“CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS” published by the Congressional Record on Oct. 5, 2013

Volume 159, No. 137 covering the 1st Session of the 113th Congress (2013 - 2014) was published by the Congressional Record.

The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.

“CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S7217-S7237 on Oct. 5, 2013.

The publication is reproduced in full below:

CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thank the distinguished majority leader, not only for how he spoke out today, but also for the fact that he is strong on this issue. He also spoke about what this shutdown is doing to law enforcement.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I am going to speak further on that. But I couldn't help but think, as I was asked by a friend in Vermont: What is going on?

I said: Well, you know, we had hundreds of hours of committee meetings, votes, and all. We had hours and hours of debate in the House and the Senate, and we passed the Affordable Care Act.

Even though it passed the House and the Senate and was signed into law by the President, however, the Tea Party continues to oppose the law. So they did two things that they thought would knock it out. One, they went to a Republican dominated U.S. Supreme Court and said let's knock out this law. The Supreme Court said no. They upheld the law.

Then they ran a candidate for President of the United States, whose main argument was that he would get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

He lost badly.

Throughout all this time and after 40 votes to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans have not offered what we would get as an alternative? Most parents like the fact that their children can stay on their insurance while they are in college. Are you going to get rid of that--and do they have something with which to replace that? Most people like the fact that if you have a preexisting condition, cancer, a heart condition, or something like that, they can still get health care. They want to do away with that. What do they have to replace this sort of care?

After 40 votes, a Presidential election, the Supreme Court--they have lost everywhere. It makes me think of General Custer at Little Big Horn who came galloping in because he knew he was going to win.

They have been handed the same kind of defeat that Custer was at Little Big Horn. And if they have a better idea on health insurance for America, then I think they should have the guts to bring it to the floor and vote up or down, not just shut down the government like they are doing now.

Today marks the fifth day of the government shutdown, and by refusing to pass a continuing resolution to simply fund the continuing operations of the Federal Government, Republicans are threatening the critical functions of all three branches of government. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am acutely aware of the devastating impact that Republicans' treatment of Federal judiciary is having on our system of justice.

The last time Republicans refused to pay the bills that we in Congress had already incurred, it undermined our Nation's credit rating. It also resulted in what is known as sequestration and the corresponding cuts to the Federal judicial branch have been devastating. But with the ongoing shutdown of the entire Federal Government, a handful of ideologues in the House of Representatives are holding the entire judicial system hostage and this threatens our entire democracy.

Earlier this year, in the face of sequestration, a group of 87 Federal district judges warned that sustained budget cuts ``have forced us to slash our operations to the bone, and we believe that our constitutional duties, public safety, and the quality of the justice system will be profoundly compromised by any further cuts.''

Now, thanks to the Republican shutdown, according to a letter to all Federal courts from Judge John Bates, Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the judiciary will only be able to remain open for approximately 10 business days into October. What will happen after those 10 days? What happens when the operating funds run out completely? Will we be able to swiftly bring criminals and terrorists to justice? There is no court to bring them to. Will small businesses and individuals be able to have their claims resolved? Again, no court. Each and every Federal court in this country will soon have to start making decisions about what part of justice is essential and what can be delayed until funding is restored. If this shutdown continues, millions of Americans will not have access to the justice they deserve under our Constitution. Here in the United States, where we have the most open, transparent, honest, effective system of justice in the world, we are slamming the doors on everybody--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike.

This coming Monday, the first Monday in October, marks the opening of the new term of our Supreme Court. On its first day, it will hear an important case about a worker's right to bring an age discrimination claim under the Constitution. On its second day, it will hear another significant case about whether there should be any limits on the amount of money wealthy individuals can pump into our elections. If the shutdown continues, it is unclear how our courts, including our highest court, will cope with the funding being withheld. Will the Court remain open to the public to hear arguments the following week if this shutdown continues? Will local courthouses have to shut down entirely for parts of the year? Will the guarantee of defense for the indigent, established under Gideon v. Wainwright, continue to be eroded by further cuts to our Federal public defenders? Or will we in Congress finally turn the page on our fiscal mistreatment of a co-equal branch of government?

