act did cost utilities a lot of money, but for every $1 that was spent 
cleaning up to comply with the Clean Air Act, Americans have saved 
about $40. They spend $1, you save $40, and they want you to believe 
that is a big problem?
  The Office of Management and Budget does a little calculation called 
the social cost of carbon. The latest cost is $36 per ton of 
CO2 emitted. For every ton of carbon pollution the polluters 
don't sell, we save $36. But they will never tell us that side of the 
story, nor that there are more jobs now in green energy than in the 
entire oil and gas industry, nor that we are in an international race 
for tomorrow's clean energy technology innovations. It is a race these 
big international corporations are perfectly happy to have America 
lose. It is no skin off their nose.
  Last, their goal is not victory, it is doubt. They don't want to 
convince anyone that climate change isn't happening. They don't need to 
do that. Of course, they couldn't do that in any kind of a fair debate. 
All they need to do, the playbook strategy says, is to convince us, as 
we are driving down the road listening to the radio, that nobody is 
sure yet; that there is some doubt, but we don't need to do anything 
just yet; that people can move on to their next worry; this one is 
still up for grabs. They will keep trying to push action on carbon 
pollution over that horizon of doubt, never having to prove their case.
  The American people are being played for chumps in this game. It is a 
racket, and we are the mark.
  Even so, even with all of that, the facts around us--what is 
happening to our woods and shores and farms and weather--are becoming 
so clear that even with the playbook they are losing, just like they 
ultimately lost on cigarettes and seatbelts, on lead paint and acid 
rain and the ozone hole.
  Here is what Americans are saying: 61 percent of Americans say the 
effects of climate change are already affecting them personally or they 
see it happening in their lifetime.
  Fifty-eight percent said the country should do more to address 
climate change, including 51 percent of Independents, while just 14 
percent--14 percent--said we are doing enough already.
  Sixty-five percent of voters support ``the President taking 
significant steps to address climate change now''--65 percent. That 
number jumps up to 70 percent when looking at voters under 40 years 
old.
  Sixty-six percent of young voters--two out of every three--say 
climate change is a problem to address, while just 27 percent say 
climate change is a natural event that humans can't affect, and only 3 
percent don't believe climate change is happening.
  Fifty-three percent of people say they would be less likely to vote 
for a politician who did not understand that climate change is a real 
problem.
  Even in the red State of Texas, 70 percent believe global warming is 
happening, and more than half say more should be done about global 
warming at all levels of government.
  Today is day 10 of the tea party shutdown. As we have pointed out 
over and over, it is a manufactured crisis. It goes away the instant 
Speaker Boehner stands in the House and calls the measure the Senate 
has passed, without amendments and without gimmicks, to the floor. It 
will pass. The crisis will be over.
  This crisis is different. This is not a crisis of a fire in the 
cockpit that is being kept burning by Speaker Boehner who could stop it 
at any time; this is for real. This is Mother Nature--400

[[Page 15586]]

parts per million for the first time in 800,000 years is serious.
  The tea party Republicans are wildly out of step with the American 
people on both issues, and it is time for them to wake up.
  Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request, if I may ask the 
distinguished Senator from Georgia to yield for one moment.
  I ask unanimous consent that Senators on the majority side be limited 
to 10 minutes each until 1 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for up to 8 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                QRM Rule

