[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15829-15846]
[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 ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant 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.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, at 5 o'clock today the Senate will proceed 
to executive session to consider the nomination of Andrea Wood to be 
United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois and 
the nomination of Madeline Haikala to be United States District Judge 
for the Northern District of Alabama.
  At 5:30 there will be a rollcall vote on the Haikala nomination. The 
Wood nomination is expected to be confirmed in another way.


                        Leadership Negotiations

  Mr. President, constructive good-faith negotiations continue between 
the Republican leader and me. I am very optimistic that we will reach 
an agreement that is reasonable in nature this week to reopen the 
government, pay the Nation's bills, and begin long-term negotiations to 
put our country on sound fiscal footing.
  I deeply appreciate my friend the minority leader for his diligent 
efforts to come to an agreement. The Republican leader and I will keep 
Members informed as negotiations continue.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me echo the remarks of my good 
friend, the majority leader. We have had an opportunity over the last 
couple of days to have some very constructive exchanges of views about 
how to move forward. Those discussions continue, and I share his 
optimism that we are going to get a result that will be acceptable to 
both sides.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for such 
time as I may consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we now find ourselves, amazingly, in day 
14 of a government shutdown--a shutdown that was brought to us by the 
Republicans in the House. They are sitting on a bill we sent them to 
open the government and they refuse to take it up.
  My colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, served over there and I 
served over there, and we always had an opportunity to use the rules in 
some way to get a vote on a bill that was passed by the Senate. But the 
House, not wanting to have such a vote, has made it pretty much 
impossible for our colleagues over there, Democrats and moderate 
Republicans, to actually vote to keep this government open.
  I listened very carefully to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader 
McConnell, and I have hopes, as I expressed them yesterday, that we 
will be able to reach an agreement both on the shutdown and on the debt 
ceiling. But the fact we are struggling, the fact that people all over 
the world are looking at us as if we are some kind of dysfunctional 
country, the fact that we have about 1 million Federal employees not 
getting their checks, not knowing where the next meal is going to come 
from, the fact we have more than 2 million workers who work for 
private-sector contractors who don't know when or how they are going to 
get paid, is something we should all take note of, and we should listen 
to those who say this is ridiculous. This is self-inflicted.
  You know, it reminds me of getting up and walking out of your house 
on a beautiful day. You are walking down the street, and, yes, you have 
a few problems on your mind--life isn't perfect--but you are pretty 
optimistic; things are pretty good. Suddenly, you pick up a stone from 
the ground and bash yourself in the head. Honest to God, that is what 
they have done, these Republicans. They have bashed in the heads of the 
American public on a beautiful day as we are coming out of a recession, 
when we know we have our problems, but we also know we can solve them. 
It doesn't make sense.
  Then, as if that isn't enough, they have another stone in their hand 
called default. So maybe as you are beginning to see the light of day, 
you hit yourself

[[Page 15830]]

again and say to the world: America could actually default on its 
debts, and the full faith and credit of the United States is in 
question.
  Robert C. Byrd, one of the great Senators and historians, always 
tells us to read the Constitution. In my desk I have a couple of 
copies, and every once in a while I will look at it. I am not quoting 
verbatim, but it says the debts of the United States shall not be 
questioned. Nobody has the right to play with that. Yet we are doing it 
again because the Republicans are angry. Why are they angry? I believe 
it is because they lost the Presidential election. I believe it is 
because they didn't take back the Senate. This is a direct quote from 
John Boehner. He said the American people don't want to shut down the 
government, but they also don't want ObamaCare, the Affordable Care 
Act. That was his opinion. That is not the truth. The American people 
don't want to see us shut down the government and threaten default 
because of a bill that passed almost 4 years ago, a bill that was 
upheld by the Supreme Court and a law that was heavily debated in the 
Presidential election. The person who said this--Mitt Romney: On day 
one, I will repeal ObamaCare--lost the election.
  I have been around here a while. I have served with five Presidents, 
three of whom were Republicans. Lord knows I didn't agree with 
everything the Republican Presidents wanted, and I didn't even agree 
with everything the Democratic Presidents wanted. I fought hard and I 
got annoyed and I worked in elections. I never saw Republicans or 
Democrats, until today, to be willing to default. Newt Gingrich did 
lead us to a government shutdown in the 1990s, but we haven't had one 
since then because it was so painful and awful. I know the grownups are 
now trying to resolve this. I know our leaders are going to the White 
House, and hopefully, they will come to an agreement. But the fact that 
it would take us this long, 3 days before a default and the 14th day of 
a shutdown, is unbelievable.
  A teacher knows the rules when they get a job. They know school 
starts at 9 a.m., and they dismiss the kids at 3:00. If a teacher says, 
I don't like the start time and I am coming 2 hours later, they can't 
have this job because they know they have to show up. The equivalent of 
that is keeping the doors of government open to the people we 
represent, not slamming them shut in their face. That is what we have 
to do when we show up here; that is to keep the government going. Do we 
have disagreements across and even within parties? Of course we do. But 
we have a procedure to deal with that. It is called legislating. That 
is what we do when we have disagreements. It is something called 
debate--debate the issues, battle them out, have a vote, and pass a 
bill. The other Chamber does the same. Then the House and the Senate go 
to a conference committee and argue out the differences. You send that 
bill to the President--whoever he or she may be--and the President 
either signs the bill or vetoes it. And if they sign it, it is a law. 
If they veto it, we have an override. I have been involved in those. 
But once the bill becomes a law, it is the law, and you carry it out. 
You don't decide what laws you want to enforce and what laws you don't. 
That is not the right way. Our founders said: We are a government of 
laws, not men. Carry out the law. If you don't like the law, try to 
change it.
  Now, the Republicans didn't like the Affordable Care Act--which, by 
the way, is signing up thousands of people a day as we stand here. In 
my home State, it has signed up by now tens of thousands, and we have 
had about 750,000 at least unique visitors to our site. In Kentucky, 
they are signing up 1,000 a day. Unbelievable, never expected. This is 
the law that caused the government shutdown. The Republicans stamp 
their feet. They didn't like it. They didn't care that there was an 
election about it--none of that. They didn't like it, so they are going 
to shut down the government.
  Now we don't even hear them talking about it. Now they are talking 
about wanting to cut Medicaid and Social Security and Medicare. That is 
the new thing they want to do. Paul Ryan: Let's just forget this one. I 
guess we can't do anything about it. But let's now cut Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid. We have a process to get to conference with the 
House. On the Budget Committee we have a strong chairman, Patty Murray. 
She has asked now 21 times to take our budget to conference. Ted Cruz 
and his friends have objected, and then they have the nerve to say we 
won't negotiate. We want to negotiate in a conference committee. That 
is why there is a conference committee. They have stopped it.
  The House has decided now. It is too late. We can't do anything about 
the Affordable Care Act. Then why don't they open up the government? 
They shut it down. They now admit they can't do anything about it. It 
has a steady stream of funding, it is beginning to work, and people are 
going to think: Why do you want to take away the rights I have now, 
having a preexisting condition, to get health care? Why do you want to 
stop my child who can now stay on my health care until he is 26 and 
take away benefits like free trips to the doctor to get immunizations 
and birth control and health care? They tried to stop women's health 
care. They gave that up. They tried to stop us from getting cancer 
screenings, and we said forget it. So they are all over the place.
  I have lived long enough to know when I see people who are joyless, 
unhappy, and angry. That doesn't make for an optimistic country. They 
have the privilege of being here, even if they are only controlling one 
branch of the three, the House. It is the White House; the Senate, 
Democrats; the House, Republicans. They have a privilege, and they have 
a lot of leverage, but the way they are behaving is unacceptable. As I 
said, it is a self-inflicted wound.
  I never questioned the fact that Republicans, Democrats, and 
Independents love this country. I never question it. But I have to say, 
when you start acting like you are committing domestic abuse you have a 
problem. I love you, dear, but I am shutting down your entire 
government. I love you, dear, but I am going to default, and you are 
going to be weak. Something is dreadfully wrong.
  I see my colleague from Maryland here. I know Maryland is suffering 
mightily from this shutdown. He and I both have a lot of Federal 
employees, but the size of our States are different. As a percentage of 
the workforce, Maryland and Virginia are really suffering. In 
California we have tens of thousands of workers furloughed, not getting 
their pay, and a lot of contractors.
  I say to my friend from Maryland, I was trying to figure out how many 
contractor employees are also impacted. Even taking away military 
contractors, because some of them are getting paid and some of them 
aren't. If you take that all out of the equation, there are still more 
than 2 million workers in the private sector who are working for 
Federal contractors.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from 
the Baltimore Sun.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Oct. 14, 2013]

        The Shutdown's Forgotten Victims: Government Contractors

                         (By Clarissa Olivarez)

       In a city where government contracts make up a multi-
     billion dollar industry, it is surprising that with the 
     exception of a couple of articles that received moderate 
     attention, the mainstream media has largely ignored the 
     impact of the shutdown on federal contractors.
       There has never been much sympathy for contractors. On 
     average, we make more money than federal workers because we 
     normally do not have the advantage of affordable health care 
     and/or other benefits offered by the federal government to 
     its direct employees. As a contractor, my colleagues and I 
     work 40 hours a week, and our company bills the government 
     for the services we each provide. On Oct. 1, however, the 
     federal government furloughed many of its employees, which 
     meant that funding for contracts under certain agencies was 
     halted. Once contractors are ordered to stop work by their 
     contracting officer, they must comply and wait patiently at 
     home while Congress and the White House try to find a 
     solution.

[[Page 15831]]

       While defense contractors are mostly still in business, 
     since their services are considered ``essential,'' there are 
     thousands of others who were sent home without pay for an 
     indefinite period of time. As a technical writer and 
     communications specialist for a small company that supports a 
     non-defense agency, my fate was sealed long before early 
     media reports warned of many more impending furloughs.
       When you are sent home from work for over a week, you begin 
     to notice certain things around you that could cause you to 
     lose heart. In my own neighborhood, I have noticed several 
     cars parked in their driveways--cars that never leave in the 
     mornings for work and never leave in the evening for a night 
     on the town. The Metro parking garages are empty. People's 
     morale is diminishing as cabin fever sets in on all sides. 
     And as rumors of the shutdown continuing until the 17th 
     spread like wildfire in a windstorm, my colleagues and I seem 
     to have exhausted every resource.
       Many of my co-workers have emailed several government 
     websites only to find an automated reply shoot back at them 
     stating that the government was shut down and there was 
     nobody who could address their concerns. We have written 
     letters to congressmen and spoken with local news anchors, 
     but nothing is being done to help us in our time of need. As 
     contractors, we inhabit a different world, and unlike 
     furloughed federal employees, we will not be reimbursed for 
     the time off we have been forced to take.
       Unfortunately, like everyone else, there are many of us who 
     owe student loans and are expected to pay rent. We have to 
     pay for utilities, credit card bills, dog food and any other 
     necessities like food and clothing. To make matters worse, my 
     husband and I had set aside money in our savings account for 
     a vacation later this month. That money is now going toward 
     bills and other unforeseen expenses.
       What does all this mean? An article in the Washington Post 
     recently reported that the shutdown could amount to a loss of 
     $200 million a day for local businesses throughout the city. 
     Contractors provide as much of their income to local 
     businesses as their federal counterparts. If it is not enough 
     that we are suffering as a group, our non-existent income 
     will now begin to hurt certain sectors of the economy.
       Small businesses within the city have been doing their part 
     to ease the financial burdens of furloughed employees by 
     advertising ``Shutdown Specials'' that would at least 
     partially allow for the small-business sector of the economy 
     to avoid an otherwise severe financial blow. But, with a 
     heavy concentration of federal and non-federal patrons, the 
     shutdown could cripple numerous mom-and-pop establishments as 
     workers save their hard-earned money and guard their savings 
     due to the uncertainty of a future paycheck.
       Contractors, especially those contractors who work for 
     small businesses, have been hit hard by this shutdown, and it 
     is important that we do not go unheard. Representatives in 
     Congress need to realize that they have only solved half of 
     the problem by passing a bill to reimburse federal employees 
     for time spent at home. While the government will probably 
     not take ownership of the effects it has produced on 
     contractors, it is critical that they remember that we are an 
     essential part of the federal workforce and many of us are 
     weighed down by similar worries.

  I am glad my friend is on the floor, because this was written today:

       In a city where government contracts make up a multi-
     billion dollar industry, it is surprising that with the 
     exception of a couple of articles that receive moderate 
     attention, the mainstream media has largely ignored the 
     impact of the shutdown on federal contractors.

