[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10639-10640]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            DEADLINES PASSED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, all Americans face deadlines. Ask any 
student or any working professional, and they will tell you they have 
to meet deadlines to be successful. It is part of life.
  Senate Republicans, though, seem to reject the idea of finishing work 
on time. Instead, the Republican leader has repeatedly taken the Senate 
to the brink. Already the first few months of this year, Republicans 
have botched deadlines for funding the Department of Homeland Security, 
the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court--that was a real debacle--
and, most recently, the Export-Import Bank, which is now out of 
business.
  There were 165,000 people working as a result of the Bank who now--if 
not

[[Page 10640]]

gone and looking for employment, they will have to do it very soon 
because the Republicans are boasting they were able to kill this 
business-oriented program that has been successful all over the world, 
allowing us to export things that we would not have been able to had 
that law not been in effect. As a result of our not doing things, other 
countries--China and other countries--are now picking up the slack 
where Ex-Im Bank worked before. There is a lot of business being lost 
for the American people, and it is very unfortunate because, again, 
Republicans are not meeting deadlines.
  Every one of those crises is accompanied by consequences that hurt 
our country: lost productivity, a volatile stock market, and lapses in 
national security. Every time Republicans miss a deadline who gets hurt 
worse than anyone else? The middle class does and our Nation is less 
safe.
  Now, I realize we have another vitally important, time-sensitive 
matter that requires the Senate's attention as soon as possible. At the 
end of this month, our Nation is faced with a looming expiration and 
insolvency of the highway trust fund. With 64,000 structurally 
deficient bridges and billions of dollars needed for construction 
projects across America--really, trillions of dollars. We have an 
infrastructure deficit in this country of about $3 trillion, and 64,000 
bridges are structurally deficient. It is irresponsible for Republicans 
to be content to let the authorization of the highway program lapse or 
maybe they will come up with another solution like they have in the 
past, 33 separate short-term extensions of the highway bill.
  And now I understand that the chairman of the Finance Committee is 
working on another short-term extension. How really insensitive to the 
needs of the American people. There are some States that can't do 
construction work on highways in the wintertime. It is cold. But that 
doesn't seem to matter. These short-term extensions are what has become 
part of the Republican mantra.
  There is also an urgent need to reach a bipartisan budget agreement. 
In less than 3 months, unless we act, the government will shut down. To 
avoid that, we will need a budget agreement between two parties. That 
is going to take time and a lot of work, but to this point, the 
deadline seems to be meaningless to my Republican colleagues. They are 
doing nothing, not a conversation about it, and they led the charge in 
the past about how phony the overseas contingency funding was to pay 
the bills of this country, but now they seem to embrace it. But I guess 
their theory is--why not put off until tomorrow what you can do today? 
I don't understand why what we have around here is, putting off until 
tomorrow everything that should be done today.
  There is no need to wait until the end of July to address our 
Nation's roads, bridges, and rails. That is what we are doing. There is 
no need to wait until September to come to a sensible agreement funding 
our government, but that is what they are doing.
  Democrats are ready to work with Republicans on these two issues--and 
now.

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