We must not take for granted that we have the greatest justice system in the world. Its cost is less than 1 percent of the entire Federal budget, yet we fail to support it. The New York Times, referencing Judge Bates's letter and the ongoing stress to our justice system, rightly noted this week that unless Congress ends this needless shutdown, ``the damage to American justice would be compounded and hard to recover from once the impasse is over.''

I thank the men and women of the judicial branch of our Federal Government for their dedication under increasingly difficult circumstances and I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

The Courts and the Shutdown

(By Dorothy J. Samuels)

The opening of a new Supreme Court term on the statutorily prescribed first Monday in October is always surrounded by a fair amount of drama having to do with the momentous legal issue the justices will be taking up. The government shutdown has imbued the start of the 2013-2014 term this coming Monday, Oct. 7, with a different sort of suspense.

A notice posted on the Supreme Court's website says the court ``will continue to conduct its normal operations'' through this Friday. It is silent about what will happen if the ``lapse of appropriations,'' as the notice delicately describes the madness, continues beyond that. The court will be announcing its plans a week at a time.

It is expected, though, that the term's first oral arguments will proceed as scheduled, shutdown or no, and that the court will conduct business as usual, much as it did during the Clinton-era shutdowns. How long Supreme Court operations could remain unharmed if the shutdown drags on is unclear.

For lower federal courts, a prolonged shutdown could be disastrous. Sufficient reserve funds are on hand for normal court operations for just 10 business days, through Oct. 15, according to a memo recently circulated by Judge John Bates, director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Once those funds are depleted, there would need to be extensive furloughing of staff, and reductions in probation, pretrial and courthouse security services to comply with the federal Anti-Deficiency Act, which allows only ``essential work'' to continue during a government shutdown. Coming on top of the devastation to the nation's court system caused by the maniacal across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, the damage to American justice would be compounded and hard to recover from once the impasse is over.

Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I thank the men and women of our judicial branch who have stood up for this. But you know, our courts have been forced to run on fumes for far too long, and soon, they will be running on empty. I call on the House of Representatives to stop playing games with our co-equal branch of government, the judiciary.

This government shutdown is having a real impact on our lives and our country. Recently, there was a terrible bus accident and tragically people were killed. Yet the NTSB cannot even go down and investigate what happened so it doesn't happen again because they are closed. There are businesses in Vermont that have invested in their business and are prepared to open--one in particular, and I will speak later about this one next week--and all they need is a certificate from the Department of Agriculture in order to open. The business is poised to open and start making money, especially during tourist season, but the Department of Agriculture is closed and they can't get the certificate.

We also take for granted that our open and transparent government is a cornerstone of our democracy and a shining example of civic involvement. Even the public's right to know is compromised because of this shutdown. Every Member of Congress, regardless of political party or ideology, should be alarmed.

Right now, Americans seeking help with Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, requests encounter closed for business signs at many of the Federal offices that facilitate them. The National Archives and Records Administration Office of Government Information Services--a critical office established by the Leahy-Cornyn OPEN Government Act to mediate FOIA disputes--is not operating due to the shutdown of the Federal Government. And according to several press reports, the Department of Justice has also sought stays in several important FOIA cases--

including FOIA litigation seeking information about the government's use of the PATRIOT ACT to collect data on Americans' telephone calls--due to the lapse in Federal funding.

This shutdown has impacted other agencies, too. The Center for Effective Government reports that the processing of FOIA requests has been suspended at the Social Security Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. The National Security Agency, an agency facing a public trust deficit in light of revelations detailing its sweeping surveillance of Americans' emails and phone calls, has also ceased the processing of FOIA and Privacy Act requests. Many other Federal agencies have either taken their websites off-line or stopped updating their websites. We literally have a closed government.

All of us--whether Democrat, Republican or Independent--have an interest in making certain that our government is fulfilling its responsibilities to its citizens. Yet, right now, House Republicans are choosing to debate again the nearly 4-year-old Affordable Care Act on a critical spending bill. Again, let us not forget that the act has been upheld by the Supreme Court and was a key issue in a Presidential election where the electorate in this country voted against the person who wanted to do away with it. They are forcing us to choose whether even the most fundamental parts of our government are ``essential.'' Rather than picking and choosing, we in Congress must commit ourselves to upholding all of our democratic principles and ensuring the government's ability to work for every American. The House of Representatives can end this stalemate today by taking up the Senate passed CR, sending it to the President, and reopening the government, so we can get back to the business of finding a reasonable way to balance our budget and get our fiscal house in order.