  I really wanted to bring this to the attention of my colleague. Would 
my friend like me to yield to him?
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me say to my friend that she is 
absolutely right. We have heard from a lot of contractors who employ 
individuals, from large contractors such as Lockheed to smaller 
companies that employ 30, 40, 50 people. The range is around 20 to 25 
percent of their workforce has been laid off. There is no assurance 
whatsoever they will ever get paid. There are some contractors who 
don't know whether they are going to survive; it is that serious. So 
the private sector direct employment loss as a result of the shutdown 
is growing every day, and it is having an incredible impact throughout 
the country in every State.
  The Senator mentioned Maryland, which I have the honor of 
representing along with Senator Mikulski. Ten percent of our workforce 
works directly for the Federal Government. The overwhelming majority of 
them have been put on furlough. We have estimated the number to be in 
excess of 125,000 in our State of Maryland. Add the private contractors 
who are laying off workers as a result of the shutdown.
  Last week I stopped by a restaurant right off the Baltimore Beltway 
to get a sandwich. I know the owner. I asked him how things were going. 
He said: Terrible. He said: About half of my customers are not here 
because they are Federal employees that would normally come in during 
the workday and are not coming in.
  The margins are very small for these businesses to be able to remain 
open. So the direct impact on Federal workers and the direct impact on 
those who have contract work with the Federal Government and the impact 
on our economy--it is in every State of the country, but it is 
particularly in the State I represent--has been devastating.
  One more number. The Metro system depends upon the Federal workforce 
here. They need a fare-box revenue in order to keep the system 
operating in a moderate way. Their ridership is down 23 percent. Their 
revenues are down 23 percent. What is the Metro going to do?
  The impact of this shutdown has had an incredibly damaging impact on 
our economy and on families. We have a lot of two-parent households 
working for the Federal Government both on furlough. So many Federal 
workers live paycheck to paycheck, and they are now recognizing there 
might not be any paycheck. How are they supposed to pay their bills?
  I spoke to one of my constituents in Maryland who works for a Federal 
agency. He and his wife have both been furloughed. They just recently 
bought a home and have a mortgage payment to make. The mortgage company 
isn't going to say: Sorry the government is shut down; don't pay your 
mortgage. He has to pay his mortgage. How is he going to be able to do 
that?
  We have hurt people. This shutdown, which should never have happened, 
has had a huge impact on our economy. The tragedy is for the taxpayers. 
It is a waste of money, with over $2 billion wasted as a result of this 
shutdown.
  So I thank my colleague for allowing me to interject to underscore 
the point she has made. She has been on the floor just about every day, 
and I admire her very much for what she has been saying because she is 
absolutely right. The damage is clear. We never should have shut down 
government. We should pay our bills. It is difficult to understand the 
Republicans' original position that they want to negotiate the end of 
ObamaCare on a bill that just keeps the lights on in government.
  Now we are talking about paying our bills. They are talking again 
about dealing with some policy issues. If we are going to get into that 
discussion--which we should not unless we turn the lights on--let's 
open government and then turn the lights on and then sit down and 
negotiate. That is what we have to do. We have some major issues we 
need to deal with, including how we are going to grow the economy, 
create jobs, have a modern transportation infrastructure. As chair of 
the Environment and Public Works Committee, my colleague fought so hard 
for a multiyear reauthorization of our surface transportation systems, 
for modern roads, well-maintained--a modern transportation system.
  To Chairman Boxer, we have three major transit initiatives in 
Maryland that need to move forward. We have to have funding for that. 
That is how our economy will grow.
  Yes, I look forward to sitting down with my Republican colleagues to 
negotiate a budget for next year but first open government and pay the 
bills.
  Mrs. BOXER. I so appreciate my friend, through the Chair, 
interjecting his thoughts. I have listened to him and to Senator 
Mikulski throughout this ordeal. The Senator is right. I have been on 
the floor quite a lot. The reason is clear. We need to make a record so 
that this never, ever happens again.
  There is a reason we had not had a shutdown since the last one when 
Newt Gingrich and Republicans brought it to us in the 1990s--because it 
was horrible. They got hurt by it.
  We begged them not to go down this road. They went down the road. 
Why? Because they didn't like the fact that there is an Affordable Care 
Act. They didn't like it, so they stamped their foot and said: We are 
shutting down the government because we don't like

[[Page 15832]]

it. We begged them. We said: That is not going to help your cause. This 
Affordable Care Act--85 percent of the funds do not come from 
appropriated funds; they come from a separate stream of funding, and 
the bill and the law are going forward. They would not listen. Now they 
have changed their tune and decided it is about cutting Social Security 
and Medicare and Medicaid. That is their new thing.
  My friend is right. It would be so easy to end this. Open the 
Government, pay our bills, get to the budget negotiations, where we 
will have Senator Murray, Senator Sessions, Paul Ryan, and his 
counterpart begin regular order.
  I want to continue about this contractor employee. What he said is so 
moving--actually, I think it is a she.
  She says:

       As a technical writer and communications specialist for a 
     small company . . . my fate was sealed long before early 
     media reports warned of many more impending furloughs. When 
     you are sent home from work for over a week, you begin to 
     notice certain things around you that could cause you to lose 
     heart. In my own neighborhood--

  I say to Senator Cardin, she is talking about your city of Baltimore.
  This contractor writes:

     in my own neighborhood, I have noticed several cars parked in 
     their driveways--cars that never leave in the morning for 
     work and never leave in the evening for a night on the town. 
     The Metro parking garages are empty.

  The Senator alluded to that.

       People's morale is diminishing as cabin fever sets in on 
     all sides. And as rumors of the shutdown continuing until the 
     17th spread like wildfire in a windstorm, my colleagues and I 
     seem to have exhausted every resource.

  She says:

       Unfortunately, like everyone else, there are many of us who 
     owe student loans and are expected to pay rent. We have to 
     pay for utilities, credit card bills, dog food and other 
     necessities like food and clothing. To make matters worse, my 
     husband and I--

  And this is interesting--

     had set aside money . . . for a vacation. . . . That money is 
     now going toward bills. . . . What does all this mean? An 
     article in The Washington Post recently reported that the 
     shutdown could amount to a loss of $200 million a day for 
     local businesses throughout the city.

  Mr. President, $200 million a day for local businesses throughout 
your city of Baltimore.
  She says:

       Contractors, especially those contractors who work for 
     small businesses, have been hit hard by this shutdown.

  She explains how they may never be made whole.
  Day 14 of a shutdown----
  Mr. CARDIN. Could I ask my colleague to yield?
  Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I am happy to yield.
  Mr. CARDIN. I thank the Chair, and I thank Senator Boxer. She points 
out the hardship of people not getting a paycheck. Senator Boxer points 
it out very clearly. Some of these people are the same people who were 
just furloughed as a result of sequestration, so they already had 
smaller paychecks because of sequestration.
  Let me remind my colleagues that sequestration was put in 2 years ago 
as a placeholder. I don't know of a single Senator who wanted to see 
sequestration take effect. It was a placeholder to get to a budget 
negotiation. What did we do? We passed the budget. We passed the budget 
almost 7 months ago. We said: Let's negotiate. We knew it was not going 
to be our budget. We know we have to negotiate with the House to get a 
budget to get rid of sequestration.
  I mention that because once again we have a very simple request 
today: Open the government and pay our bills. Sit down and negotiate. 
It is pretty simple. We have not brought forward our policy objectives 
in this, which is to have a budget that makes sense for this country, 
that allows growth of employment, invests not only in roads and bridges 
but energy and research and education so we can build a competitive 
economy for the 21st century. We want a budget that is balanced on how 
we reduce spending--not just on what we call our discretionary spending 
accounts but also as we look at our entitlement spending. We want to 
see our health care system more efficient. We want to work to make it a 
more efficient system. We started that with passage of the Affordable 
Care Act. Now we want to implement that. That will bring about some 
additional savings.
  We believe we should pay our bills. We should have the necessary 
revenue. Our revenue code is full of inequities that hemorrhage 
revenue. My colleague from California is well aware of the fact that in 
our Tax Code--I serve on the Senate Finance Committee. I think my 
colleagues understand that we are now spending more money in our Tax 
Code than we do in appropriations bills. We spend more money in the Tax 
Code. That is tax breaks some people get--not everyone. We certainly 
can review those tax expenditures and close those that are inefficient, 
which will not only provide more equity in our Tax Code but will 
provide more revenue to pay our bills and reduce our deficit.
  It is that type of negotiation we want to get into, but we cannot do 
that when the Republicans have put a gun to the head of the U.S. 
economy. That is what they have done by shutting government and by 
threatening not to pay the bills. We say very simply, put down the gun. 
Let's negotiate these issues.
  Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.
  Mr. CARDIN. The Senator is absolutely right about the private 
contractor issue. When you look at 800,000 Federal workers who have 
been furloughed, that does not include the private contractors, which 
are clearly going to be an additional hundreds of thousands who are not 
working today, yes, it is a huge drain on our economy, and there is no 
reason for this.
  For all those reasons, we say very clearly on day 14, day 14 of this 
shutdown, let's open the government, let's pay our bills, and, yes, 
let's develop a sensible way to negotiate our budget. Let's not try to 
threaten the American people and then try to pass an extreme agenda as 
a result of that.
  Through the Chair, I thank Senator Boxer.
  Mrs. BOXER. Through the Chair, I thank my friend. This contractor 
issue is a sleeper issue in a way, as this woman writes in the 
Baltimore Sun, because if you look at the numbers, you may see more 
contractor employees affected than Federal employees because even if 
you take--there are millions of them. Even if you take away, if you 
look at the statistics, the millions who work for the military and 
assume they are getting paid, there are still more than 2 million who 
are contractors to other arms of the government, such as homeland 
security or border patrol--you name it. It is a sleeper issue.
  This woman who is so articulate, Clarissa Olivarez--I hope she knows 
we are taking her words to heart and putting her words in the Record. 
She is explaining what it feels like to be scared. For what? For 
nothing. Because they did not like the Affordable Care Act--which they 
are not going to change. They tried to repeal it 43 times.
  Open the government. They are so afraid they will lose the vote, they 
are not even allowing a vote over there.
  They are coming back--my friends in the House--shortly. By the way, 
imagine, Speaker Boehner said go home over the weekend while all this 
is pending. They were not even in session. Outrageous.
  I am going to conclude in about 5 minutes by talking about some of 
the other impacts of the shutdown.
  Mr. President, 93 percent of the employees at the EPA have been 
furloughed. What do they do? They make sure the air we breathe is safe, 
the water we drink is safe, and the rivers we swim in are safe. They 
make sure Superfund sites are being cleaned up, those toxic brews in 
there, including things such as benzene and arsenic and every other bad 
thing you can imagine. In my State there is not one single EPA 
inspector on the ground. I have established that. That is the same in 
many others. Mr. President, 505 Superfund sites were being cleaned up. 
Cleanup is suspended. Many children live near those sites. There are 
many schools near those sites. There are many homes near those sites. 
They are toxic waste dumps. No cleanup.

[[Page 15833]]

  Now we find out that 92 percent of workers at the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission have been furloughed. What is their job? It was created ``to 
ensure the safe use of radioactive materials.''
  I say to every Senator who has a nuclear powerplant in their State, 
make a little prayer. If something bad happens, we will have to somehow 
nab all those workers and get them back on the job in time. Earth to my 
Republican friends: Have you ever heard the word ``Fukushima''? Do you 
know what I am talking about? Wake up. What are you doing to the 
American people? You don't like a bill, so you shut down the 
government. You take all of the watchdogs off the job so people could 
start dumping waste into the waterways, into the air?
  We even have a circumstance in California where pesticides are being 
imported from other countries. The EPA has to inspect those at the site 
and make sure they are safe. There are no inspectors. I just told you 
that. So they are sitting in a warehouse, and our farmers are starting 
to say: Where are these pesticides? We need them.
  This shutdown is mindless. The Army Corps of Engineers manages 12 
million acres of public lands, recreation areas that host 370 million 
visits annually. These recreation areas support local businesses such 
as resorts, marinas, outfitters, grocery stores, gas stations, hotels--
shut down. Last week the Corps closed Lake Mendocino, which is located 
north of San Francisco. Lake Mendocino hosts half a million visitors 
annually and visitors spend $12 million at businesses within 30 miles 
of the lake, supporting 106 jobs and $2.8 million in income. Those 
small businesses cannot go on like this. They cannot go on like this.
  Mr. President, 561 national wildlife refuges are closed because of 
the shutdown. I say to my friend, Senator Cardin and I--we are very 
close friends because we work together daily on these issues. He is the 
chairman of the committee that oversees water quality, these wildlife 
refuges. In many parts of the country, hunting season is in full swing. 
I say to my friend from Oregon--I just found out, but he probably knows 
this--that on the California-Oregon border, hunters and tourists 
usually head to Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge for the opening 
of hunting season. But they have been denied access, which means local 
businesses are losing much needed revenues. The impact of this is felt 
with a direct hit to Federal employees, contractor employees, and local 
businesses. Everyone is suffering. That is why we had a letter that I 
put in the Record yesterday, or the day before, signed by the Chamber 
of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, and the nonprofit sector. It is so rare, I 
say to my friends, that we see those three groups coming together.
  They are demanding that we open the government. They are demanding a 
clean debt ceiling so we can pay our bills. They are demanding it, and 
they represent the broadest base sector of America.
  Who is benefiting from this other than people who have a very dark 
side? That is all I can say. You would have to have a really dark side.
  I will give a couple of examples of what is happening. The NTSB, the 
National Transportation Safety Board--we had a horrible crash in July 
with Asiana Airlines, flight 214. We don't know exactly why it 
happened, and the NTSB has been forced to postpone their hearings. 
These investigations help us to find out how to avoid disasters in the 
future.
  Three weeks ago in Santa Monica, at a little airport, there was a 
crash that killed four people. Investigation materials were shoved into 
a vault, and we don't know why it happened. If we knew why it happened, 
we could save lives.
  I remember when I first came to Congress a very long time ago, and I 
served in the House, there was a terrible crash. They found out it was 
a very small bolt or a screw that was responsible for the problems, and 
they grounded every aircraft that had that faulty part and fixed it. 
That is why these investigations are critical. These investigations are 
critical so we are able to not only tell the loved ones what happened 
but to make improvements. It is all shut down.
  Another example has to do with the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission. Last week in San Diego a 2-year-old Annette Estrada was 
killed when she was crushed by a falling TV. Normally the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission investigates this heartbreaking incident, 
find out the problem, and demand it be fixed. Who knows who the next 
child will be. That is why we have a government--a government of, by, 
and for the people--to make life better for the American people.
  The government is shut down. Open it. Let the people in. It is easy 
to do. Speaker Boehner has a bill. Let them vote over there. Open the 
government now. People are in danger. There are no winners in a 
shutdown. It is devastating for workers. It is devastating for small 
businesses. It is devastating for contractors. It is devastating to our 
economy, which is just coming out of the worst recession since the 
Great Depression. What are they thinking over there?
  Then they send these little mini-bills. Oh, open this little agency, 
and open that little agency. I call that government by press release. 
The heat is on them, so they pass a little mini-bill. Since when does 
one political party decide which of our communities survive, which ones 
thrive, which ones die, which people live, which people die, which 
child is healthy, and which child is not healthy?
  There is a community in California where kids are suffering 
nosebleeds, and they are sick. It turns out that they are very close to 
an industrial site. I called the EPA. They were going to rush over 
there and figure it out and stop the pain. They can't go. I don't see a 
bill over there to open the EPA. They will never send us that.
  Mr. CARDIN. Through the Chair, I just have to say to my colleague 
that she is absolutely right. She is the chairman of the Environment 
and Public Works Committee Agency. She has given great examples that 
show how critically important the Environmental Protection Agency is in 
protecting public health and protecting our environment. The Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission is important to protect the public safety.
  The Senator from California is absolutely right. I want to give 
another dynamic, and that is jobs. The fact that the EPA is not in full 
force is hurting economic growth. I will give one example: Harbor Point 
in downtown Baltimore, which is an RCRA site, which means it was an 
environmental cleanup site that has a court order on its development 
requiring the EPA to sign off to make sure the environmental issues are 
being protected in its development.
  Everything is fairly well understood here, and it has gone through a 
long process. We are now at the point where we are ready to develop 
this prime spot. It is the most iconic spot in downtown Baltimore. It 
is going to help our city grow. Our city needs economic growth. It is 
on hold. Why? Because the EPA does not have its people in the office to 
be able to review this application in a timely way. That is just one 
example. The Environmental Protection Agency is critically important 
for public health. It is critically important for our environment and 
also for economic growth.
  I will give another example: The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade 
Bureau is not at full complement either. We have microbreweries in 
Maryland that are doing very well. Every time they add a new product, 
they have to get approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade 
Bureau. That is on hold. Their economic growth is on hold.
  I could give many more examples. Senator Boxer mentioned our refuges. 
The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Eastern Shore 
of Maryland. It is one of the most beautiful spots in the world. This 
is hunting season. The Eastern Shore of Maryland depends upon the 
hunting season for its economy.
  I can't tell you how many hotel operators, restaurants, and 
shopowners depend upon the fall season being in full force with the 
hunting season, and now we put a real damper--not just the