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, on August 28 of this year, the six 
Federal regulators of the banking industry reported out on their charge 
to promulgate a rule required by Dodd-Frank known as the QRM rule or 
the qualified residential mortgage.
  The qualified residential mortgage rule was a rule that Senator 
Landrieu, Senator Hagan, and I put into the Dodd-Frank legislation to 
provide for a parameter for residential mortgage loans to be exempted 
from the risk retention requirements of Dodd-Frank if they met a 
certain standard. These regulators were charged with establishing that 
standard. That law passed over 5 years ago and we are just now getting 
the promulgation of the rule, but I am happy to say I rise on the floor 
of the Senate to memorialize my support for a job well done. The 
qualified residential mortgage rule, which is being circulated now 
until October 28, is the right answer for the requirement of Dodd-Frank 
and for the American housing industry.
  For the education of the Senate and the public at large, the Dodd-
Frank law, in its desire to make sure loans that were underwritten were 
better underwritten and loans that were made were better made loans so 
there would be less default and less problems in the housing industry, 
required the banking industry to make only qualified residential 
mortgages as defined.
  The original discussions within the banking industry were that part 
of that definition would be a required 20-percent downpayment, which I 
and many people in America strenuously objected to, because a 20-
percent requirement to exempt from risk retention would be far too 
great a downpayment for most American families to meet, would have 
probably meant a decline in the housing market, even greater than we 
experienced in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, and would have had a 
negative impact on America's economy, unemployment, and America's 
health and well-being.
  So the banking regulators did a great job in their rule which does 
the following: First of all, it equates QRM, or the qualified 
residential mortgage rule, with the QM rule, or the qualified mortgage 
rule, which Richard Cordray, the Director of the Consumer Finance 
Protection Bureau, promulgated 1 year ago. Mr. Cordray did an 
outstanding job of seeking input from people in the industry and the 
trades affected by the housing industry and wrote a rule that made 
sense. That rule required the following: It required good, solid 
underwriting. It required a maximum ratio of total debts to total gross 
income of 43 percent so we would not have somebody borrowing more than 
half of their take-home pay or their gross pay in order to service 
debts. That would mean people would have the money to pay their 
mortgage.
  It required people to verify their income, credit, employment, the 
value of the property that is being purchased with the loan. All of 
those things are the standards that served America well for years until 
the subprime lending took place from 1999 until 2006.
  So I commend Richard Cordray and the Consumer Finance Protection 
Bureau for defining a qualified mortgage as one that is well 
underwritten. A required downpayment is not necessary to have a 
qualified mortgage because underwriting is what led us into the 
difficulties of the past 5 years in the housing industry.
  We went through a recession that was not a downpayment recession but 
an underwriting recession, and Congress itself was partially to blame 
when it mandated that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hold a certain 
percentage of their portfolios in what is known as qualified 
residential mortgages for the purposes of meeting the needs of 
underserved people in our society. Those underserved people in society 
ended up being credit risks or higher credit risks. They became known 
as subprime lenders. They got guaranteed by the government. They were 
sold in securities. When they defaulted, the securities went down, the 
American housing industry went down and the American Federal Reserve 
had to bail out people such as AIG and we went through the worst 
housing crisis in the history of the United States.
  So the proposal of the six banking regulators to merge QRM and QM, 
they are recognizing that underwriting is the key to sound loans. By 
requiring good underwriting to exempt from the 5-percent risk retention 
required in Dodd-Frank, we are ensuring a robust housing market, robust 
and available capital through Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and private 
institutions, to ensure housing in America can return to the heights it 
has known in the past.
  Quite frankly, we are never going to get below 7 percent 
unemployment, we are never going to get higher than 2 percent growth in 
America in our economy until we return to a robust housing market. We 
are not going to return to a robust housing market until we get 
liquidity in the credit markets for residential mortgages of a 
conventional nature. That is only going to happen when Freddie Mac and 
Fannie Mae can secure well underwritten loans and guarantee them so 
they can be sold in the marketplace.
  The banking regulators who are now circulating the QRM rule for 
public comment did precisely the right thing by recognizing that 
underwriting was the problem and not downpayments.
  Lastly, one of the things the regulators did put in their proposal 
for circulation for input was what if they did require a downpayment of 
30 percent, would that be an exemption for the risk retention under 
QRM. I would implore the regulators not to consider doing that because 
a 30-percent downpayment would be even worse than a 20-percent 
downpayment. It would restrict even more Americans from becoming 
homeowners, and it would not address the problem. The problem was 
underwriting. The problem was not downpayment. Credit enhancements such 
as private mortgage insurance and things of that nature can supplant a 
downpayment requirement, but nothing can supplant quality underwriting.
  Richard Cordray wrote a good rule, the Consumer Financial Protection 
Bureau is enforcing that rule, and I commend the bank regulators for 
merging the QRM rule with the QM definition to ensure that we return to 
a robust economy with a strong housing market, don't revisit the 
problems of the past with shoddy underwriting, and instead look forward 
to a brighter future for the American housing market.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, for nearly 2 weeks I have 
watched the debate on the Senate floor as well as on the House floor, 
and I have become more and more frustrated. My frustration is, in 
part--I would say in large part--driven by the contrast to what I see 
going on in my home State of Colorado.
  During the past several weeks, Coloradans have come together in the 
wake of Biblical rains and beyond devastating flooding to begin the 
long process of rebuilding our State better and stronger. We in the 
West--and I think I can say we as Americans--are rugged cooperators. 
Sure, we are each strong individuals--and that is a strong point of 
view in the West; it is the core of who we are, that we are strong as 
individuals--but we know we are best when we band together, despite any 
political or philosophical differences, to face our shared challenges. 
I am doing my level best to bring that spirit to Washington, DC, 
especially

[[Page 15587]]

