[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13596-13597]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FUNDING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, on another matter, unless Congress acts, 
there will be a government shutdown on October 1. That is a short time 
away--less than 2 months. Every day that passes we are another day 
closer to the crisis of an unfunded Federal government.
  For months we have been warning Republican leaders that there is a 
need to find a solution to these budget problems. We have offered to 
meet with them. We have urged them to negotiate. The answer is always 
no answer.
  The Republican leader knows he must negotiate. Here is what he said 
yesterday: ``Different parties control the Congress from control the 
White House, and at some point, we'll negotiate the way forward.'' I am 
sure that didn't come out exactly the way he wanted, but I think I get 
the picture. He believes we have two Houses of Congress that are 
different from the White House. I am quite certain that is what he 
meant to say.
  Regardless, the question remains: Why does the Republican leader 
continue to decline our invitation to sit down and craft a bipartisan 
solution and do it now? Why does he continue to tell us no? This should 
not come as a surprise, however, because Republicans are in the habit 
of governing by manufactured crisis. We have seen that over the past 7 
months.
  Their obvious distaste--some say hatred--of government generally is 
so deep that many take pleasure in closing it. We hear that from the 
statements that have been made over the last few days. That could 
explain why they keep fighting to not move forward on negotiations and 
finding excuses to simply close the government. Lately it has been 
women's health. They are going to close the government because they 
don't like the way women are getting their health care.
  In the 1990s Republicans shut the government to force cuts in 
Medicare. In 2013 they shut the government to force repeal of the 
Affordable Care Act. It is clear that both of those times were total 
failures.
  Earlier this year Republicans came within hours of shutting down the 
Department of Homeland Security. That is the agency which is tasked 
with keeping our homeland safe. They came within hours of closing down 
the whole Department.
  There is always a new reason--some grievance from the partisans at 
FOX News, some complaint from whiners on talk radio, some attack from 
radicals in the tea party. It makes one wonder: What will be next? Will 
the Republicans again use shutdown extortion to try to repeal ObamaCare 
or to attack immigrants or to cut Social Security or to privatize 
Medicare?
  As I just said, there is a new one. They are targeting the health of 
women in America. Could it be any more obvious that the Republican 
Party doesn't care about the health of women? That is obvious from the 
statements that have been made. The legislation before this body says 
money that goes to this organization which they dislike--other agencies 
will take care of it. Well, we have learned that in Texas alone, 
hundreds of thousands of people simply wouldn't be able to have the 
care they need. Yesterday Jeb Bush went so far as to say this, a direct 
quote: ``I'm not sure we need half a billion dollars for women's health 
issues.''
  Unfortunately, the attack on women's health is only one example of 
the many legislative riders Republicans are pursuing. This isn't just 
talk; they have actually done it in the various bills that have come 
out of the House in the appropriations process and over here by the 
Republicans. These partisan riders have nothing to do with funding the 
government and everything to do with ideology and special interests.
  For example, there is a legislative rider to block implementation of 
the Affordable Care Act, which would deny health coverage to millions 
of Americans--that, after almost threescore different attempts to 
repeal ObamaCare. Each of them turned out the same: They were defeated 
overwhelmingly.
  There is a legislative rider on behalf of Wall Street to protect 
institutions that are too big to fail, making taxpayers more vulnerable 
to future bailouts.
  There is a legislative rider to undermine the President's work to 
address the dangers of climate change. And the dangers of climate 
change exist. Spread across all the news today is the fact that the 
Forest Service is going to be spending 75 percent of its money fighting 
fires in the future. There will be no money left for anything other 
than fighting fires.
  There is a fire going on in California now. It is 15 or 20 percent 
contained. There are 7,000 or 8,000 firefighters trying to stop that 
fire from spreading even more. That is only one of the many fires 
burning as we speak.
  There is a legislative rider in their legislation attacking 
immigrants by undermining President Obama's recent Executive actions.
  There is a legislative rider to block the Federal Communications 
Commission from implementing its recent net neutrality order. Let's not 
forget that this is what the Republican leader wanted; in fact, this is 
what he promised. It was just last month that he told the Lexington 
Herald Leader that he and Republicans would ``line the interior 
appropriations bill with every rider you can think of.'' In this 
instance, he certainly is a man of his word.
  Democrats disagree with these Republican attacks, and we are going to

[[Page 13597]]

resist them. We believe in standing up not for billionaires and tea 
party ideologues but for everyday, working families. Take 
sequestration, for example. While Republicans want relief only for the 
Pentagon, we insist on equal, dollar-for-dollar treatment for the needs 
of America's middle class--for jobs, for education, for health care. We 
insist on strengthening Social Security and Medicare, not cutting and 
privatizing them. And we insist on supporting women's health, not 
gutting it.
  We know that Republicans disagree with us about these middle-class 
priorities, but I hope these disagreements--serious though they are--
won't get in the way of keeping the government operating. Whatever our 
differences, we should act responsibly. We should at least be able to 
agree to not shut down the government. Republicans should not once 
again take legislative hostages to get some rightwing prize that is 
within their grasp.
  Mr. President, would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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