[[Page 15834]]

weather we had over the past weekend--but the fact that the government 
was closed has put a damper on the economy. Actually, it was good 
weather for hunting. They lost that. They are not going to be able to 
recover that. It is lost.
  As my friend pointed out, our request is pretty simple. Our request 
is to open the government, pay our bills, and let's sit down and 
negotiate. The point I hope everyone understands: The funding level we 
sent over to the House of Representatives is the Republican funding 
level. We didn't negotiate that number. That is the current fiscal year 
2013 number. We didn't negotiate between that number and our budget 
number that this body passed. We gave up on that and said: Look, it is 
more important to keep the government open. We have already negotiated.
  Bear with me for one more minute. Senator Boxer has given the 
Baltimore Sun a lot of credit today, and I would like to quote from 
their editorial because I think it is important to point out.

       Passing a ``clean'' continuing resolution keeping 
     government fully operating at funding levels the GOP has 
     already endorsed is no compromise. It's the status quo. 
     Raising the debt ceiling isn't a concession either--it allows 
     the nation to pay the bills Congress has already incurred and 
     prevents the possibility of a government default, which would 
     hurt the economy, raise borrowing costs and increase the 
     federal deficit.
       So when Speaker Boehner lashes out at President Obama for 
     failing to negotiate, one has to ask, what is this thing he 
     describes as negotiation? House Republicans are not merely 
     leveraging their political position--as some dryly claim--
     they are threatening to do grievous harm to the global 
     economy and the American public.
       The gun isn't raised to President Obama's head or to the 
     Senate. The Democrats have no particular stake in passing a 
     continuing resolution or in raising the debt ceiling other 
     than keeping public order and doing what any reasonable 
     person expects Congress to do. No, the gun is raised at the 
     nation as a whole. That's why descriptions like ``ransom'' 
     and ``hostage'' are not mere hyperbole, they are as close as 
     the English language gets to accurately describing the GOP 
     strategy.

  I hope we are close to reaching an agreement to open the government. 
It should never have been closed. A lot of damage and harm has already 
been done.
  We are on a motion to proceed to the debt ceiling. If we were not to 
pay our bills, that would cause irreparable harm not just to our 
economy, but to the world economy. That is something we should not be 
playing around with waiting until the last public minute.
  I urge my colleagues to put the interest of this country first. This 
is a serious matter that affects our economy, America's future, and the 
global economy. If we turn the global economy into further economic 
disorder, it is going to have a major impact on the United States, and 
it will be our fault.
  I urge my colleagues to immediately cease this strategy of 
threatening our economy. Let's open the government, pay our bills, and 
sit down and negotiate, as we should, a budget agreement which will not 
be what the Democrats want or the Republicans want, but it will be a 
compromise, as it should be, between the parties. We owe that to the 
American people.
  Through the Chair, I thank Senator Boxer again for underscoring these 
points and pointing out the wide impact this has on all parts of our 
country. We have to end it. I hope we can end it tonight.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for allowing this 
interlude. I do want to say to my friend, I think it has been very 
helpful that he and I have been in this conversation because we share 
the view that these two self-inflicted wounds are outrageous, and we 
want to make sure that the Congressional Record is very clear and shows 
the pain, the suffering, the concern, and the insecurities that this 
dual wound, the potential of a default and an actual government 
shutdown, are causing. I pray that we are never facing this again.
  I am very mindful of the words I use here on the floor so I am not 
going to say what I think about this exactly the way I would say it if 
I were talking to my family. There is no reason for it. It makes no 
sense to do this to a country they say they love. Why hurt the country 
they say they love?
  Why make the country they say they love look like a laughingstock? 
Why make a President who was going to go to Asia to pitch our economy 
and investments in our Nation--why make him cancel a trip and have 
China stand there and say: Well, you can see America just doesn't have 
it together. If they loved their country, they wouldn't do that.
  Some of the comments over there are unbelievable. One of the 
Republican House Members said: I have never seen us so happy. She is 
happy? She is happy that millions of people don't know where their next 
check is coming from? She is happy? She is happy that plane crashes 
can't be investigated? She is happy that Superfund sites can't be 
cleaned? She is happy that veterans are scared? She is happy that 65-
year-olds and 62-year-olds who are new to Social Security can't get 
their checks on time? She is happy? She needs to look into her heart. 
That whole party has to look into its heart. Every once in a while you 
can see into someone's soul, and you know it when it has happened to 
you.
  I got into a conversation with one colleague, who shall remain 
nameless. I was so excited. I came home from California, and I saw tens 
of thousands of my people who were signing up for health insurance that 
never had it before. I could tell so many beautiful stories. There were 
people with preexisting conditions, people who had lifetime caps, 
people who were scared, and little kids whose parents finally were able 
to save their lives.
  There was one incredible woman who wrote an op-ed piece in the 
Washington Post about this. And you know what my colleague, who shall 
remain nameless, said? I told him I went to a signup place, and it was 
exciting. There were so many people who were signing up. We were at a 
Hispanic community, and everybody had a smile on their face. He said: I 
was happy to read in one of your papers that two people had their 
premiums doubled. I stopped and said: You were happy? That made you 
happy? Look into your soul.
  Why are people happy over there? How do they say they love their 
country, but they don't care if their country defaults on its 
obligations?
  I want to show my colleagues what President Ronald Reagan said about 
defaulting--not paying our bills--President Ronald Reagan, the beloved 
President of the Republicans, and many Democrats. He came from my 
State. He is one of the most popular Presidents in the history of our 
country. We have airports named after him. We have buildings named 
after him. Why don't we see what President Reagan said about default? 
And just know, when he was President, Republicans and Democrats raised 
the debt ceiling no less than 18 times, I say to my colleagues. 
Eighteen times we raised the debt ceiling because, yes, we had debt 
from prior bills and Ronald Reagan said, Send me a debt ceiling 
increase. Here is what he says:

       The full consequences of a default--or even the serious 
     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.

  Ronald Reagan, 1983. That is when our economy was much smaller than 
it is today.
  So how does the party of Ronald Reagan now get us to this place where 
in 3 days we are about to default? I didn't hear one word out of them 
when they decided to put two wars on the credit card and a huge tax 
break for billionaires on the credit card and a big medical 
prescription drug benefit on the credit card--not one word out of them. 
Oh, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.
  What happened? We had a surplus under Bill Clinton. We had a huge 
increase in the deficits under George W. Bush. And, by the way, 
President Obama got handed an enormous deficit which he has cut in 
half.
  So all of this talk about how the Republicans are the party of fiscal 
responsibility bears scrutiny. There wasn't one Republican who voted 
for the budget, I say to my colleagues, that Bill Clinton wanted us to 
vote for.

[[Page 15835]]

We did it all with Democratic votes. Then we got not only a balanced 
budget, but a surplus, and tens of millions of new jobs. George Bush 
came in, put two wars on the credit card, prescription drug benefit on 
the credit card, tax breaks to billionaires on the credit card, and the 
debt was off and running. But not one Republican said: Don't pass a 
debt ceiling. Not one Republican said: Don't default. What changed? 
Could it be they don't like this President? Do my colleagues think that 
has something to do with it? I will let people decide that.
  We now know what Ronald Reagan said. He said, in other words, we need 
to pay our bills. We need to avoid default. There isn't one respected 
economist who doesn't agree with what Ronald Reagan said in 1983. The 
cost to taxpayers of default is enormous--billions upon billions of 
dollars--even the thought of it. We are still paying off what it cost 
us the last time.
  Experts warn us against default. Warren Buffett: ``It ought to be 
banned as a weapon.'' It, meaning a default, ought to be banned as a 
weapon. ``It should be like nuclear bombs, basically too horrible to 
use.''
  Warren Buffett knows a thing or two about this economy.
  Mark Zandi, who advised John McCain in his Presidential run: 
``Breaching the limit would be an economic disaster.''
  What would happen to average folks? Mortgage rates could go sky high. 
Small business, big business couldn't expand. We would go into a 
recession. And they are happy over there about the prospect. They need 
to look into their souls.
  The president of the World Bank, Jim Kim: ``Please consider politics 
beyond the Beltway, politics beyond your districts . . . This is not a 
theoretical impact. It's very real.''
  Again, Mark Zandi: ``The dark scenario is so dark I can't imagine 
it.'' That is what he said.
  So we pray now, as our leadership goes to the White House--and they 
are probably there right now meeting with the President--that they come 
out of that meeting with a plan--a plan to pay our bills, a plan to 
reopen government, and a plan to negotiate on anything Republicans and 
Democrats want to negotiate on. I pray so that this works out. But 
until it does, I am going to be here every day making the record for 
future Senators and for the history books that shutting down the 
government and threatening default, those kinds of weapons should be 
banned.
  It is our job to pay the bills. It is our job to keep the government 
open, just as it is a pilot's job to fly the plane. He has to show up 
and fly it. We have to show up, pay the bills, keep the government 
open, and then negotiate our differences.
  Thank you so much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, once again I wish to thank Senator Boxer 
for her comments and for her strength in coming to the floor and 
pointing out the danger and harm caused by the government shutdown and 
the risk of defaulting on our debt.
  Let me make it clear: Open government. Keep it open at the level the 
Republicans had in their budget as we continue to negotiate. We want to 
negotiate a budget for fiscal year 2014. We want that budget to be 
fair. We have been trying to do that for 7 months. We are not going to 
negotiate a budget in the next 48 hours. It is going to take more time 
than that.
  We need to extend the ability to pay our bills. That should be done 
for a long time--for a longer period of time--because of the 
predictability here. We don't want to go from crisis to crisis. There 
should be no concessions for either one of those two issues; that is, 
opening government or paying our bills.
  Let's work back and forth, Democrats and Republicans, on a budget in 
which there will be give and take. That is what we are encouraging our 
colleagues to do.
  I join Senator Boxer in hoping there is a productive meeting at the 
White House today. I hope we find a game plan that will allow us to 
open government and pay our bills in a way in which we can sit down and 
negotiate the fiscal year 2014 budget, respecting each other's views 
and doing what our political system always envisioned; that is, true 
compromise, particularly when we have a House of Representatives 
controlled by Republicans and a Senate controlled by Democrats.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to continue the series of comments 
my colleagues have been making about the situation we find ourselves in 
at this moment, with our government shut down and with the possibility 
of a default on the payments of our Federal Government. This situation 
is virtually unprecedented, to be in a situation of near default.
  I want to step back from the immediate arguments over what the answer 
looks like to understand that we have wandered far outside the normal, 
orderly lines of legislative debate. Legislative debate is like a 
baseball game. Folks come together, and some want plan A, some want to 
oppose plan A, and one team wins and one team loses. In this case, we 
can go back to the health care debate. Some folks wanted a health care 
plan that would put millions of folks without insurance into insurance 
and have a number of systematic reforms that would help Americans and 
to end abuses in the insurance industry. They wanted to create 
competition between companies so that customers; that is, citizens, 
could compare policies and thereby get a better deal, and encourage 
companies to drop their prices.
  This debate now goes back quite a while, to 2009, 2010. The side that 
wanted the improved health care won. The other side normally says, 
Well, we will be back next year. We will be back with some changes in 
team members, as in baseball, and we will debate this again.
  Instead of calling to have another legislative debate down the line, 
those who lost asked for the umpire to declare that the losing team had 
won. This is acceptable; that is, turning to our Supreme Court and 
asking them if we had violated any of the constitutional provisions 
that guide our Nation. In this case the answer came back, and the 
answer was, no, the health care plan was constitutional and it would go 
forward.
  So now the losing team, instead of saying we are going to debate this 
with the public, we are going to try to get our point of view across 
and get people elected who support it, said, We are going to hold the 
crowd hostage and threaten to burn down the stadium. If a person is 
attending a baseball game, we know that is outside the normal rules of 
competition. We create these rules in a democracy so we can have an 
orderly process by which to consider the viewpoints of our constituents 
and make decisions, but threatening to hold the American people hostage 
is outside of the rules. Threatening to have our national government 
default and burn down our economy is outside the rules. Yet that is 
where we stand today.
  Great harm, even as I speak, is coming to our communities across the 
Nation. This harm may not touch some of the Members of this body who 
may have the financial foundation to not be particularly concerned 
about what happens to others. But I would encourage them to go live a 
few days in a working-class community and find out how this impacts 
families across our Nation. Not only are those families who work for 
the government not getting their salaries as well as being furloughed, 
but they are not then spending their funds in the local community, 
which creates an impact on all kinds of other groups. It isn't just in 
that direct employment. We have a situation with, say, those who are 
affected by food stamps. If the first day of the month comes and food 
stamps are not available, they don't go to the stores and buy 
groceries, so the stores are affected. The list goes on and on in all 
kinds of ways.
  In fact, I can turn to my home State of Oregon to demonstrate some 
things