now in this time of shutdowns and ultimatums and ideology that doesn't 
make sense to the people I represent in Colorado. I invite all of my 
colleagues to come to Colorado to see the collaborations occurring in 
these flood-ravaged communities such as Jamestown, Lyons and Estes Park 
and Fort Morgan. There are no games. There is no posturing. There is no 
politics. There is just a doggedness to make their communities better. 
I surely hope the strength and the focus of Coloradans could be an 
inspiration to all of us as we tackle what are very pressing policy 
issues.
  On that note, I wish to speak about one of my constituents, someone I 
work for--Jeff. He is a Federal employee. He demonstrates the 
resilience, to me, of the people of Colorado. But his situation also 
typifies the worst of what this shutdown and this brinkmanship is doing 
to the real people, the good people of my State of Colorado.
  Jeff is a Federal employee. He was trapped for 3 days in last month's 
flood. That flood cost him almost everything. He has very few 
possessions left. Once he was free, he went immediately back to his day 
job. He was working for an agency that is integral to the flood 
disaster response. What happened? The government closed. So now he 
rents out an apartment. His home is inaccessible, literally, due to the 
flooding. He doesn't have a paycheck and he is being told he is not 
essential and he shouldn't come in to work.
  There are a lot of reactions I have to that. There are a lot of 
reactions anybody who is paying attention would have to that. One is 
that now there is one less pair of boots on the ground helping with the 
flood response efforts in Colorado.
  To a certain extent, politics is about finding the right strategy to 
advocate for what a person believes is right. But what is going on 
right now is shameful. What is happening to Jeff is flatout shameful.
  What we are seeing is one faction of one party, in one Chamber, in 
one branch of government, holding this Nation's health, economy, and 
security hostage and, in the process, causing the Federal Government to 
shut down and threatening a government default on our obligations. By 
doing so, these individuals are holding our flood recovery hostage. It 
makes no sense.
  I guess you have to ask yourself why. Why would a small group, a 
faction, be doing this? It strikes me that in part they are doing it 
because they are obsessed with undermining a law that is providing 
affordable health care to Americans, some for the first time in their 
lives, a law that is saving seniors hundreds of dollars a year on 
prescription drugs and is leveling the playing field when it comes to 
providing health care and putting consumers back in charge of their own 
health care.
  I want to make this clear: After having legally passed both Houses of 
Congress, being affirmed by the Supreme Court, and then serving as a 
referendum in the just concluded campaign that overwhelmingly reelected 
President Obama, the Affordable Care Act is settled law. Let me say 
that again. The Affordable Care Act is settled law.
  But describing it as settled law alone I know is not enough to 
resolve this latest crisis. So I would like to take viewers and my 
colleagues back a decade when the Presiding Officer was a Member of 
House at that time, when President George W. Bush pushed us to pass 
what was an unpaid-for Medicaid prescription drug benefit.
  Members of my caucus over in the House felt that this massive unpaid 
law was thrust upon us without due consideration and at a time when we 
should not be racking up further debt. Many of us on my side of the 
aisle were literally reeling with anger after it passed. It also passed 
in ways with which we disagreed, in the middle of the night, literally. 
The desk in the House was kept open--I think the Presiding Officer 
knows--for close to 4 hours to find those last votes.
  I was angry. I voted against that Medicare prescription drug benefit. 
I am sure I was as angry as some of my colleagues were when the 
Affordable Care Act passed over 3 years ago.
  So what did I do? I took a lot of deep breaths. I listened to the 
counsel of people I respect, I listened to my own counsel, and I not 
only decided it was settled law, but I decided to start holding 
townhalls and listening sessions so I could help my constituents sign 
up for it. I knew it was the settled law of the land, just like 
ObamaCare is today, and I wanted my constituents to be best served by 
its implementation.
  So I went out and spread the word about the benefits, figured out 
what questions my constituents would have. I wanted them to sign up. I 
wanted to make it a success. I wanted them to have those benefits.
  So let's fast forward to today. Far from helping people, our friends 
and colleagues on the other side of the aisle have relentlessly spread 
uncertainty about ObamaCare, attacking its implementation at every 
turn, and now to close down the Federal Government over their concerns 
about it.
  We are in the 10th day of a government shutdown. Our national 
security has suffered. Seventy percent of the intelligence community is 
furloughed. We do not have enough food inspectors on the job. Our 
veterans are not getting the services not only that they need but that 
they have earned. Our national parks are closed, hurting economies like 
ours in Colorado. I mentioned Estes Park. Estes Park is the gateway to 
Rocky Mountain National Park. If Estes Park is going to recover from 
these devastating floods, Rocky Mountain National Park has to be open 
for business.
  This is not how the greatest Nation in the world can go on doing 
business. I have said from the very beginning--I think the Presiding 
Officer agrees with me--the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect. No 
mandate law is. As with every law, it will undoubtedly need some 
improvements and some constructive changes during its implementation. I 
am committed to doing that, just like we did after President Bush moved 
his prescription drug law to the finish line.
  In the past few days we have seen statements indicating that some 
Republicans are starting to understand that this partisan focus on 
ObamaCare is futile. So as their next step they have seized on yet 
another destructive tactic, manufacturing a new crisis, an even more 
serious, potentially devastating crisis than shutting down the 
government. What have they done? They are threatening the full faith 
and credit of the Federal Government to push their budget demands. They 
have threatened to force us past the deadline, which is October 17--
that is a week from today--when the United States will no longer be 
able to meet its financial obligations.
  Grandstanding on funding the government is bad enough. If we do not 
agree on a way forward to reopen the government, but we also do not 
agree on a way to ensure that the Treasury Department does not default 
on our Nation's debt obligations, we will seriously damage global 
confidence in the United States, make no mistake. There are some voices 
in this building who think that will not happen. They are wrong.
  If we damage the global confidence in the United States, we are going 
to hamper our economic recovery, we will slow job creation, and we will 
make borrowing costs more expensive for government and families alike. 
This is no way to win the global economic race in which we find 
ourselves. Coloradans are telling me in every way they can that they 
expect a lot better than this.
  Ronald Reagan used to joke in only the way he could that he was not 
worried about the debt; it is big enough to take care of itself. But 
every American should worry if Congress refuses to meet the obligations 
we have already made.
  I know many Americans are worried about our debt and our capacity to 
pay the bills we have incurred. I have been worried about this for a 
long time. I think if you would ask anybody around here, they would 
tell you I would vote in a minute for a sensible grand bargain. It is 
true. I have worked across the aisle and built a record of efforts to 
reduce wasteful spending and set our budget on a more sustainable 
footing. It should be one of our top priorities. It has to be one of 
our top priorities.

[[Page 15588]]