It is important for that business owner in Vermont that the Department of Agriculture be open. It is important for our communities affected by criminals that our FBI remain open and fully functional. It is important to those who may have their children riding on a bus that we find out why this other bus accident happened and is it something that is going to happen again with a busload of children. But instead we have something akin to General Custer riding to Little Big Horn, claiming this is going to be victory, and I suspect that this will result in the same sort of defeat for those who seek to shut down the government for ideological reasons.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. ENZI. Madam President, this has been an interesting discussion for the last 37 minutes. It lacks a little bit of a preamble.

The reason we are in the situation we are in now is because Congress didn't do the spending bills when they were supposed to do the spending bills. We have 12 spending bills. There is no reason we didn't spend 12 weeks, 1 week doing each of those for a period of 12 weeks. It is the second most important job we have. I think the most important job we have is national defense, but budgeting--spending--is the next biggest. If we had done one bill each week for the 12 weeks we needed to and had open amendments on them, there wouldn't have needed to be any of this discussion. Most of the things would have been resolved by now. They would have either won or lost, and that is what happens around here.

Except we are busy dealmaking instead of legislating. We don't allow amendments now. When a bill comes to the floor, there is a discussion between the two leaders to see how limited they can make the amendments. I try to only do relevant amendments. I wouldn't mind if that were the law around here. That is the law in the Wyoming legislature. Whatever the title of the bill is, your amendment has to be relevant to that. It helps to get through a lot of the process in a hurry. But we don't even bring them up.

I take that back. The leader did come to the floor and chastise me for forgetting we had the Transportation bill brought up on the floor. We didn't get to do amendments on it, and when we didn't get to do amendments on it, our side said nuts to finishing that right now. The leader could have brought it right back and showed we were not interested in doing transportation. He talked about us not being interested in transportation, but that was not the case. There were amendments that needed to be done to the Transportation bill.

That is 1 bill out of 12. What happened to the other 11? If we had done the bills timely, we wouldn't be in a continuing resolution. What is the matter with a government that can't operate like a business and have a preplan for what is going to happen if this tragedy does happen? We don't have any plans like that. What we do is stand and chastise each other for not having plans for what is happening. That is wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. We should be getting our work done in a timely manner, and we should be doing it through legislation, which means allowing amendments on the floor.

Yes, I know there are some amendments I wouldn't want to vote on. There are some amendments the other side wouldn't want to vote on. But that is what we signed on for. We have to vote on the amendments and get the process done, but we are not doing that.

As to the shutdown, I wish to share what actually wound up as a guest editorial from a guy named Bill Johnson who lives in Pinedale, but he got his guest editorial in the Powell Tribune, which is quite a ways away from there. He is an old truckdriver, and he said he is tired of pulling the load; that it is time for a producers' shutdown. Whoa. I wouldn't verify his math, but this is the way he sees it.

He sees that there are 11 people taking money out of the pot and thus riding on the wagon. That leaves nine people paying the taxes into the pot and thus pulling the wagon. ``A bad ratio indeed!''

He says: Now government people ``will tell you they pay taxes, but let's not forget that all their wages first come out of the pot.'' Government people ``don't create wealth. They spend the wealth!'' Now these same government people ``are enjoying quite a party.''

We hear them bragging about the following:

``We have better pensions and wages.

``We have paid sick days, cheaper medical insurance, free vehicles. . . .''

We get paid when the government shuts down and we come back to work without having worked.

``Some States pay $15 an hour on welfare, so why work?''

They say a government agency's success is measured by the size of its budget. There's no incentive to cut a budget!

``They say if a tax-paying `person' is successful, it's because `the government people' have helped him!''

They ask, ``How can we raise the tax-paying `people's' taxes again?''

We need more money for raises and Obamacare. Work harder, please! We'll take care of the rules and the regulations.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this entire article.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Tired of Pulling the Load?

time for a producers' strike

(By Bill Johnson)

We now know that there are 11 mules taking monies out of the pot and thus riding on the wagon. That leaves nine mules paying taxes into the pot and thus pulling the wagon.