[[Page 15836]]

known to me that maybe folks haven't considered. I have here a letter 
from the Port of Astoria. The Port of Astoria, in order for them to 
receive oceangoing ships, has to have its slips dredged to a certain 
depth; otherwise, those ships can't dock. This letter basically is 
about how the government shutdown is affecting their ability to dredge 
and how the inability to dredge may have a profound economic 
consequence on the community.
  The port writes, ``Every year the Port of Astoria is required to 
dredge to maintain operations.''
  They have done that in various ways for the last 23 years. The letter 
goes on through all kinds of details of the process through which 
dredging occurs. On the third page, it gets down to this: ``Our biggest 
issue at this stage is the government shutdown has prevented our 
consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service. . . . '' 
Without that consultation, they cannot satisfy the ESA requirements of 
section 7 of the Clean Water Act.
  The letter goes on to say:

       This is the only element that is holding us up. . . .

  You may think: Well, if they do not dredge on time, what is the big 
deal? To Astoria it is a very big deal. I continue with the letter:

       If we are not able to dredge soon, this Port and this 
     community could suffer immense economic damages to the tune 
     of 5-6 million dollars of direct economic funds per vessel 
     that fails to dock at the Port of Astoria or 10-12 million 
     dollars of direct economic impact per month.

  That is based on the fact that there are a couple major vessels per 
month.
  The letter goes on to say:

       Furthermore, if one vessel strikes the bottom [of the 
     river] the industry and our investors, clients and tenants 
     will be in an uproar and our entire business will be 
     blacklisted on the international trade market.

  That would be terrible, to have a ship hit the bottom and have the 
Port of Astoria completely shut down as a result of the fact that they 
cannot consult--as they point out, that part of this is their ability 
to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
  That is just one sizable impact for a community. There are thousands 
of these occurring across the country.
  Let me take another example. We have a company in Oregon that 
produces a particular device that it exports, and it needs an export 
license to do so; otherwise, it cannot send its items abroad to its 
customer. Right now it has a big stockpile of a shipment it needs to 
send out.
  Well, they cannot get the export license because the government is 
shut down. This is creating a big cashflow issue because they cannot 
receive the funds until they ship the item, which means huge potential 
damage to the company--in other words, something that may not have been 
thoroughly thought through.
  What about the rural areas in our States? Some will be surprised to 
find out that you have a lot more government workers per capita in 
rural areas than in urban areas. Many parts of my State are forested, 
and the forests are owned either by the Bureau of Land Management or 
the U.S. Forest Service--it is owned by the national government, in 
other words. If the folks are not there because the government is shut 
down, it has a direct impact. In fact, right now, the U.S. Forest 
Service is issuing directions on how folks who are in the middle of 
logging have to shut down, skid the logs they have cut, quit felling 
any more, and basically clean up and clear out--in the middle of an 
operation. That does not just mean losses for the company that is 
logging, it also means a loss of saw logs for the sawmill, which means 
layoffs or a shutdown at the sawmill.
  Well, you can start to see how the consequences roll through the 
economy.
  How about the Superfund site in the Portland Harbor? There is an 
intense effort going on to get a plan to be able to clean up that 
Superfund site. Negotiations are underway between the industries that 
populate that stretch and the Environmental Protection Agency.
  Well, it is very important to move forward to meet deadlines. How are 
you going to move forward if the folks are not at the EPA?
  If we go back to a timber company, it is not just the immediate 
impact, it is the impact a year out, because the folks who are planning 
the sales for a year out cannot plan those sales if they are shut down 
or if they are furloughed. They cannot plan those sales. And they have 
to have teams of biologists and folks evaluate every aspect of every 
sale to prepare it, put it up for auction. If you cannot put it up for 
auction, somebody does not buy it, there is no cutting, and then the 
logging companies and the mills are hurt.
  This is not acceptable. What we have is a series of fiscal 
irresponsibilities by the group within the Senate and the House that 
has been blocking the budget and appropriations process. Fiscally 
irresponsible--let me lay that out. It is fiscally irresponsible to 
block the Budget Committee for the last 6 months from having a 
conference committee. Yet a small group has come to this floor and 
repeatedly objected to the conference committee meeting. Without that 
budget, you cannot have common numbers for the Senate and the House. 
That blocks the spending bills--known here as appropriations bills--so 
the spending bills cannot be put together. Or if they are put together, 
they are based on a different number than the House has, which means 
those become deadlocked.
  That leads to a continuing resolution, which means continuing what we 
are already doing rather than having a new spending bill. That is a 
waste of money because it means we are going to keep doing things that 
we know are not working instead of doing the things we know are working 
better. That is why you have an annual appropriations or spending 
process so you can cast aside the things that are not working and do 
the things that are working. So it is wasteful to block the budget and 
appropriations process.
  Then we have this government shutdown. What does this mean? This 
means less income because of less economic activity, and it means more 
expenses because of more safety net responsibilities, which means more 
deficit and more debt. So this group that is blocking the budget and 
appropriations process is responsible for increasing the deficit and 
increasing our debt.
  Then let's fast forward to the threat of not paying our bills. I 
think everyone in America knows, as a family, if you do not pay your 
bills, your credit score goes down and you have to pay a higher 
interest rate when you borrow. It is the same with the Federal 
Government.
  There are some in this body who have said: Well, let's make sure we 
pay our Treasury bonds, make good on our debt obligations, and let's 
just not pay other obligations. Anyone who has had a credit score knows 
that no matter what obligation you fail in, it becomes part of your 
credit score. It raises the interest. You can go for your home loan and 
say: I have always made my house payment, and they are like: Yes, but 
you did not pay your utility bill, you did not pay your car payment. 
That means you are a higher risk. You say: But I have always paid my 
house bill, always paid my mortgage. It does not matter. It shows that 
you are stressed and you do not have a consistent exercise of 
responsibility in paying your bills.
  So there is no easy out, despite that my colleagues have come to this 
floor, this Chamber, and said: It is not a big deal. They are, simply 
put, wrong. If they had come to the Committee on Banking, they could 
have heard expert after expert after expert say, essentially: You are 
wrong. All your bills matter. All your bills affect your credit rating. 
When your credit rating goes down, your interest rates go up.
  It is very expensive for the government, and it is wasted money, 
money that is buying us nothing--nothing. It is just paying more for 
the borrowing you have to do.
  It is not just government that pays. It is the families who pay. They 
have to pay higher interest on their mortgage, a higher payment on 
their home loan, if you will, their home equity loan, a higher payment 
on their car

[[Page 15837]]

loan, a higher payment on their business loan. Everyone wastes money 
because of this group of incredibly irresponsible, fiscally 
irresponsible Members of the House and Senate who have brought us to 
this point.
  I can see my colleague has come to the floor, and I am sure he has 
stories from his State, and he has his insights on why this is an 
unacceptable, irresponsible place we find ourselves. All we really 
need--all we need is a short-term continuing resolution at this point 
to reopen government while we negotiate, and we should have a long-term 
resolution of the default issue because that is something that should 
never be threatened.
  It is Ronald Reagan who said: Do not mess with the good faith and 
credit of the United States of America. It is time everyone on both 
sides of the aisle listens to what President Reagan said, because he 
was right on on this, that that is just a shoot-yourself-in-the foot, 
self-inflicted wound that does no one in America any good at all.
  Let's return to the normal process of understanding there are bounds 
on the legislative debate. If you lose with your perspective in a 
legislative battle, you can come back again next time around. You can 
come back the next year, you can come back 2 years later, you can come 
back 3 months later if the votes shift. You can propose amendments. But 
you do not--you do not--hold the crowd hostage. You do not threaten to 
burn down the stadium. You do not hold the American people hostage. And 
you do not threaten to burn down our economy and our international 
standing by proposing that we not pay our bills.
  Thank you very much.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oregon for 
speaking so forcefully and ably about the real-life stories in his 
State--stories of people affected very directly by the shutdown and the 
prospect of the greatest Nation in the history of the world failing to 
pay its bills on time. As powerfully as he spoke, so did our colleagues 
from California and Maryland, emphasizing again the evidence of how 
deep and broad the cumulative effect is of the shutdown.
  I had occasion to speak to people across Connecticut, as I know my 
colleague, the Acting President pro tempore, has done over the past 10 
days. He and I have talked about how Connecticut is affected and about 
the individuals there who have borne the burden of this shutdown. As in 
Oregon and California and Maryland, there are real-life stories of 
people who have been affected not just temporarily but lastingly and 
enduringly.
  I had occasion over the last 48 or 24 hours to talk with many of them 
out of the glare of the public eye--privately, candidly--and I want to 
tell some of their stories today, beginning with a meeting I had this 
morning in East Hartford at VFW Post 2083, at the invitation of my good 
friend CDR John Hollis of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a group he 
helped to invite--veterans of conflicts ranging from Korea, to Iraq, to 
Vietnam, to Afghanistan--all ages, all races, religions--more than 20 
of those veterans telling me their stories and imparting to me their 
message: Get the job done. Reach a bipartisan compromise and make sure 
the government opens and end the shutdown and pays its bills on time, 
as befits the United States of America, for which they fought, the 
Nation they served and sacrificed to keep free.
  I was drawn by young men such as Micah Welintukonis, Jordan Massa, 
Michael Scavetta, David Alexander, veterans of the most recent conflict 
in Afghanistan; and John Hollis, Ed Dettore, Lester Yarmiel, Richard 
Kennedy, Mel Huston, Lucius Miles, who have fought in previous wars.
  As a matter of fact, Micah Welintukonis has recently returned from 
Walter Reed, where he had to undergo the latest round of surgery to his 
arm, which was severely wounded in Afghanistan in combat there. That 
wound led him to receive the Purple Heart. He was there with his wife 
Camilla and his three children to talk to me about his fear that he 
will be denied benefits and compensation that he is due, he deserves, 
and needs--the disability claim that he may apply for.
  Of course, Jordan Massa is also a Purple Heart recipient as a result 
of a wound that he likewise received in combat. He waited for 2 years 
to receive approval of his disability claim, only to learn on October 1 
that he will very likely have to wait longer because of the VA 
furloughing so many of its employees.
  Others who came to this meeting: Mike Scavetta from Wethersfield--a 
veteran who served in an Air Force military police unit deployed to 
Afghanistan, who needs the GI bill, which he credits as reconnecting 
him to a civil society after his return. He has applied for a higher 
disability rating with the Department of Veterans Affairs based on his 
continued experience of post-traumatic stress.
  Jake Demaskiewicz in Rocky Hill, who has served not only in the Army 
in Operation Enduring Freedom, but on his return now in a nonprofit 
organization, is assisting other veterans. Thirty percent of his 
paycheck comes from the VA's vocational rehabilitation program, and he 
receives disability payments.
  These payments, compensation claims will run out at the end of 
October, and the delays are present even now, discouraging and failing 
these brave combat veterans who have endured so much for our Nation--
the Nation that now has shut down these services because of a small 
fringe of extremist ideologues in one House of this Congress, one 
branch of this government, who have succeeded in paralyzing the 
process.
  There are many other impacts on veterans in the denial of programs 
that are so important, many of which I have mentioned on the floor, 
such as the Education Call Center, personal interviews at regional 
offices, education and vocational counseling, outreach programs, 
including at military facilities and VetSuccess on Campus.
  These programs and benefits and claims cannot be sustained by a 
piecemeal allocation of money. The claims need to be verified by going 
to other agencies such as the IRS. The labor training programs need to 
be provided by the Department of Labor. Opening one agency is no 
substitute for a comprehensive approach to serve these veterans and the 
people of the United States, whether it is Head Start children who 
depend on that program, or seniors who depend on nutritional services.
  Over these past 2 weeks, I have spoken to home buyers whose loans 
cannot be processed by government agencies or by banks, business owners 
whose borrowing cannot be approved, potential victims of health threats 
who cannot be protected by the FDA or the CDC. There are researchers at 
the NIH and at places such as Yale who cannot continue their vital work 
to learn of new treatments, of advances in medicine that can help save 
people's lives and prevent suffering, and medical school applicants and 
Ph.D. candidates whose financial aid is in jeopardy and who cannot 
even, many of them, travel with government support to interview for 
their next possible assignment and study.
  These ramifications are not limited to veterans. They affect our 
economy at its core. I warned about the effect on job growth and 
economic recovery and now it is visible, literally visible in the 
businesses and offices and places of employ throughout Connecticut.
  Just yesterday in the Connecticut Post there was this story. The 
picture is of Robin Imbrogno. This picture of Robin Imbrogno from the 
Connecticut Post in yesterday's newspaper is of her at a meeting with 
her staff, preparing for their work. Their office in Seymour, CT, 
provides human resource services for businesses from California to 
Maine, across the country, to more than 150 business clients.
  It begins:

       Robin Imbrogno pulled her staff together after work on 
     Thursday for an update:
       How, she asked, has the federal government's partial 
     shutdown impacted business at her company, the Human 
     Resources Consulting Group?
       ``Even more ways than I'd thought,'' she said moments 
     later.