  I have been a longtime supporter of the line-item veto. I supported 
the initial structure around which the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction 
commission worked. I called for an end to earmarks. I worked with 
Senator Coburn from Oklahoma on ending some wasteful public subsidies, 
including those for the political party conventions every 4 years. It 
is why I was the first Democrat to champion a balanced budget amendment 
to the U.S. Constitution in many a year. I am not the only Member, as 
well, of my party who has been fighting for commonsense reforms.
  This is critically important work. I would love nothing more than to 
bring a serious deficit reduction plan to the floor and pass it along 
with raising our debt limit to avoid an American default.
  But let me be crystal clear: To default on our debt because a grand 
bargain eludes us would make our debt and deficits even worse and 
thrust us into an economic tailspin. It is irresponsible to even 
suggest forcing America into default as a legitimate negotiating 
position.
  Let's sit down and have a grownup discussion about these important 
issues, but not like this. Let's fund the government, let's pay our 
bills, and then let's sit down and negotiate again. Negotiation is 
good. Compromise is good. But we cannot have this important set of 
discussions with one party constantly threatening to shut down the 
government or throw our country into default, each of which makes our 
deficits and debt even worse.
  We have, literally, centuries of examples of a Congress 
collaborating, working together. We have done that for over 200 years. 
We can debate, we can have contentious back-and-forth, but in the end 
we need to compromise and agree. We need a comprehensive and balanced 
deficit reduction plan that can pass both Chambers and be signed into 
law.
  No party gets to threaten the American economy and shut down the 
government when they do not get their way. No party gets to jeopardize 
middle-class families' 401(k)s or senior citizens' retirement savings 
or set our economic recovery back just because their positions are not 
strong enough to prevail on their own.
  That just is not the way to address our Nation's shared problems. And 
trust me, our debt and deficits are a shared problem. We can do better.
  I want to begin to conclude by again referring to the Coloradans I am 
so fortunate to represent, just like the Presiding Officer, I know, is 
honored to represent the good people of Wisconsin. Coloradans have 
shown the true strength of our State in the wake of this tragic 
flooding that literally has wiped communities off the map and destroyed 
thousands of homes. If we could have done anything to prevent that 
natural disaster, we would have.
  We now face a potential manmade disaster. We have to protect 
Americans from a looming manmade disaster that is emerging right here. 
We have to bridge the partisan divide. We have to end this government 
shutdown. We have to stave off an American default. We have to pay our 
bills. We could do this today if Speaker Boehner would just allow the 
House to vote on a clean funding resolution that we have already sent 
to the House, with the House numbers in it, by the way. So let's just 
see a vote in the House. The continuing resolution would pass in the 
House today with Republican and Democratic votes.
  So let's just vote. Let's hold the vote. The Presiding Officer and I 
served in the House. When we were eager to go to work we would shout: 
Vote, vote, vote; work, work, work. It is time for the House to go to 
work. Let's vote to end this debt ceiling crisis and make sure our 
Nation pays the debts it has already incurred.
  These are the basic functions of Congress. If we fail to act, history 
will never forgive us--any of us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the multiple 
issues that have now presented themselves to us in the Senate and to 
the U.S. Congress and, frankly, the American people.
  I have been in several hearings this morning. The first was with 
Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, where the Finance Committee 
discussed with him the pending expiration of our debt ceiling and what 
his understanding is of how that will impact the country. He raised a 
lot of serious concerns--very legitimate serious concerns--that others 
are raising.
  We then followed that up with a hearing in the Banking Committee 
where we had representatives from a number of the various industries in 
the United States also discussing what is going to happen in the United 
States if the country does not increase the debt ceiling. And there are 
serious consequences that will happen if we do not do this.
  But what I tried to do in both of those hearings--and I will refer to 
my conversation with Secretary Lew--was to focus us back on the 
broader, bigger threat. Secretary Lew basically said that we have a 
manufactured crisis in the United States because of our unwillingness 
at this point to face the debt ceiling and simply extend the debt 
ceiling without any kinds of conditions or negotiations.
  I reminded him that the crisis we face--the big crisis we face--is 
the debt crisis, and it is very real. I guess in a sense it has been 
manufactured over the last 20 or 30 years by Congresses and Presidents 
who have refused to control spending and have put us into tremendous 
debt.
  Our debt ceiling we are negotiating about right now--or I think 
wishing we could negotiate about right now--is $16.7 trillion. It has 
grown by trillions of dollars over the last 5 or 6 years.
  What the President has asked us to do is to once again increase the 
debt ceiling by another $1 trillion or more with no reforms, no fiscal 
changes in our policies to deal with the mounting spending crisis we 
face. The President's position is: You give me this $1 trillion or more 
of new debt authority, and I will then talk to you about reforming our 
fiscal policy. The problem is we have been trying to negotiate over 
fiscal policy now and trying to get reforms put into place for years 
and we have not been able to get there.
  When I asked Secretary Lew about this, he basically said: We have 
made progress on our overall debt crisis in the past few years, and I 
think we can continue to work on those kinds of steps if you will 
simply pass this clean debt ceiling extension and do so in a way that 
involves no negotiations from the President in any way.
  I reminded him that a major part of the progress we have made in the 
last couple of years was made when we met the debt ceiling 2 years ago 
in 2011. It was the Budget Control Act that put into statute over $2 
trillion of reductions in our spending path. That was attached to the 
debt ceiling as we moved forward. It was literally the debt ceiling 
negotiation that generated the only significant spending controls this 
Congress, this country, has seen for years and years. Yet the President 
refuses to take another step now that we have met the debt ceiling 
again and negotiate for further reforms.
  By the way, there is another reason we have made some progress in the 
past few years. That is that we have implemented massive new taxes on 
the American people. The ObamaCare legislation itself contains nearly 
$1 trillion of new taxes, and although they were delayed for a few 
years, they are now beginning to fully hit the American people. Last 
January, the President was able to win his argument and succeed in 
getting the top income tax brackets raised, an impact on our Tax Code 
that I think was harmful rather than helpful and clearly was damaging 
to the creation of jobs and to businesses across the United States. 
But, nevertheless, another $500 billion to $600 billion of tax revenue 
was put into the mix there.
  So what have we done? We have made a plan to control discretionary 
spending over the next 10 years and reduce it by about $2 trillion. If 
we stick to that, we will get $2 trillion worth of spending reductions. 
We have raised taxes by at least $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, 
all of which, I believe, has been harmful to our economy, but has 
generated revenue to try to help reduce

