[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14509-14510]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH IRAN AND GOVERNMENT FUNDING

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate has already spoken and made it 
absolutely clear that the agreement with Iran will stand. Remember, an 
agreement to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon is what it is all 
about. The issue has been decided. Instead of focusing on the critical 
issue of funding our government, Senator McConnell has decided to waste 
an entire week on something that has already been decided, twice.
  First, we are voting on the McConnell amendment, which would keep the 
President from being able to suspend or waive sanctions on Iran unless 
Iran frees all Americans and formally recognizes the State of Israel. 
All Senators, Democrats and Republicans, want all the Americans held by 
Iran or who have disappeared in Iran to come back home to their 
families as quickly as possible. We believe that Iran should recognize 
the State of Israel. We believe the other countries in that area should 
join along. We are very happy with the arrangement between Egypt and 
Israel which has been going on for many, many years and has been very 
good for some degree of stability in the area.
  What Republican colleagues are doing now is very, very cynical. They 
are taking serious issues and turning them into pawns on a political 
chess board. Here is what Senator Stabenow said yesterday. Remember, 
she is the Senator from Michigan. She has a person from Michigan who 
has been held in Iran for some time now. Here is what she said 
yesterday:

       The Senate Republican leader is . . . playing politics with 
     Amir's life. The imprisonment of this veteran--this American 
     hero--is being used by the Senate majority leader in a 
     transparent attempt to score some cheap political points . . 
     . and it's appalling. No American should ever be used in this 
     way.

  Elaborating, she told me that his family wants us to stay out of it, 
progress is being made. Please stay out of it. That is what his sister 
said. This cynical tactic is a waste of the Senate's time. We should be 
focused on preventing a government shutdown. Senator McConnell has 
decided that the Senate should vote not once, not twice, but a third 
time on the resolution of disapproval, which has already failed, as I 
mentioned before, on two separate occasions.
  The results will be the same today. Yet Senate Republicans appear to 
be stuck and unable to move forward even in the face of a looming 
government shutdown. There are just a few legislative days until the 
government runs out of funding. Democrats have seen this coming for 
months and Republicans should have seen it also. Maybe they did but 
just ignored it.
  That is why we have called for bipartisan budget negotiations. We are 
running out of time. That is an understatement. Last week, the 
Republican leader told this body:

       We only have so much floor time in the Senate. We are going 
     to try to use it on serious proposals that have a chance of 
     becoming law.

  I am sure he should read that to himself again today, yesterday, and 
maybe tomorrow. But after having made the statement, instead of voting 
on this key priority--that is, funding the government--we are spending 
time on cynical show votes even though everyone knows the result. 
Despite the fact that a shutdown looms in a matter of days, the 
Republican leader is turning the world's greatest deliberative body 
into the ``show-vote'' Senate.
  Ensuring that the government has the funds it needs to operate is the 
basic responsibility of the Senate. That Republicans have let this 
crisis build instead of joining Democrats at the bargaining table is an 
embarrassment to this institution. The Republican leader and I don't 
see eye to eye on all

[[Page 14510]]

political issues, but we both support a clean bill to stop a government 
shutdown. That is what he wants. A clean bill is the only way to 
prevent a government shutdown, no riders, no tricky things in it at 
all.
  Just yesterday, the Republican Leader said, the sequester-level 
spending caps should be lifted. Thank goodness he said that. I agree 
with him. I agree with Senator McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, who 
have talked about this on the Republican side. We all know how this 
ends. The Senate will pass a clean continuing resolution. I hope that 
is the ending we all see because that is what we should see.
  When I say a clean bill, I mean no policy riders, no procedural 
loopholes, just a clean funding bill devoid of tricks. So what are we 
waiting for? Why are we dragging the country to the brink of another 
shutdown when the solution is staring us in the face? There is nothing 
to gain from delaying the inevitable and much to lose. The reality of 
the Senate is that the longer we wait, the more difficult the path 
forward will be. In the past, Republicans' inability to govern 
responsibly has amplified the voice of government shutdown advocates 
like the junior Senator from Texas. Every moment the Republican leader 
wastes increases the likelihood that one Senator's objection can raise 
enough procedural problems to force the entire government to shut down. 
I am not making this up, it happened 2 years ago.
  Captains of chaos want nothing more than for the Republican leader to 
twiddle his thumbs. Every day we wait increases the leverage of those 
who want to shut down the government. We have seen this drama before. 
It happened 2 years ago. The Republican leader will need to file 
cloture at least twice if any single member of the caucus objects.
  So if the Republican leader wants to avoid a government shutdown, he 
should start the process of bringing a bill to the floor by Thursday at 
the absolute latest. Time really is running out. Next week, Pope 
Francis will address Congress. We expect half a million people to come 
for the Pope's visit to Capitol Hill. The President of China will make 
his visit the very next day to the Nation's capital. It will be his 
first visit.
  So there will be 3 or 4 days in session next week at the most. We are 
ready to move forward. There is no reason to wait any longer. It is 
time for Republicans to skip the manufactured drama, pass a clean 
funding bill today, and get something done around here for the American 
people. For months, Democrats have been clear about our priorities: 
First, any appropriations measure cannot be hijacked for ideological or 
special-interest riders. Second, any funding increase for the Pentagon 
must be matched by at least a dollar-for-dollar increase for domestic 
programs, including domestic anti-terror programs.
  These are commonsense principles that should form the basis of any 
budget agreement, but Republicans have refused to negotiate. They are 
now focused on scoring political points at the expense of the American 
people. We voted twice. Why waste this time again on another vote? 
There will only be a few days of session next week.
  When we return the following Monday, we will have just 3 days before 
the government funding expires. That is October 1. We should act now, 
pass a clean continuing resolution preventing a government shutdown, 
and then responsibly negotiate a compromise. It should be a short-term 
CR. Any other decision is a waste of precious time that we do not have.

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