  I am going to quote the article.


[[Page 15838]]

       At the company's office in downtown Seymour, the staff of 
     about 30 was having trouble carrying out a host of tasks for 
     their more than 150 clients located from California to Maine: 
     For one, they can't access [the central source of information 
     in the government]. For another, they can't finish background 
     checks or file equal employment opportunity reports. Most 
     vexingly, perhaps, they got more phone calls than ever on 
     Monday complaining that pay checks hadn't arrived in people's 
     mailboxes across America--even though the U.S. Postal Service 
     is supposedly fully staffed.

  Their report is about new businesses that cannot open, retail 
businesses that cannot go into business because they cannot ``procure 
the necessary business license.''
  As Robin said, ``It wasn't a fun phone call.''
  There is evidence of this effect on employment in businesses across 
this country, across the State of Connecticut. This relatively modest-
size business in Seymore, CT, the Human Resources Consulting Group, 
founded and headed by Robin Imbrogno, is just one of many across the 
country.
  Her reports about the effects on jobs--we are talking jobs--is a 
wake-up call for this body. It is a wake-up call for not only the 
Congress but for everyone in positions of leadership, because this 
effect will be enduring.
  In the same article from the Connecticut Post, it talks about the SBA 
not providing loans to small businesses: $150,000 worth of loans every 
day in one Congressional district in Connecticut alone. Eight companies 
slated to get SBA-backed loans from a private nonprofit organization 
will not receive them because of this shutdown.
  There are other individuals. I cannot share all of their stories, but 
just a few. Mary Brady in Durham is trying to buy a home. She cannot do 
it because she is unable to verify Social Security numbers and income 
with the Internal Revenue Service; Jesse Pannell, who contacted my 
office because the buyer of his home in Union, CT, cannot process a 
loan from the USDA because the USDA employees are furloughed and there 
is no one to process his buyer's application.
  In the city of New Haven, which I visited over the weekend, urban 
renewal is halted because of the shutdown. This city relies on the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development to proceed with foreclosure 
actions on developers. Those developers are subject to foreclosure 
actions when they fail to maintain their property, when that property 
becomes a blight on the neighborhood. But, of course, HUD employees are 
furloughed and they are not at their desks to help the city of New 
Haven.
  This ripple effect spans the State and the country. It goes from 
loans to a physical therapy company, a car wash, a catering company, a 
dental firm, small businesses that populate Main Street. As much as we 
focus on the markets, on Wall Street, we are talking about Main Street 
in jeopardy because of this shutdown. These are real-life tragedies. 
There are real consequences to real people, real harm and hardship in 
real lives. This body has to listen to them, as I did, and as I have 
done over the past couple of weeks.
  Behind all of this real harm to real people is the prospect of an 
even more horrendous possible harm resulting from this Nation failing 
to pay its bills on time. The havoc and chaos that would result, the 
calamity and catastrophe across the globe, the lasting impact on our 
Nation, on our credibility as a world power, simply is unthinkable and 
unimaginable.
  How would we face our children if we were to allow this Nation to go 
into default? How would this generation explain itself to the next and 
the one after? Every generation enters into a compact in America that 
we will leave this Nation better than we found it, just as the World 
War II generation fought to preserve freedom and democracy and gave of 
itself in combat and then came back to build the interstates and 
desegregate our schools and put a man on the Moon. In peace as well as 
war, our veterans are coming back eager and ready to contribute to this 
country.
  The men I just mentioned and met with in East Hartford at VFW Post 
283, veterans across Connecticut, veterans across the country, expect 
more from this government and are eager to leave this Nation greater 
than it was left to them, and there are millions of other Americans who 
also are contributing and giving back in their own ways and who are 
committed to following that model of courage and dedication that has 
characterized previous generations. How do we face the next generation 
if we allow this great Nation to fail to fulfill its most basic 
obligation that every family meets--paying its bills on time.
  It is often said America always does the right thing, after it tries 
everything else. I know I am paraphrasing, not quoting directly. 
Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst of all possible 
governments, except for all the others.
  We do not have the luxury today of trying everything else before 
America does the right thing. We do not have the luxury of failing 
democracy and failing to pay our bills on time. We must meet this 
challenge and follow the example of those veterans and millions of 
other courageous Americans who have said to all of us, as they did to 
me this morning: Get the job done. Make sure the Government of the 
United States serves the people and pays its bills on time.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will be speaking later this afternoon 
with regard to the judges, but I have heard a number of people, 
including the distinguished senior Senator from Connecticut and others 
on the floor, speaking about the effect of the shutdown. I appreciate 
my colleagues who come and give real-world statements of how what is 
happening here impacts their constituents.
  I was just in Vermont and had the opportunity to talk with people, 
many of whom I have known for years, about how they are being effected 
by the shutdown. These are hard-working people who work for our 
government. They have skills our government needs. They are being 
furloughed through no fault of their own.
  They said: I know I am getting paid less in the government, but I 
have a skill and the country has done so much for me and my family, it 
is a way to give back, but I am not going to tell my children to do 
that. They are well educated. I am not going to tell them to do that, 
to get treated this way.
  What is going to happen is we are going to have a lot of these 
furloughed people who will say the heck with it. They will leave 
government service. These are experts in our intelligence services, the 
Department of Defense, medical research, and other areas. What will 
happen when we try to replace them? We will be scrambling around, 
hiring contractors, paying a lot more for people without the skills and 
experience.
  The private sector is being impacted. I have used the example of a 
person who has a microbrewery in Vermont. He put a lot of money and 
effort into a seasonal brew and was prepared to go with it during what 
we call the leaf-peeping season, the fall foliage season, in Vermont, 
but he needs an approval stamp from the Department of Agriculture, but 
the people who would give him the approval he needs have been 
furloughed.
  There are a number of people who may need a passport for an 
emergency, a family member is abroad and ill and somebody has to get on 
a plane. A lot passports get issued in St. Albans, Vermont, but the 
employees at the passport office are not allowed to go to work and get 
their job done.
  Those who have questions of the IRS that they need for their 
businesses, normally they could call them, but the IRS is closed.
  In another area--and someone in the press asked me about this a few 
moments ago--what about the court system. Our Federal court system is 
facing some very serious problems. If

[[Page 15839]]

there is a criminal case, because of our speedy trial rules, that goes 
to the head of the line. We also have, since Gideon v. Wainwright, the 
fact that criminal defendants are entitled to counsel. But the counsel 
might not be there. Defenders' offices might have to furlough staff.
  Courts can't keep asking the same lawyers to just volunteer their 
time; maybe they will get paid and maybe they will not, and if they do, 
it is going to be far less than they make otherwise.
  What happens is that those criminal cases start backing up. Then if 
there is a legitimate civil case one wishes to bring, good luck in the 
Federal courts. They could wait year after year after year to have 
their case heard. By the time their case makes it in front of a judge, 
whatever remedy they might have is going to be inadequate because of 
the delay. Justice delayed is justice denied.
  This is happening in our Federal courts as the money runs out because 
we have not passed a Continuing Resolution to fund our co-equal branch 
of government. Combined with the funding cuts to the courts due to 
sequestration and the 93 current Federal district and circuit 
judgeships that are vacant 39 of which have been deemed judicial 
emergency vacancies because the caseloads are so high and it is not 
difficult to see that our courts need us act. Fortunately, we will have 
one judge from Illinois and one judge from Alabama confirmed this 
afternoon--but we have a shortage of judges because of vacancies and 
because we are having to wait months and months before we are able to 
vote on uncontroversial nominees, who in the past would have been 
confirmed within days.
  I could give 1,000 examples, but the ripple effect on real Americans 
is awful. We see a salmonella outbreak in the West. We know our 
Department of Agriculture inspectors are out there checking--oh, wait a 
minute, they are not. They are furloughed or many of them are. What do 
we do there?
  As to areas where there are ports, normally busy ports, is shipping 
coming in and out or is it being slowed because there are suddenly less 
people?
  I know when I talk to the FBI, they tell me about investigations they 
can't go forward with or can't complete because of furloughs.
  We had this horrific bus accident in the South a couple of weeks ago. 
I cannot imagine the grief those families must feel for those who were 
lost. What I found shocking was that after the accident our National 
Transportation Safety Board couldn't send a team down to find out what 
happened and whether there is anything that can be learned to prevent 
similar crashes because their investigators are furloughed.
  I know the distinguished Presiding Officer has stood and worked hard 
on this floor, in our caucuses, and with others to get the government 
back open and to get us to do the right thing. I am preaching to the 
converted.
  I see our deputy leader, the distinguished senior leader from 
Illinois, who has spoken not only on this floor but in the national 
media for the need to reopen.
  I yield the floor to the distinguished Senator from Illinois. I thank 
the Senator for what he is doing, as I stopped in to thank our majority 
leader for standing strongly on this to reopen the government.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Let me first thank the senior Senator from Vermont and 
the President pro tempore of the Senate.
  I wish to say to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it 
has been my great honor for 15 or 16 years to work with the Senator 
from Vermont. He is an extraordinary person and an extraordinary leader 
on one of the most important committees in Congress.
  I see Senator Barrasso on the floor. I have about a 10-minute 
statement if the Senator's schedule allows. I thank the Senator.


                       Nomination of Andrea Wood

  In a short time, a little more than 1 hour, the Senate will come to 
consider two judicial nominees. I will speak to one of these nominees 
from the State of Illinois. The other I am sure will be addressed by 
other Members of the Senate.
  I rise to speak in support of the nomination of Andrea Wood to serve 
on the U.S. District Court in the Northern District Illinois.
  Ms. Wood has the qualifications, integrity, and judgment to be an 
outstanding Federal district court judge. I was proud to recommend Ms. 
Wood's name to the President of the United States to be considered for 
this position. I was prouder still when the President concurred in that 
recommendation. She has my support and the support of my colleague 
Senator Mark Kirk to fill the Chicago-based judgeship which was left 
vacant by the untimely death of Judge Bill Hibbler.
  I wish to say a word about Judge Bill Hibbler. Judge Hibbler was one 
of my earlier appointments, a State judge who became an important asset 
to the Federal bench in Chicago. His untimely death left an 
extraordinary vacancy. I was at his memorial service, and the tributes 
that were paid to him for his life of public service were truly 
fitting. Ms. Wood now has difficult shoes to fill, and it may be 
impossible, but I think in her own special way she will make an 
extraordinary contribution to the court as well.
  This vacancy has been designated as a judicial emergency by the 
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and I am pleased the Senate 
is moving to confirm Ms. Wood today.
  Ms. Wood currently serves as a senior trial counsel at the Securities 
and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement in Chicago. In this 
capacity she represents the SEC in complex litigation matters. She is a 
native of St. Louis, and she received her B.A. from the University of 
Chicago, where she was selected as one of the student convocation 
speakers. She received her law degree from Yale, where she served on 
the Yale Law Journal.
  After graduating from law school, Ms. Wood clerked for Judge Diane 
Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She then joined the 
Chicago law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where she worked on securities, 
bankruptcies, tax, and other litigation matters.
  She joined the SEC in 2004 as a senior attorney in the Division of 
Enforcement, where she investigated and litigated securities law 
violations, including fraud, insider trading, and other misconduct. In 
2007, she became a senior trial counsel, serving as the lead SEC 
attorney on litigation matters and coordinating with the U.S. 
Attorney's Office and other regulators on parallel enforcement actions.
  Ms. Wood knows the world of litigation at the highest levels. She has 
received numerous awards for her work at the SEC, including the 
Director's Award from the Director of the Division of Enforcement, as 
well as eight Special Act Awards for her work on individual matters. In 
addition to her busy government service, Ms. Wood has found time to 
serve the Chicago community through a variety of charitable causes.
  She appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on 
June 19 and was reported out of the committee on July 18 by a unanimous 
voice vote. She is an outstanding nominee for the Federal bench, and I 
urge my colleagues to support her nomination when it comes to the floor 
of the Senate later this afternoon.
  I see on the floor the Senator from North Dakota, who has asked 
permission to speak.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. I wish to thank my esteemed colleague from Illinois and 
take this opportunity to offer some remarks on the debt ceiling and the 
continuing operations of the government.
  I come to the floor to make an appeal for action, action on opening 
the government and action on addressing the debt ceiling. Of course, 
that requires bipartisan effort. This is something our colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle have to work together to accomplish. We have 
been negotiating, not only our leadership, Senator Reid and Senator 
McConnell, but the Members of this