[[Page 15589]]

the debt cycle. But we have not addressed the two critical parts of 
reform that we must address in this country if we are ever going to get 
control of our spending excesses and stop the out-of-control spiral 
toward insolvency that we see; that is, reforming our entitlement 
system and reforming our broken Tax Code.
  What have we seen there? Virtually minimal, if any at all, reforms of 
entitlements. They seem to be off the table. Yet they are the part of 
our spending problem that is the biggest and the most out of control. 
On tax reform, we have seen no reform of the Tax Code. We have a Tax 
Code that is the most unfair, the most complicated, the most expensive 
to comply with, and the most anticompetitive code we probably could 
have created if we did it on purpose. Yet we have no reforms of the 
code. Instead what we have done is add to the code another $1.6 
trillion of new taxes on the American people.
  What we are asking is whether we can move forward in trying to deal 
with our fiscal problems in this country by negotiating over 
entitlement reform and tax reform. I frankly believe we ought to be at 
the negotiating table talking about that. But what we have been told 
is: No, as soon as you raise the debt ceiling by--the amount we are 
hearing is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion--as soon as you 
raise the debt ceiling, then we can talk further about other 
negotiations, then we can get engaged in trying to deal with our debt 
crisis.
  I pointed out, as I said to Secretary Lew, that the last major 
progress we made on spending reform happened in negotiations relating 
to our debt ceiling. Why cannot we negotiate now and make significant 
fiscal reform in addition to dealing with our debt ceiling? It is that 
debt crisis that is the biggest problem.
  I was on the Bowles-Simpson Commission, the President's own 
commission, that he put together some years back, 2 or 3 years now. We 
spent a full year studying the impacts on our economy of America's 
fiscal excess and what we needed to do. The Bowles-Simpson Commission 
came up with a plan. It was a proposal. We concluded that--this was 2 
or 3 years back--we needed to reduce our spending path, our debt path 
in the United States by at least $4 trillion. We concluded we had to 
deal with that by reforming our entitlement system and we had to deal 
with it by controlling discretionary spending. We agreed to having some 
of that tax revenue the President was demanding. We also agreed that in 
the overall mix we would have about a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to 
revenue.
  The President did not accept that recommendation. Many of us tried 
for months and months and months afterward to get that recommendation 
to the floor for a vote. But it has not made it to the floor for a 
vote.
  My point is, negotiations have been under way for years and years. 
Significant plans have been developed that would help us move forward. 
We know what to do. We need to have the will to do it. So far, the only 
reforms we have been able to get in the last few years as a result of 
the debt crisis that we face have come when we have met these pressure 
points dealing with our debt ceiling.
  We are not asking to shut down the government for the purpose of 
simply making a point. We are trying to get to negotiations. We want to 
see the government reopened. We are not seeking to have the debt 
ceiling expire. We want to have negotiations to be able to put together 
the kinds of fiscal reforms that should always accompany extensions of 
the debt ceiling.
  I believe the reason Congress put a statutory debt ceiling in place 
in the first place was because it wanted to give America a gut check 
every so often about the spending problems we have. We have put almost 
half of the entire spending system of the government on auto pilot. We 
do not even have the opportunity to vote on it here in Congress.
  Ultimately, we have to deal with the debt ceiling. Ultimately, we 
have to deal with the funding to keep our government operational. Let's 
not just move forward and accomplish those objectives, leaving in place 
the unrestrained fiscal crisis we are dealing with in this country. 
Let's use this opportunity to put together the kinds of fiscal reforms 
that should accompany decisions to allow our country to increase its 
debt.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Republican whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Yesterday I came to the floor with the distinguished 
majority leader to raise the issue of survivor benefits to those who 
died in the line of duty. Reportedly, 26 servicemembers have died since 
the government shut down on October 1, including 5 in combat. Their 
families have been denied the basic survivor benefits, which include a 
death gratuity, $100,000 of life insurance, a housing allowance paid 
for a year, paid in a lump sum, as well as burial and other related 
expenses.
  Yesterday I asked unanimous consent that we take up and pass the 
House bill. The majority leader and I entered into a conversation, and 
there was a question as to the intervening action by the Department of 
Defense to try to work around the lapse of the funding. Fisher House, 
which is a wonderful charitable organization, helps to operate and fund 
seven different facilities in my State alone. I know they are 
extraordinarily generous and do very good work. They offered to enter 
into a contractual agreement with the Department of Defense to fill the 
gap during the interim. But what I would like to do is ask unanimous 
consent that we take up and pass the House legislation, which would 
alleviate the need for Fisher House and the Department of Defense 
trying to figure a workaround. We would actually pass legislation that 
would reopen that stream of funding so that these families could get 
the benefits they deserve.


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

  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
consideration of Calendar No. 216, H.J. Res 91, making continuing 
appropriations for death gratuities and related survivor benefits for 
survivors of deceased military servicemembers of the Department of 
Defense for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes; that the measure 
be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, the senior Senator from 
Texas has always been very courteous to me. Yesterday was no exception 
in withholding his unanimous consent request when we discussed this 
issue. It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, as he indicated.
  I indicated that I thought that if we waited until 3:30 we would have 
this matter revolved, as that is what I had been told. In fact, it was 
a little after 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon that Secretary Hagel 
issued a statement announcing that the Department of Defense had 
entered into an agreement, as my friend said, with the organization my 
friend mentioned, and that would provide the family of fallen 
servicemembers--over the weekend, the Senator from Texas is correct, we 
had five soldiers killed, one of whom was a woman, four men and one 
woman. The agreement Senator Hagel came up with would give everyone--
provide to family members of the military the full set of benefits they 
have been promised, including the $100,000 death benefit gratuity. So 
the death benefit issue has been resolved. The Department of Defense 
stepped forward and took care of everything, so this issue is largely 
moot. It is clear the action on this legislation is now just for show 
here.
  We all agree it is bad that the government shutdown led to this added 
grief for the families who had suffered such a terrible loss. Now we 
need to do what we can to prevent any further bad results--and there 
have been plenty of them in other areas. The right thing to