A bad ratio indeed! Now government mules will tell you they pay taxes, but let's not forget that all their wages first come out of the pot. Government mules don't create wealth. They spend the wealth!

Now these government mules are enjoying quite a party. We hear them bragging about the following:

``We have better pensions and wages.''

``We have paid sick days, cheaper medical insurance, free vehicles, blah, blah, blah.''

``Some states pay $15 an hour on welfare, so why work?''

They say a government agency's success is measured by the size of its budget. There's no incentive to cut a budget!

They say if a tax-paying mule is successful it's because we government mules have helped him!

They ask, ``How can we raise the taxpaying mules'' taxes again? We need more money for raises and Obamacare. Work harder please! We'll take care of the rules and regulations.''

If this were a 30-year-long football game, the score would be about 99-7. Heck, the taxpaying mules can't even get their feet on the ball!

Our once great Uncle Sam is like Humpty Dumpty sitting on his wall. He's waiting for an earthquake, war, or market crash to cause his great fall!

So what can we do? The non-violent answer is simple! When the time comes, just quit pulling on the wagon. Take a three- to five-day vacation instead.

This means: Truckers don't truck. Trainmen don't train. Pilots don't plane. Miners don't mine. Marketers don't market. Bankers don't bank. Groceries don't go and pipelines don't flow!

This scheduled vacation for our nation's producers, the taxpaying mules still pulling the wagon, ought to be nationwide. That will never happen.

However, our friends in Utah, Idaho and Montana might join in. So might Moffat County and the seven other counties that wish to secede from Colorado. Same goes for Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Get the picture?!

It is amusing to listen to all the hoopla about potential government shutdowns. Big deal! Remember the scene in

``Crocodile Dundee'' when the would-be robbers pull a knife? Mr. Dundee says, ``That's not a knife, this is a knife!''

That's what a producers'' strike would look like!

This is the way to cut government spending, lower your tax rates, and shove some government mules off the wagon. We would score a few touchdowns and give them a list of the peoples' demands.

The path we are presently taking will only lead to the death of our country. Our intentions are to save the USA. We all want government of the people, by the people and for the people!

``All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing''--(Edmund Burke.)

Mr. ENZI. Continuing from Mr. Johnson's article, he asks, ``So what can we do?'' Here is his answer:

The nonviolent answer is simple! When the time comes, just quit pulling on the wagon. Take a three- to five-day vacation instead.

Take as long a vacation as the government takes. This means that farmers will not farm, stores will not open, manufacturers will not manufacture, powerplants will not produce power--and continuing his article:

Truckers don't truck. Trainmen don't train. Pilots don't plane. Miners don't mine. Marketers don't market. Bankers don't bank. Groceries don't go and pipelines don't flow!

That is what would happen if we had a shutdown of the private sector, the ones that are carrying the load. He says this scheduled vacation for our Nation's producers, the taxpaying people still pulling the wagon, ought to be nationwide.

Of course, he knows that will never happen, but he hopes people get the picture.

Continuing his article:

It is amusing to listen to all the hoopla about potential government shutdowns. Big deal! Remember the scene in

``Crocodile Dundee'' when the would-be robbers pull a knife? Mr. Dundee says, ``That's not a knife, this is a knife!''

And, remember, he pulls out his near machete? He says:

That's what a producers' strike would look like!

``This is the way to cut government spending, lower your tax rates, and shove some government'' people ``off the wagon.''

We would score a few touchdowns and give them a list of the people's demands.

So that's the view of the trucker in Wyoming, and he gets to think about this a lot as he drives miles and miles and miles and miles. It is a long way between towns. But he is pointing out that our government is being weighted down with a lot of different things, not just people's salaries with growing government--each of those adds to the need for a tax increase--but we are also weighted down with the interest load. If the interest rate goes up, that wagon load is going to get mired in mud.

He mentions the rules and the regulations. Paperwork alone kills jobs. It eliminates people who could pull the wagon, and government growth and benefits add to the weight of the wagon.