[[Page 15840]]

body, Republican and Democratic, both sides of the aisle. We have been 
negotiating and talking about many different ideas, but now we need to 
come together and find a way to both address the debt ceiling and to 
reopen the government.
  The kinds of ideas we have discussed include a short-term extension 
of the debt ceiling. Certainly Members on my side of the aisle feel we 
have to also address the underlying problems that are leading to our 
growing debt and deficit.
  We need savings and reforms as part of addressing that debt ceiling. 
Also, we have talked about ideas for a continuing resolution to reopen 
the government, one that follows established law. By that I mean the 
Budget Control Act, which establishes budgetary caps that need to be 
kept in place and honored as part of this agreement.
  The continuing resolution we have talked about would also include 
flexibility for agencies to prioritize spending subject to 
congressional oversight, but we have to have budget discipline. We are 
spending more than we are taking in. Whether it is a family, whether it 
is a business, whether it is the Federal Government, that doesn't work. 
We must exercise budget discipline.
  Also, we have talked about ideas that might include addressing the 
medical device tax, possibly repealing the medical device tax or at 
least deferring it for 2 years and paying for it with pension smoothing 
under provisions similar to those in MAP-21. We have looked at and 
talked about requiring income verification under the Affordable Care 
Act to avoid fraud, ideas Republicans have put forward. I think there 
has been broad support for it on the Democratic side of the aisle.
  An agreement composed of these kinds of ideas would open government 
and address the debt ceiling on a short-term basis, but the reality is 
we need to find savings and reforms to address the underlying problems 
that are driving our deficit and our debt. As part of a debt ceiling 
agreement, we need to have savings and reforms that underlie our 
problem. Our problem is that we are spending more than we take in. We 
can't raise the debt ceiling for another year and add $1 trillion in 
debt to the debt that we already have of $17 trillion. It is kind of 
like going to the bank. When you go to the bank and you talk to the 
banker, you say: Hey, I want a loan. I want to increase the loan I 
have, and I want to raise my credit limit.
  The banker may be willing to give you the loan, but he is going to 
say to you: What are you going to do to address the underlying problem, 
the problem you have that you are spending more than you are taking in? 
What are you going to do to address that?
  If you said to the banker: I am not going to do anything to address 
it, you might have a hard time getting the loan, right? That is true 
whether you are a family, that is true whether you are a business, and 
that should be true for the Federal Government. So let's put the 
necessary savings and reforms in place.
  In his budget, the President identified more than $600 billion in 
changes and savings and reforms that he could support to mandatory 
spending programs, and we have talked to him about those time and 
again. Now is the time to implement those savings and reforms to those 
mandatory spending programs.
  Let me cite an example of one I have been hard at work on for the 
last 2 years; that is, the farm bill. The farm bill is a mandatory 
spending program. I am a member of the agriculture committee, and we 
have worked hard on changes, on improvements, on actually strengthening 
the farm bill by strengthening crop insurance under the farm bill, 
which is what our farmers and ranchers want. As we worked through that, 
at the same time we identified on the order of $25 billion to $30 
billion in savings that we can generate by reforming the farm program.
  I am a member of the conference committee on the Senate side. The 
House has now appointed their conferees. We are ready to go and resolve 
the differences between the House and Senate versions of the farm bill, 
and we can have a stronger farm program and save billions of dollars.
  Those are the kinds of mandatory spending program reforms we need to 
put in place as part of the debt ceiling agreement. And we need to find 
a common commitment, a bipartisan commitment, and a commitment on the 
part of the administration as well as the Congress to do that.
  When we talk about addressing the debt ceiling, that is what it 
really means. It doesn't just mean raising the debt ceiling. It doesn't 
just mean borrowing more money. It means fixing the problem. So we need 
to act. We need to address the debt ceiling. We need to get the 
government open, but we need to have a common commitment, a bipartisan 
commitment to solving the underlying problems and to getting the 
reforms and the savings that will ensure we aren't spending more than 
we are taking in.
  Of course, a big part of that is economic growth as well. We 
understand that. And at the point where we truly come together in a 
bipartisan way--and I would argue this is that point and this is that 
time--I think the markets will react, and I think business across this 
country will react. Businesses large and small will react because the 
certainty of knowing we truly are dealing with our debt and our deficit 
will give them the confidence to invest and hire more people, not only 
bringing people back to work, reducing unemployment, but getting 
economic growth--economic growth not by raising taxes but, with 
economic growth, broadening and growing the base and generating revenue 
to help with our deficit and our debt.
  By putting these commonsense reforms, these solutions, these savings 
in place as part of this debt ceiling agreement--a commitment to doing 
that on both sides of the aisle--we will help unleash the power of the 
strongest economy in the world, and that economic growth will be a huge 
part of solving our deficit and our debt as well. It is vitally 
important that we do it. It is vitally important that we do it for the 
strength of our country, to get people back to work, but most of all 
for our children and for future generations. I don't believe there is 
anybody here in Congress--in the Senate, in the House--or anywhere else 
who wants to leave our children with a $17 trillion debt. So let's 
solve this. We can do it, and now is the time.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, here we are, it is October 14, and the 
government has been shut down for 2 full weeks. We are about 3 days 
away from a debt ceiling deadline. I keep hearing rumors that a deal is 
close. I certainly hope that is true, that we do make some 
breakthroughs and we get through this impasse, but I have some 
observations on that, and I thought I might take a moment to set the 
record straight based on what I have been hearing over the weekend on 
some of the talk shows and some things that came out over the weekend.
  In the last day or so there was talk about Democrats putting ``a new 
issue'' on the table, that Democrats are now putting sequestration on 
the table in these talks. Well, I don't know how anyone could think 
this is a new issue.
  In March the Senate approved a budget that replaced sequestration 
with a mix of entitlement reform and revenue increases.
  In April the President put forward a budget that replaced 
sequestration with again a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases.
  Throughout the spring and summer the Appropriations Committee, on 
which I serve, debated and passed bills that conformed to the budget 
resolution replacing sequestration. Republicans in the House and Senate 
have taken part in this debate. Republicans on the Senate 
Appropriations Committee responded with a letter objecting to our 
policy of replacing the sequestration cuts.

[[Page 15841]]

  The House passed its own budget, the Ryan budget, which also takes 
their position on sequestration. They even made it worse by preventing 
cuts in the military and taking all the rest out of nondefense 
discretionary spending. I know that sounds like a big word, but it is 
spending that comes out of things such as education and social services 
and health, NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 
all those other things.
  Now, again, we heard a lot of talk by Republicans on the Senate side 
that we Democrats were violating the Budget Control Act by coming in at 
a higher level than what sequestration called for. At the same time, 
the Republicans on the House side violated the Budget Control Act by 
not taking 50-50. In other words, the Budget Control Act said that if 
sequestration goes into effect, then the cuts have to be made 50 
percent from defense and 50 percent from nondefense. The Ryan budget--
what they did in the House--left defense whole and took everything out 
of--as I said, everything else, mainly out of health, education, labor, 
and that pot of money.
  So I guess you might ask whether both sides violated the Budget 
Control Act. No. Both sides had their approach on how to deal with the 
Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act is not the Ten Commandments 
written in stone for all eternity. It is a law. And when we have laws 
around here, periodically, guess what. We change them or modify them, 
of course.
  So the Budget Control Act was passed, the supercommittee was set up, 
it didn't hit its goals, so sequestration went into effect. Now that we 
have seen the disastrous consequences of sequestration for this year, 
those on my side of the aisle said: Well, look, it is time to get rid 
of sequestration, and let's make our decisions as legislators on how we 
want to spend the taxpayers' money and how we might want to raise 
revenues.
  The Republicans on the House side--I don't say they violated 
anything, they just did their own thing. They said: To heck with the 
Budget Control Act. We don't want to take any money out of defense. We 
will leave that whole and take it out of everything else.
  That would have been the proper time for the House and Senate Budget 
Committees to get together in a conference so they could work out their 
differences. But 19 times we have come to the floor to ask to go to 
conference on the budget, and 19 times the Republicans have refused to 
let us go to conference to even talk about it. So sequestration is the 
biggest difference between these two budgets.
  I might add, with regard to the budget Mr. Ryan came up with in the 
House, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, a 
Republican, called it ``unworkable,'' for whatever that is worth.
  Nonetheless, sequestration is the biggest difference between our two 
budgets. Again, that is why we asked to go to conference time and time 
again. So sequestration is not some kind of new issue. It is the issue 
of the year. It will be the issue of next year. Do we blindly cut 
everything? Sequestration is a blind cut of everything, even programs 
everyone here might agree are worthwhile and should be funded. But that 
is what we are elected to do. We are elected to make those kind of 
choices and work them out in a conference committee.
  If you think sequestration is some kind of a new issue, I guess it is 
only a new issue if your memory is only 2 weeks long. If you know what 
has been going on for this year, sequestration is the major difference.
  Two weeks ago Senate Democrats compromised in an attempt to keep the 
government open. How did we do that? We agreed to keep the government 
open for 6 weeks--at that time, until November 15--at the current 
levels, which included the sequestration cuts. It was not in our 
budget, but we agreed, to give us time before Christmas to go to 
conference and work out the differences. We passed it at the same level 
which was included in the continuing resolution passed by the House of 
Representatives. We agreed to compromise our level down to the House 
level for 6 weeks to keep the government open. We passed it and sent it 
over to the House. It has been sitting there ever since. Speaker 
Boehner will not permit it to come to the floor for a vote. Why? 
Perhaps he knows if he brings it up for a vote, it will pass and the 
President will sign it.
  Instead, they began this by saying we had to change ObamaCare. We had 
to make changes in the Affordable Care Act--which has nothing to do 
with this budget, by the way. That didn't work. So now they have 
shifted to a whole bunch of other demands. And we have never really 
gone to conference. What the Republicans are now saying is we should 
give up a whole year. Forget about the budget resolution we passed 
here, and agree to what they passed in the House for the next year 
without even going to conference.
  So first the Republicans in the House won't agree to negotiate on the 
budget unless we agree to their top priority--no revenue increases. 
Then Republicans insist upon shutting down the government to stop 
ObamaCare. Now this weekend Republicans have been saying they won't 
agree to reopen government or lift the debt ceiling until Democrats 
agree to the total spending level in the Ryan budget. This is truly 
unprecedented.
  We heard over and over Republicans wanted the Democrats to produce a 
budget. We did. Now they are doing everything in their power to avoid 
discussing our budget. But what is truly incredible is that Republicans 
want the world to believe Democrats agreeing to a compromise for 6 
weeks was an agreement to give up our entire budget for the whole next 
year. I don't know why the press is playing into this. They seem to be 
saying it is tit for tat. It is one side; it is the other.
  No, it is not. We agreed to 6 weeks. Now the House says that we must 
agree to it for 1 year. That was never part of our budget we sent to 
the House. So that is not a compromise.
  I will happily vote for a bill that extends the current level for 6 
weeks or so. We have already voted for that. The House wanted 10 weeks. 
But I think a debate over whether to keep or change sequestration for 
the year--which is the entire debate between the Senate and the House 
budget resolution--is too important to be used as a bargaining chip for 
basic government operations.
  I didn't watch the Sunday shows. I rarely ever do. I have better 
things to do on Sunday. But I couldn't help but read the paper this 
morning, and there was a statement in the paper made by the senior 
Senator from Arizona. I guess he was on a talk show, and they were 
quoting him.
  Senator McCain said: I guess we could go lower in the polls. Right 
now we are down to blood relatives and paid staffers.
  That is kind of cute. And I am quoting the newspapers, so I don't 
know if he said it this way or not. He said: But we have got to turn 
this around and the Democrats had better help us.
  What does that mean? They are the ones that shut the government down. 
As I said, there is a bill before the House right now. If the Speaker 
would put it on the floor, it would open the government. We passed that 
here. We helped them. We agreed to their level for 6 weeks. How much 
more help do they need?
  The more I read about this in the print and watch the news programs, 
the more it becomes clear to me there is an attitude being pushed by 
the Republicans that if they agree to reopen the government and if they 
agree to extend the debt limit, they are doing us Democrats a favor. 
Read between the lines. It is like they are doing us a big favor to do 
this. Therefore, we have to give them all these concessions because 
they are doing us a favor.
  I tell my Republican friends, they are not doing us Democrats a favor 
whatsoever. If they agree to reopen the government and extend the debt 
limit, they are doing the Nation a favor, not the Democrats. So get 
that out of your head that somehow, because you are willing to do that, 
we have to give concessions on something else. We can talk about 
concessions, and we can talk about sequestration and other budgets when 
we go to conference--if