[[Page 15590]]

do is to prevent more of these in other areas, and the House should 
just vote to open the government. This issue has been taken care of, 
and it is terrible that we even got to this point.
  We should not forget that as long as the government remains closed 
and the Republicans refuse to open the government, the military is 
unable to, for example, buy armor and equipment needed to prevent 
future deaths in the military. For the families of FBI agents killed in 
the line of duty, it is the same problem--they can't receive their 
death benefits. Veterans' benefits are delayed and disrupted.
  As for this bill, the Secretary has now acted. We all agree the issue 
is taken care of. If my friend from Texas feels more comfort as a 
result of doing this, which I think is unnecessary, I don't object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 91) was ordered to be engrossed for a 
third reading, was read the third time, and passed.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, if I could respond briefly, I appreciate 
the majority leader not objecting to the consideration of this 
legislation. He believes this issue has been resolved by this 
contractual arrangement between Fisher House and the Department of 
Defense, but ultimately the Department of Defense would have to 
reimburse Fisher House under what I understand is the purported 
arrangement to be made. This obviates the need for any of that kind of 
workaround, together with any legal questions that might arise as to 
whether this is actually something the Department has the authority to 
do. I am not suggesting they don't; I am just saying this alleviates 
all those considerations.
  So I am pleased we were able to come together in a bipartisan way, as 
we were on the military pay for uniformed military, and pass this 
narrow piece of legislation. I think maybe now that we have passed the 
pay for Active-Duty military and we have passed the provision that 
provides for survivor benefits for the families of the fallen, perhaps 
that paves the way to be open for some other narrow bills until we can 
come together on a larger bill.
  We have offered, for example, funding for the National Institutes of 
Health, NIH. A few days ago the distinguished assistant leader from the 
Democratic side gave a very eloquent speech about children's cancer 
research. Under the bill that was passed by the House on a bipartisan 
basis that we have called up here, that funding would be restored, as 
would funding for the Veterans' Administration so they can process 
disability benefits, which they are not able to do now because of the 
cutoff in funding.
  There are a number of areas where I think we can work together 
constructively if we will do so. I am pleased we were able to take care 
of this one.
  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I yield for a question.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would ask a question through the Chair.
  I say through the Chair, I think what we did here was the right thing 
to do, and I am sorry. I am painfully sorry that this government 
shutdown is hurting so many innocent people. It could come to an end 
with one decision by the Speaker to call one bill on the floor of the 
House. He refuses to do so. So we are trying to put out these little 
fires and spare the American people the pain and injustice that is 
coming about as a result of this shutdown. But I would say to the 
Senator from Texas that even the Veterans' Administration bill passed 
by the House fails to fund some critical areas for veterans. It does 
not fund the appeals process for veterans disability claims. Those have 
stopped. Secondly, it doesn't fund the cemetery rights of veterans who 
are seeking to be buried in national cemeteries. While we pay for 
funerals, the people who prepare the grave sites and such are not being 
paid. It doesn't have the Department of Labor program to hire 
unemployed veterans coming home. That is not funded. The HUD program 
for homeless veterans is not being funded. The notion that we are 
somehow taking care of veterans with the House action is far from true.
  The last point I wish to make is that over 500,000 Federal employees 
are actually veterans. Many of them are furloughed today. One-fourth of 
all employee veterans are disabled. Many of them are furloughed today.
  If we really care about veterans, opening the government to make sure 
all of these agencies are serving our veterans seems to me to be a 
reasonable approach. I ask if the Senator agrees.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, responding to the question of the 
distinguished assistant majority leader, I would say that we would all 
like to try to find some way to get back to business as usual when it 
comes to funding the government through the regular appropriations 
process. We haven't done that for a long time, and so we have been 
operating not on individual bills--I think there are 13 separate bills 
as part of the appropriations process. So now we have unfortunately 
already degenerated to this continuing resolution process, which has 
its own problems.
  I would say to my friend that for every one of the hardships we can 
mitigate through passing narrow legislation absent a global agreement 
on the continuing resolution, it seems to me we ought to be doing that. 
If there are other suggestions the Democratic side has about how we can 
do that, I think that would be a good thing to do.
  The problem is that I know the majority leader--I will give the 
majority leader the benefit of the doubt. I hope he didn't really mean 
he thought this was a show process, trying to restore these survivor 
benefits through this unanimous consent request, and I will give him 
the benefit of the doubt.
  I do think there are a lot of questions raised in the minds of the 
American people whether what is happening here is being done purely for 
political purposes. We have veterans of World War II and Korea who come 
to the World War II Memorial only to be met with barricades. I have met 
a number of the Honor Flights of the ``greatest generation'' at a 
number of these memorials, and they have basically decided to go around 
the barricades, as I believe is their right under the Constitution.
  It seems as if there is an effort made to maximize the pain 
associated with the shutdown. We know 83 percent of the government is 
being funded. Why can't we try to chip away at some of these narrow 
provisions and mitigate some of the hardship that we can rather than 
getting in our corners, squaring off, and creating more and more 
problems? I think this is important. We ought to be doing this. We 
should have done this a long time ago.
  I would say to my colleagues, there were reports that Secretary Hagel 
notified the administration of this lapse in survivor benefits before 
the shutdown even occurred. It took the President 9 days before he 
finally ordered the Department of Defense to come up with a workaround, 
thankfully with the help of the Fisher House.
  I think there is an impression that a lot of gamesmanship is going 
on. I don't think it becomes the Senate. I think Congress's approval 
rating is in the toilet, and we ought to be doing everything we can to 
address the problems where we can.
  Mr. DURBIN. Would Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would make several points.
  First, I was with an Honor Flight group at the World War II Memorial 
last week, a great bunch of World War II veterans who came in from 
Illinois, and it didn't surprise me one bit--there was no barricade 
stopping these veterans. They were on their way to their memorial, and 
they went.
  The reason why there was any question about this memorial and access 
was because of the decision by the Republicans to shut down the 
government.
  I was going to remind the Senator of Texas, who is a learned attorney 
and a former Texas Supreme Court justice, of the story we were told in 
law school. It was an anecdotal story, an apocryphal