[[Page 15842]]

they will let us go to conference. Nineteen times they have opposed us 
going to conference. But talking about concessions now as a means of 
reopening government or extending the debt limit--that shouldn't even 
be a part of the equation. Somehow the press continues to report this 
as a legitimate demand on the part of Republicans; that if we want to 
open the government, then they get to demand certain concessions. Why 
is that legitimate? The legitimate thing is to reopen the government. 
It is very simple.
  Other people have come to the floor to talk about the impact of 
sequestration, and I thought I would just take a moment again--I did 
the other day, I will do it again today, and I will continue to do 
this--to alert people as to what another year of sequestration would 
mean for programs which come under the jurisdiction of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, 
Education, and Related Agencies, which I have been privileged to chair 
or be the ranking member of since 1989. Here is what would happen next 
year if we continued sequestration: Some 177,000 fewer children will 
get Head Start services. Maybe that is not your kid or my grandkids. 
Everybody here has plenty of money. But it affects a lot of low-income 
families in this country.
  And 1.3 million fewer students would get title I education 
assistance--no kids of anybody in this body or the House, none of our 
grandkids. We have plenty of money. But low-income families all across 
this country, in urban areas as well as rural, get title I assistance.
  And 760,000 fewer households will receive heating or cooling 
assistance under what we call LIHEAP, Low Income Heating and Energy 
Assistance Program. Again, it won't affect anybody in this body, it 
won't affect anybody in the House, and probably none of our families. 
But it will affect 760,000 households with an elderly person without 
much money, maybe just living off a Social Security check and nothing 
else.
  Special education programs under the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act. We fund a portion which goes out to the States. By 
sequestration, the less money we put out will mean 9,000 special 
education staff will be cut from classrooms. Maybe the States will come 
up with the money. Maybe local taxpayers will come up with the money. I 
am just saying, under sequestration we will not be paying for 9,000 
special education teachers and staff.
  Sequestration next year means $291 million less for child care 
subsidies for working families. These are families that go to work 
every day, and many are single parents. These are low-paying jobs, and 
the only way they can go to work is to have some kind of child care 
subsidy, and $291 million will be taken out of that. Again, it won't 
affect anybody here.
  Two billion dollars less for the National Institutes of Health. That 
is 1,300 fewer research grants next year. Which one of those grants 
will lead to breakthrough discoveries in medicine and cures?
  We have a fraud and abuse program in Medicare. It recovers $7.90 for 
every $1 we appropriate. A lot of that comes because of overcharges 
from drug companies. We have seen cases in Wisconsin and a number of 
other States with huge settlements because the drug companies were 
overcharging. For every $1 that we put in, we recover $7.90. Because of 
the cut, because of sequestration, we will lose about $2.7 billion next 
year in funds that we would assume we would get back. Aside from that, 
drug companies know we won't have enough cops on the beat, and that 
will be an excuse for them to just start overcharging again.
  So those are just a few of the things that will happen if we continue 
sequestration. There are probably some on the other side who just don't 
care. For example, one Member of the House Republican caucus asked 
Representative Bachmann about the government shut down, and she said: 
We are very excited. It is exactly what we wanted, and we got it.
  Then there is Representative Culberson who reportedly said: It is 
wonderful. We are 100 percent united.
  What are they excited about? They are excited about the government 
shutdown. They are probably excited about sequestration. They are 
excited about hundreds of thousands of low-income kids not getting Head 
Start. They are excited about low-income families not getting heating 
and cooling assistance. They are excited that special education 
teachers will be cut. They are excited about this. This is their vision 
of America.
  The tea party had some big gathering here in Washington the last few 
days. I happened to be reading about it. There was one woman there 
talking to reporters. She said we need to go back to the late 1800s in 
this country when we grew our own vegetables.
  I thought to myself, fine. If you want to, you can do that. There is 
nothing restricting her from going out and living without electricity 
or running water, health care. She can go find a cabin someplace in the 
woods, I suppose, have a little plot of land, grow her vegetables, do 
her own canning. You can do that, if you like.
  But why does she insist that we all want to do that? I don't think a 
lot of people want to go back to the late 1800s in this country. Think 
of what life was like then: child labor, people working 60, 70 hours a 
week, no minimum wage, no Social Security, no Medicare, no education 
for a lot of low-income kids. If you had money, you were fine. Disease 
was rampant--polio, measles, smallpox. That was the late 1800s. That is 
what the tea party wants. They want to go back to that. They keep up 
this hue and cry about that; things have just gotten out of hand.
  Things have not gotten out of hand. We are a big country. We are a 
big nation--powerful, big. We have a lot of economic assets, but we 
have a lot of human assets too. We have to take care not just of the 
economic assets but our human assets as well. There are no economic 
assets without human assets. We need to invest in our people and not 
listen to those who want to turn the clock back to the 1800s. That is 
what sequestration would start to do. It would start to turn the clock 
back--oh, maybe not to the 1800s--I don't want to exaggerate--but 
certainly before the Great Society and certainly, probably, even before 
the New Deal. They do want to get rid of Social Security. They do want 
to get rid of Medicare.
  I guess Grover Norquist, who is sort of their patron saint, said: We 
want to reduce the size of government so small we can drown it in the 
bathtub. That is what they want. That is their vision of America. That 
is their vision of our future.
  I am hoping we do reach some agreements and we can get out of this. 
But the Republicans have dug themselves in this hole, not us. Now they 
say they want us to help them. We already have. We passed a bill and 
sent it to the House to open the government. We now have before us, as 
we did on Saturday, a bill to extend the debt limit without strings 
attached until December 2014. Every single Republican voted against 
even going to that bill to even discuss it on Saturday. I opened the 
newspapers on Sunday to read about it, and there is very little talk 
about that. Is there something I missed? Did we not have a vote here on 
Saturday on a motion to proceed to raising the debt limit for 1 year--
just to go to the bill so we can discuss it? People could offer 
amendments. Every single Republican voted against even going to that 
bill, even discussing it.
  We have thrown plenty of lifelines out there. If what the senior 
Senator from Arizona meant by ``help'' is that we have to give up on 
everything in terms of our budget, sequestration, all that other stuff, 
that is nonsense. I made a counterproposal. I said if they are going to 
keep putting all that stuff on there as conditions, we ought to start 
putting conditions on it too.
  If they want some help, how about raising the minimum wage right now? 
That would be something we could do. Wouldn't that be neat? If they 
want to reopen the government and extend the debt ceiling, let's raise 
the minimum wage right now for people in this country. I would put that 
on the table right now. I would put on the table that we

[[Page 15843]]

need to put more money into special education to help our local 
taxpayers and more money, certainly, into early childhood education. 
Maybe those are the things we ought to put on the table, saying: If you 
want help, agree to these things. I will not go there. But if they 
continue to push this idea, if the Republicans continue to push this 
idea that somehow we have to capitulate on everything else, then I 
think we just throw these things on the table and say: OK, you want us 
to agree to that? You agree to this. We will have a little tit-for-tat 
on that and see how far it goes.
  That is why this whole talk about giving up on sequestration and 
budget matters is a nonstarter. Open the government--very simple. 
Extend the debt limit--very simple. Then go to conference and talk 
about this. That is the way out of this. That is the real, adult, 
democratic--with a small ``d''--way out of this mess. I call upon the 
Republicans not to do us a favor. Do the country a favor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, in just 3 days, barring some action by 
Congress, the Treasury Department of the United States will run out of 
options for preventing default on this Nation's debts for the first 
time in our history, setting off a chain of economic events that will 
be felt around the world and by every family and business and State and 
community in our country.
  We have heard a great deal on this floor the last few days about how 
we arrived at this point and who is to blame. There is a lot of concern 
and consternation about exactly who owns this and how we got here. I am 
not going to spend time today on that. I am going to skip the politics 
and the drama for now and just talk about the facts and the policy. I 
just want to talk to Delawareans about what would happen if we actually 
go over this impending cliff, if we do default, and which of the 
options for addressing this are viable.
  First, let's be clear about what we are talking about.
  What is the debt ceiling? Defaulting on our debt by failing to raise 
the debt ceiling is not the same as cutting up America's credit cards. 
It is not the same as denying the President the right to sign more 
checks into the future. Raising the debt ceiling does not give Congress 
or the President a blank check to spend more money. It allows the 
United States to borrow more money, yes, but only to pay bills for 
goods and services already incurred, to meet pledges already made.
  We have had some kind of a national debt ceiling since 1917, when 
Congress allowed the Treasury Department to issue long-term Liberty 
bonds to pay for our engagement in the First World War. Over the course 
of the next two decades, caps were placed on other kinds of debt as 
well, and finally, in 1939, Congress decided to place a ceiling on the 
total amount of debt the country could have.
  The last time Congress raised the debt ceiling, it was up to $16.99 
trillion. Technically, we reached that limit a few months ago--actually 
on May 19 of this year. The Treasury Department has since been using 
what it calls ``extraordinary measures'' to keep paying our bills, but, 
as Secretary Lew has communicated to this Congress over and over in 
letter and in testimony, in just a few days the Treasury Department 
will no longer have enough money to keep up. These extraordinary 
measures will have run out, and in a week or two later we will have 
come up to zero.
  What are the bills we need to raise the ceiling in order to pay? It 
is the salaries of all Federal employees, including our military; it is 
Social Security and Medicare payments; it is unemployment benefits, tax 
refunds, and interest on our sovereign debt. Raising the debt limit 
allows the Treasury to borrow the money it needs to pay these bills. 
That is it.
  If on any particular day more bills come due than we have cash in our 
accounts to cover, then the United States of America will default on 
some or all of its obligations. That day is coming and coming quickly. 
Frankly, we cannot let it happen.
  For decades investors have bought U.S. debt because it was seen as a 
sure thing, a safe investment. When people buy a Treasury bill, a T-
bill, they do so because they know they are going to earn interest on 
one of the safest investments in the world. American debt is considered 
unimpeachable. That is what makes the dollar the reserve currency for 
much of the world, which is something that benefits every American 
company and community and family in ways that are hard to see but 
cumulatively powerful--the absolute certainty that we will repay our 
national debt.
  Who are these investors? Who are the folks who buy these T-bills? 
Some are everyday Americans. A large number of retirees invest in our 
government bonds because they are such a safe bet. Pension funds and 
mutual funds invest in government bonds for the same reason. Some 
investors are the governments of other nations that look at the United 
States as such a good investment that they tie their financial 
stability to ours. So when it starts to look as if Congress will not 
live up to that standard, will not take the steps necessary to pay all 
of our bills on time and might actually default on some of our debts 
and transform us into a deadbeat nation, it makes investors really 
nervous.
  Just the talk of defaulting on our debts sends a shockwave through 
our economy and through the markets. For proof we need only look back 
to August of 2001, when Congress last brought the Nation to the brink 
of default. Although we didn't cross the line, just the talk of it, the 
mere possibility that we might for the first time default had an array 
of consequences.
  First, it slowed job growth and led to an increase in part-time 
employment.
  Second, consumer confidence in our economy fell. The Consumer 
Confidence Index--the index of consumer confidence--is a reliable 
indicator of Americans' willingness to spend money and fuel our 
economic growth. We want consumers buying products at their local 
stores and keeping people employed, right? The index was already on the 
pessimistic side of the line when this last crisis began but has fallen 
substantially since the government shutdown. Instability and 
uncertainty reduces consumer confidence and takes money out of our 
economy.
  Third, the yield of our Treasury bills had to increase in order to 
prop up demand. As U.S. debt becomes perceived as a riskier investment, 
we have to incentivize investors by increasing what we will pay them. 
That means taxpayers will have to pay more over time in order to 
compensate. The debate in 2011 will cost American taxpayers an 
additional $19 billion over the next decade. Again, just the debate as 
we ran up to the possibility of default in 2011 added $19 billion in 
debt service costs to the bonds that were issued in the days and months 
after.
  Fourth, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's--one of the big 
three--lowered the credit rating of the United States, causing markets 
to drop more than 5 percent in a single day and 17 percent over the 
course of that crisis. It was one of the worst declines in the equities 
markets in history, and it was only because we talked about defaulting.
  Just threatening to default is terrible for our economy in all these 
four different ways.
  Financial analysts across the world have said Congress is already 
causing potentially lasting damage to the strength of the dollar just 
by repeatedly threatening to default. Said one:

       There is a negative confidence shock rippling through the 
     economy, and foreign investors have taken fright at 
     developments in Washington.

  Said another:

       A U.S. government default is not a zero-probability event 
     now. Although it remains very unlikely, a low-probability 
     high-impact event like this is naturally making investors 
     cautious.

  So we simply cannot afford this talk. We cannot let our Nation 
default.
  What happens if we do? What would actually happen if we get to the 
end of this week and have not resolved this crisis? I am encouraged by 
rumors of some resolution. I am encouraged that

[[Page 15844]]

there are negotiations and conversations going on. But I think we need 
to look in a clear-eyed way at what would happen if default should 
happen to occur.
  For starters, we don't really know. The situation has never been this 
bad before this, and the United States has never defaulted on its debt.
  Here is what the managing director of the International Monetary Fund 
said this weekend:

       If there is that degree of disruption, that lack of 
     certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature, it would 
     mean massive disruption the world over, and we would be at 
     risk of tipping yet again into global recession.

  We simply cannot afford that.
  Let me share another quote from history, from President Ronald 
Reagan, who back in 1983 had this to say about the potential threat of 
default and its impact on our economy:

       The full consequences of a default--or even the serious 
     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.
  As it was true back in 1983, so it is true again today. The comments 
from the head of the IMF and from a whole array of economists and 
bankers this past week remind us of the simple and enduring truth that 
the modern era has been one where the dollar has been the reserve 
currency for the world, and the strength of the American market has 
been critical to the strength of the American nation, our communities, 
and our economy. Frankly, to put that at risk over short-term political 
differences is reckless indeed.
  What we know is we will wake up this coming Friday with about $30 
billion in the Federal Government's account, according to Treasury 
Secretary Lew. What we don't know is how long it will last. The moment 
we can't pay one of our bills, we will default. That is what is known 
as X date. The government will still collect revenue, but it won't be 
enough to keep pace with our daily bills.
  Over the last year, the government collected $7.5 billion a day and 
spent an average of $9.7 billion a day. That means we come up about 
$2.2 billion short on our bills every day if we are not borrowing 
enough to make up the difference.
  Analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center suggest that we will run out 
of cash--hitting the X date--roughly on October 22. To be clear, part 
of why we don't know exactly what date this would occur is because 
money flows into the Federal Treasury at uneven rates, and it flows out 
at uneven rates.
  Let's look at a few of the bills that are about to come due in the 
next few weeks. On October 23, $12 billion in Social Security benefits 
are due; on October 28, $3 billion in Federal salaries would go unpaid. 
On October 30, $2 billion in Medicaid payments are due; on October 31, 
$6 billion in interest payments on our sovereign debt are due; on 
November 1, $58 billion in Medicare, Social Security, and SSI payments, 
as well as veterans' benefits and military pay.
  Those are just the major bills. There are thousands, even millions, 
of smaller payments that are due from every agency and entity of the 
Federal Government that go up and down day in and day out and where our 
failure to pay in a timely fashion, while technically not defaulting on 
our sovereign debt, would put into question our ability and willingness 
as a government to pay our bills when due.
  With what we have left, we will not be able to pay them all, and we 
will be in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which 
says that the debt of the United States of America shall not be 
questioned.
  If we have not raised the debt ceiling by this Thursday, we are 
likely to see disturbing losses in global markets. We have already 
started to see them as uncertainty takes over and volatility begins to 
spread. Investors are already pulling money out of our T-bills. If 2011 
is an indication, stock prices will soon begin to drop in the absence 
of some progress toward a resolution.
  Deutsche Bank, one of the world's most prominent investment banks, 
predicted the S&P 500 index will fall by a staggering 45 percent if we 
default. We heard loudly and clearly when we met with the credit 
ratings agencies after the 2011 incident that they would almost 
certainly downgrade the credit rating of the United States, which would 
reduce demand for Treasurys, particularly among investment funds that 
are required to hold a large number of AAA-rated securities.
  With the Nation pressed against its debt ceiling and future interest 
payments uncertain, investors will be hesitant to buy more T-bills. The 
toxicity of U.S. debt may spread to Treasury notes and bonds, and 
investors will almost certainly demand higher yields, which will cost 
our country significantly more over time. This is exactly what happened 
in 2011 when we flirted with default.
  Right now, the dollar is the world's reserve currency. Instead of 
keeping their money in cash, other nations buy our debt in order to get 
interest without risk. America has been a great investment. A default 
would cause other nations to sell our debt and then sell our dollars, 
weakening our dollars against foreign currencies, and raising the costs 
on every single good imported into the United States.
  If Treasury interest rates go up just 1 percentage point, it would 
add over $1 trillion in the next decade to our debt service cost. 
Anything we saved because of sequestration would be gone, and there is 
no reason to think that default would cause interest rates to go up by 
one single point. It could add $2 trillion or $3 trillion to our debt 
over the next decade. This affects everyone in our community and our 
country from large to small, from companies to communities to families. 
When Treasury interest rates go up, your interest rates go up. Mortgage 
rates, auto loans, student loans, business loans--they all go up, and 
they would go up fast. Default would make it harder for all of us to 
use credit responsibly. As consumers buy less, business profits would 
fall, GDP would fall, and the Nation once again would enter a 
recession. Defaulting on our debt would be an unimaginable drag on the 
economic health of our country, our community, and families. We cannot 
let it happen.
  Mr. President, I see my colleague Senator Mikulski has joined me on 
the floor. If I might, with her forbearance, I will take a few minutes 
to review a few points here, and then I will yield to her.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I am happy to yield and have the Senator 
from Delaware continue. He is the newest member of the Appropriations 
Committee. He has really articulated something everybody needs to 
understand. I am happy to wait my turn.
  Mr. COONS. In conclusion, I will briefly touch on our options. We 
have all heard on this floor Senators suggest that default is really 
not that big a deal, that we are not really going to default, that 
there are other ways around this, and that we need not be scared into 
making some hurried deal. At the end of the day, several Senators have 
accused the President of fearmongering and have accused my party of 
suggesting that default is a major threat to our country and our 
economy when, in fact, it is not.
  Let me briefly touch on the options that have been discussed by other 
Senators and, frankly, to my surprise. First, some have suggested we 
can pay our bills not when they are due but when we have the money--
sort of on a first-come, first-serve payment approach. Let's say we ran 
out of money, as I suggested, on the 20th of this month and could not 
pay our bills on the 21st. By the 23rd we would have enough money so we 
would pay the bills from the 21st, late, but go delinquent on the bills 
for the 22nd and 23rd, and so on. This is crazy. Payments would be 
delinquent and the United States would fall behind on its debt.
  This option would only make our situation worse. We would keep adding 
over $2 billion in debt every single day while going delinquent on our 
bills to Americans.
  The second way forward. Some have suggested we prioritize certain 
bills

[[Page 15845]]

but ignore others. The Treasury Department would continue to make 
payments on our sovereign debt so the Chinese would get paid, but they 
would avoid or default on lots and lots of other obligations. Which 
payments would we choose in this body not to make? Social Security? 
Medicare? Military salaries? Payments for cancer research? Veterans' 
benefits? Food inspectors? Air traffic controllers? Who goes first and 
who would we possibly choose? These are the ludicrous choices that have 
been sent to us by the other Chamber as they have attempted to fund the 
government in piecemeal slices in the past week.
  The Treasury Department makes 100 million individual payments per 
month, making this option a logistical nightmare. If we prioritize our 
payments, it is not a question of if we go into recession, it would be 
a question of when. We would be taking $2.2 billion out of the economy 
a day--4 percent of our GDP out of our Nation's economy on an 
annualized basis. This would push us back into recession, we would 
still be defaulting on our obligations, and the markets and the credit 
rating agencies would know it.
  The other thing that has been suggested is to work around the debt 
ceiling. There are a whole lot of creative but legally questionable 
ideas: The minting of a $1 trillion coin, avoiding the 14th Amendment, 
a fire sale of U.S. assets, superpremium Treasurys. Each has pros and 
cons that I won't go into, but they would face legal scrutiny and would 
radically increase uncertainty in the market.
  There is no better option for us going forward than to reopen the 
government, pay our national debt on time, raise the debt ceiling, and 
honor our obligations as a country. That is the fourth and only good 
option: pay our bills, to prevent default, to put a floor under our 
economy, to stop these games, and to stop suggesting that there is any 
way out of this other than doing our jobs, preserving the AAA credit 
rating of this country, and making this country worthy of global 
respect again.
  In conclusion, I can't believe that Members in this Chamber, who had 
the chance to avoid default, on Saturday voted in a way that suggested 
they chose not to. Not only did it rattle me, it rattled the markets. 
The idea that a sovereign government would have the ability to pay its 
debts but actively chose not to is unprecedented.
  We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot allow this country to 
become a bad investment. We will not become a deadbeat nation. We need 
to pay our bills, do the right thing, and avoid default. We need to 
stop playing games and do right by the American people.
  With that, I yield the floor and look forward to the comments from 
the senior Senator from Maryland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I have 
permission to speak for 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, there is a misguided myth out there--not 
all myths are misguided, but this myth is--by those who believe that 
the government shutdown is actually saving us money. I am not going to 
go into all those details about why that is not true, but I can tell 
everybody one area where government shutdown is absolutely being 
negatively impacted in protecting the taxpayer dollar and fulfilling 
the mission of the agency--particularly in Social Security, Medicare, 
veterans' benefits, and some others.
  The Presiding Officer was the attorney general and the U.S. attorney 
of the Ocean State, Rhode Island, so he knows about scammers and 
schemers and that where there is need, there is greed. Where there are 
large government programs, they are open to waste and particularly to 
fraud.
  I have been an adamant opponent of fraud, and often that is dismissed 
with comments such as: Oh, everybody says you are against fraud. But 
what are we doing about it?
  Let me say this: As the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee, 
I was insistent that at every one of my hearings there be an inspector 
general testifying. I have an inspector general who advises us 
appropriators, who actually put money in the Federal checkbook, about 
how we can stop fraud in our own government. I am the first chairman of 
that committee ever to institute that process where we take the 
watchdogs of our Federal spending very seriously.
  The watchdogs who protect taxpayers' funds are known as inspectors 
general. They are independently appointed, independently confirmed, and 
independently do their job. Look at the inspector general for the IRS 
who brought a national scandal to our attention.
  But guess what. In this shutdown the ability of inspectors general to 
root out fraud and abuse has been severely compromised. We are not 
catching criminals who are trying to get a quick buck off the back of 
taxpayers.
  I will give an example: The Social Security administration has 
furloughed 250 investigators and auditors in the Office of the 
Inspector General. This is crippling the inspector general's ability to 
investigate allegations of fraud and to detect improper payments in 
Social Security.
  Just recently headlines have made the news about fraud in West 
Virginia field offices in Social Security where judges and others who 
were administering the program--administrative judges--were taking 
kickbacks. Thanks to law enforcement, and the inspector general, we 
grabbed that.
  There were actually people in Federal prisons who used the Internet 
and created phony identities to get both taxpayer refunds and also 
Social Security checks. Thanks to inspectors general being on the job, 
we were able to nip that in the bud.
  Each year the Social Security inspector general receives 135,000 
allegations of fraud and abuse. Last year the inspector general at the 
Social Security Administration saved the program $500 million--a half 
billion dollars was saved in fraud at the Social Security 
Administration. But instead of pinning medals on people, we have 
furloughed them. They are sitting at home waiting and itching to be 
back on the job because they are so proud of what they do.
  They believe that Social Security is a sacred trust, and anybody who 
tries to scheme or scam the system, they are going to come after.
  During the normal operations, the Social Security inspector general 
saves $9 for every $1 spent in oversight.
  Let's look at some of the other agencies, such as the Department of 
Agriculture. Every minute of this shutdown taxpayer dollars are being 
lost to fraud. When we look at the Department of Agriculture, we see 
that last year their inspector general investigated 331 possible 
frauds. They conducted 76 audits. Guess what it resulted in: 800 
indictments resulting from people trying to scam various aspects of the 
Department of Agriculture, including food stamp fraud. Of the 800 
indictments, they got 538 convictions. Guess what. They saved our 
Federal Government $1.5 billion. I said $1.5 billion, 800 indictments, 
and 540 convictions.
  The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Agriculture 
is on furlough. A minimum number of investigators are on the job. All 
of the Department of Agriculture inspector general audit staff is 
furloughed. That is not a wise use of the taxpayer dollars.
  Let's go to the VA. The VA Inspector General's Office has furloughed 
70 percent of its staff. The VA operates the largest integrated 
hospital system in the country, including 152 hospitals and 1,000 
clinics. It also operates a mortgage program and an educational voucher 
program. It operates a disability claims and survivor benefit program. 
Their inspector general routinely audits this complex system. What do 
they look for? Possible criminal activity. They look for fraud. They 
make sure there is no misconduct by senior VA officials, and they are 
doing their job, but they have been furloughed.
  We also have the General Services Administration, which is 
essentially the real estate arm of the Federal Government. It plays a 
crucial role. Guess what. Last year they handled 450 cases.

[[Page 15846]]

They got 3,000 hotline complaints about possible fraud. Their staff is 
on furlough. So they are not looking out for fraud in real estate, 
automobile leasing, technology, gaming the system, and furniture. Their 
cases range from bribery to embezzlement, to kickback schemes. Most--99 
percent--of our GSA employees are honest. So are our contractors. But 
guess what. In just 6 months alone, from October 2012 to March of 2013, 
they were able to crack down and recover over $100 million in schemes 
and scams.
  Look at what I have outlined already: a couple billion dollars, 
including Social Security, Agriculture, GSA. They are on the job.
  I could go to agency after agency. Guess what. The very agency that 
involves us and advises us is the Government Accountability Office. 
That is Congress's watchdog. That is where we ask for studies on how we 
can do a better job and where they identify programs that are dated, 
duplicative or dysfunctional--dated, duplicative or dysfunctional. If 
they are dated, goodbye to them. If they are dysfunctional, reform or 
goodbye. Dysfunctional--dated, dysfunctional, and duplicative, that is 
our mantra on the Appropriations Committee. We are the guardians of the 
purse, but we need our tool. The Government Accountability Office, 
which we rely on, has furloughed 98 percent of its staff.
  I could elaborate on agency after agency, but what I wish to show is 
just this: The consequences of shutdown are affecting people. If they 
are not on the job, they are not doing the job.
  The job of our inspectors general offices--they are independent. They 
are supposed to come with incredible fiscal background. They are 
investigators. They are auditors. They are people who have to know how 
to find a problem, see if it is criminal or civil, whether we can get 
our money back, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again. Those 
people want to work. They love their job. It is a calling to them, and 
we need to call them and say: You are back to work.
  So let's reopen government. Let's find a way. Let's fund government 
at a level that makes sure it can function the way it should. Let's 
also pay our debts. I do not want our T-bills to become junk bonds. I 
do not want our T-bills to be so shaky in terms of our ability to pay 
them back that they arrive at junk bond status. So let's get rid of 
junk politics and junk talking points. Let's get those clunkers off the 
road. Let's get America rolling again, pay our bills, honor our T-
bills. Let's get government working and let America be America again.
  I yield the floor.

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