[[Page 15591]]

story of someone who killed both his parents, went to the courtroom, 
and then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an 
orphan. In this situation we have our Republican friends lamenting the 
impact of a government shutdown on World War II veterans coming to 
Washington, and on these tragic stories of families who have lost 
someone they love in combat. But all of this is unnecessary. All of it 
could have been avoided if the Republican Speaker of the House would 
call one bill for a vote which he knows will pass. It would open the 
government. That is the simple and honest answer.
  This notion we are going to have a series of small appropriations to 
fund our government--all of the appropriations bills that have been 
called so far and passed the House amount to about 18 percent of the 
discretionary domestic budget. At this pace, the House only has to pass 
79 more bills to open our government. We think at this pace it will 
only take them about 2\1/2\ months to do it. Is that any way to run a 
great Nation? It isn't.
  We need to open our government, serve our people, spare them the 
injustice and pain which comes from this Republican shutdown.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, my friend, the distinguished senior 
Senator from Illinois, gave an analogy that applies to a lot of what my 
friend from Texas said. First of all, we haven't done appropriations 
bills. We haven't done appropriations bills because the Republicans 
won't let us. We can't even get cloture on a way to proceed to one of 
them.
  But I want to be sure the record is clear that my friend from Texas 
doesn't have to give me the benefit of the doubt on what I said. If 
there were ever an example of this whole process being for show, it is 
this: We have a lot of things we should be working on. The country is 
within 1 week of defaulting on its debt for the first time in the 
history of this country. We should be focusing on that. The government 
should be open.
  We had the unfortunate incident where we had five of our troops 
killed over the weekend in Afghanistan, and it brought to our attention 
they were not going to get their benefits because the part of the 
government that gives them that money is closed.
  Now, we didn't close it. But Secretary Hagel, a former Republican 
Member of this body, worked it out so they are all taken care of. They 
are all taken care of. So this unanimous consent I agreed to is for 
show. It doesn't mean anything. They are being taken care of anyway.
  So I appreciate the Senator giving me the benefit of the doubt, but 
he doesn't need to give me the benefit of the doubt. This whole thing 
is for show. This whole government shutdown is for show. It is a show 
that I don't quite understand the ending of, but that is where we are.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, may I inquire, under the previous order, 
how much time remains for the minority?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 8\1/2\ minutes remaining for the 
Republicans.
  Mr. RUBIO. I ask unanimous consent that 5 minutes be added to that 
total, for a total of 13 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, with all this focus on the fighting going 
on in Washington these days, I think we are losing focus on the biggest 
issue facing this country, and that is the pervasive and growing sense 
we are losing control of our country; that we are losing the American 
dream.
  Why do people feel this way? Because millions of them have been out 
of a job for months, and maybe even years, and because millions more 
find themselves stuck with jobs that don't pay enough for them to live 
on or certainly for them to live as they used to.
  When people hear news that the economy is recovering, that 
unemployment is down by .1 percent this week or this month, that the 
stock market is up and that the recession is over, it makes people 
angry. And rightfully so. Because the recession might be over on Wall 
Street, but it is not over for millions of people who are out of work 
or stuck with jobs that do not pay enough to live on.
  What makes all this worse is that while their paychecks aren't 
growing, their bills are growing. Ask the young couples out there, the 
single parents, how much it is costing them every month or week to 
provide childcare for their kids. Ask the young Americans who are 
saddled with thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
  How are people making it through these times? Well, I am reminded of 
a few years after we got married, when my wife and I hit a rough patch 
in our finances. What we did was we got rid of one of the cars and we 
moved in with her mom for 6 months. That is what many of us have had to 
do at some stage in our life, but it was usually temporary. Now people 
are doing that with the feeling it might not be temporary; that this 
might be the way it is for a while. And they ask themselves: Is this 
the new normal? Is this the way it is going to be from now on?
  This is what millions of people across this country are feeling these 
days; that maybe the American dream--if you work hard, you can improve 
your life--isn't what it used to be; that maybe the American dream is 
actually even slipping away.
  But why is this happening? Whose fault is this, is the normal 
reaction some people have. Well, there are a few reasons why this is 
happening. One is the economy has changed. The nature of our economy 
has changed. Globalization, for example, has sent thousands of middle-
class jobs overseas. Information technology and advances have replaced 
many of our middle-class jobs with machines. Another reason why is that 
we simply have too many people who never get the education or the 
skills they need for the better paying jobs this new economy is 
creating. And we can't ignore, for example, the breakdown of our 
culture and our families and what that is doing. It is trapping people 
in a cycle of poverty and of dependence. These are all contributors to 
what we face today.
  But one of the major reasons why this is happening, why so many 
people are trapped in dead-end jobs, why so many people have been 
unemployed for so long, is because our economy is not creating enough 
jobs to live off of. One of the reasons why that is happening is 
because our country is headed for a debt crisis. The real debt crisis 
is not the looming debt limit. The real debt crisis is that every year 
our government is spending more money than it takes in. And, by the 
way, one day we are not going to have to worry about raising the debt 
limit because no one will want to lend us money anyway.
  Too often around here we talk about the national debt as if it is 
simply an accounting problem. The national debt is a lot more than 
that. How does the economy create good jobs? It creates good jobs in 
two ways: No. 1 is through innovation--when people invent a new product 
or service. The other is through investment--when people risk the money 
they have to start a new business or when a business reinvests its 
profits into the business to grow. The fact we are headed for a debt 
crisis and that we have no serious long-term plan in place to address 
it is discouraging innovation and that is discouraging investment.
  Who wants to innovate in an economy that is headed for a debt crisis? 
Who wants to risk their money to start a new business in an economy 
that is headed for a catastrophic disruption? And who wants to reinvest 
their profits to grow their business in a country where the government 
is going bankrupt?
  Having people trapped in low-wage jobs, having people unemployed for 
months or years at a time, having people unable to afford to get 
married or start a family doesn't have to be the new normal. It doesn't 
have to be this way forever. We can turn this around. But to do so we 
have to stop chasing all these temporary gimmicks that promise us some 
sort of momentary boost to our economy. We have to stop

[[Page 15592]]

ignoring the problems headed full speed at us. We have to return to the 
basics--to the basics that made us such a prosperous nation.
  Our national debt today stands at close to $17 trillion. In the last 
5\1/2\ years alone it has grown by over $6 trillion. So when you hear 
the President or the Democrats here in the Senate say they want us to 
pass what they call a clean debt limit increase, here is what they are 
really asking for: They are asking us to borrow another $1 trillion but 
not do anything meaningful to slow the growth of that debt.
  Why would we continue to do this? When are we finally going to get 
serious around here about putting in place a serious long-term plan to 
bring this debt under control? In order to do that, the first thing we 
have to understand is what is causing this debt.
  Look, we have a broken Tax Code. It is full of all sorts of special-
interest loopholes. But the reason why we have this massive debt isn't 
because rich people aren't paying enough in taxes. Even if we taxed 
every millionaire every penny they made this year, it wouldn't make 
even a small dent in the debt. Yes, there is some serious waste going 
on throughout our government. For example, we have to reverse the 
changes the Obama administration has made to these welfare programs 
that basically gut the work requirement and leave people dependent on 
government. We need to reform the way we give foreign aid. We must and 
should do all of these and even more. But even if we did all that, it 
is still not enough.
  What is driving our debt is the way we spend money on two very 
important programs: Medicare and Social Security. They are spending 
more money than they take in, and that gap is growing rapidly every 
single year.
  I warn you, anytime anyone talks about making changes to these 
programs, you get accused of trying to hurt the elderly. So speaking 
for myself personally, let me set the record straight. I come from a 
State with millions of people--millions of retirees--who depend on 
these programs, and one of them is my own mother. She worked hard for 
her entire life and paid into these programs so they would be there for 
her when she retired. I would never support any changes to these 
programs that would hurt my mother. But these programs are going 
bankrupt, and anyone who is in favor of doing nothing about them is in 
favor of bankrupting them.
  The good news is this: The good news is we still have some time to 
save Medicare and Social Security, and we still have time to do these 
changes without making any changes to the benefits of seniors such as 
my mom. But to do so is going to require younger workers, like myself, 
to accept that when we retire, our Medicare and our Social Security is 
going to be different than our parents.
  So instead of spending all of our time around here trying to figure 
out how to raise the debt limit, we need to spend more of our time 
trying to figure out what we can do to put in place a serious long-term 
plan to bring this debt under control so that our economy can start 
creating more of those good-paying, middle-class jobs, so that people 
can start building for themselves the better future they always dreamed 
of.
  The American dream is under assault. That is the real crisis. When 
are we going to get serious about solving it? This dream of earning a 
better life is the universal hope of people everywhere. But we are 
reminded that for much of human history most people found themselves 
trapped by the circumstances of their birth. That meant no matter how 
hard they worked, no matter how talented they were, they were only 
going to go as far as their family went. They could only do whatever it 
was their parents did. One of the things that made America so special 
is that here that has been different. Here, through hard work and 
sacrifice, people from all walks of life, from every corner of the 
world, have had the real opportunity to earn for themselves a better 
life.
  This is what we call the American dream. As Americans, that is our 
identity. It is what holds us together as a nation. It is what holds us 
together as a people, and it is what has made us exceptional.
  I know people are discouraged about how tough times are. I know some 
people are very disappointed about how the last election turned out. I 
know many people are angry and, quite frankly, disgusted by the way 
this process is working or failing to work these days. But no matter 
how bad things may seem, we cannot give up on America and we cannot 
give up on the American dream. We have to do everything we can to make 
sure this country remains a place where anyone from anywhere can 
accomplish anything.
  So despite how ugly Washington looks right now, I actually remain 
confident that, in the end, that is exactly what we are going to do. I 
have no doubt that, in the end, our children will grow up to be the 
most prosperous generation that ever lived. Despite all the challenges 
we face right now, when all is said and done, I believe with all my 
heart we will still go down in history as the generation that saved the 
American dream and left our children what our parents left for us--the 
single greatest Nation in the history of the world.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, mindful of the hour and that the Senate 
is about to recess, I want to say to my colleague from Florida, who is 
my friend, that I have optimism and I have faith in our country as 
well.
  I think it is interesting that the stock market, the Dow Jones, has 
surged 243 points--I just checked it a couple of minutes ago--on just 
the rumors that the debt ceiling will be lifted and we will not go 
through this crisis. But I am told at the other end of the Capitol, the 
House of Representatives is going to have difficulty in getting any 
agreement to stop the shutdown of the government and pass a continuing 
appropriations bill. So here we are, back in the soup again.
  If we do just a short-term debt extension, lifting the debt ceiling, 
then for however long it is--5, 6 weeks--come Thanksgiving we are going 
to be back in the soup again.
  There has got to be a change in attitude, and the attitude has got to 
be I respect the other fellow's point of view, I respect his difference 
of opinion, now let's work it out together. And it is only then we are 
going to solve this problem.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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