So we are in a shutdown, and what has happened? The government has shut down some of its revenue centers--the national parks. People drive through those and they pay to drive through those. There are hotels and restaurants and things. There are concessionaires in there, and they pay a fee for the right to do that, and they collect money for the Federal Government. They are not having any customers. It is hard to be a business and not have a customer. But we have forced that on them with supposedly shutting down a revenue center for us. People actually pay for that.

The sequester. We made it hurt because there was no preplanning. Now we have the shutdown and we are making it hurt with the barricades and closing the national parks and all the other things that got mentioned out here, but it is because of no preplanning.

Incidentally, when we talk about ObamaCare and no plan, I had a plan before President Obama became a Senator, a 10-step plan that would have done more than the present bill does.

I worked with Senators Coburn and Burr on a substitute bill which would have done what the President promised would be in the bill but is not in the bill. But there were 60 votes on the other side of the aisle, and with a few special deals the 60 votes carried the day and we are stuck with what will be a train wreck--and then we will get what the Democrats have always wanted, which is single-pay, universal service through the government.

But I have a plan for fixing this debt load, pulling the wagon a little easier. It is called the penny plan. Originally when I introduced the penny plan, which is eliminating 1 penny out of every dollar the Federal Government spends, it had to work for 7 years in order to balance the budget. We need to be on the downtrend. Seven years wouldn't be so bad. But with the sequester, that turns out to be 2 years and we would have a balanced budget. We go a couple more years and pay down some of this debt we have. The debt keeps me awake nights. That is less than a 10-percent total decrease in what we are spending right now. Businesses have to make that kind of a change sometimes in less than 1 year, and sometimes it is painful the way they have to do it. If we have more time--and 2 years could be quite a bit of time--we ought to be able to plan our way out of it.

So let's quit spending, let's cut up the credit cards. That is the debt limit we are coming up with, that is the credit cards. We could allow for a little bit of use of the credit cards--as long as there is a plan for how we are not going to need the credit cards anymore. And that would be the penny plan. So I hope we would all take a look at it.

I do feel sorry for the 8 million Federal employees who I know work hard.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.

Mr. ENZI. That is a lot compared to the ones pulling the wagon.

I will have some more comments on this later because it is a major crisis, but it didn't need to be a major crisis.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

The Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. ENZI. I ask unanimous consent that an extra 5 minutes be added to our side later.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we need to bring this government shutdown to an end, and the way to do that is for the House of Representatives to pass the bill for a $986 billion budget to run the government for 1 year which John Boehner and the Republicans in the House of Representatives asked the Senate to pass. That is the number they wanted. That is not the number the Democrats in the Senate wanted.

They wanted $986 billion to run the government for 1 year. That is the budget we sent over. They will not pass that budget. So now we have a situation where we should be negotiating over health care, over environmental issues, over other issues because the budget has been passed--but, no. They are going to hold the entire country hostage.

Consider where our country stands right now. When George W. Bush left office, the Dow was at 7,900. It is now above 15,000. At the height of the great Bush recession, unemployment peaked at 10 percent. It is now at 7.3 percent. Our deficit has been cut in half. We are making progress. But we are not there yet. Many Americans continue to struggle.

As our country climbs back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the tea party Republicans are sending America into reverse. The tea party Republicans shut down the government. They are putting our economic recovery at risk. They are signaling to the world that America cannot perform the most fundamental job of government--passing a budget.

In the alternative, the tea party Republican universe they have created here has the tea party demanding that we fund health care research while simultaneously trying to end health care coverage for millions of Americans; to pay for our troops but sideline the intelligence agents who keep us safe from terrorist attacks; and claim to defend the Constitution but shut down the building where it lives and breathes. This tea party Republican logic is tying our country in knots, and it makes no sense.

Although the government shut down at midnight this past Monday, the seeds of the shutdown were sown years ago. This shutdown is the product of more than a decade of disdain for the democratic process waged by the tea party Republican party that is increasingly out of the mainstream. When the Republican Party started losing congressional seats, they redrew electoral maps in their favor and passed laws to suppress American voters they had alienated. And when a historic bill was signed into law to finally make health care a right for millions of low-income Americans, a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that opened for business on Tuesday, the response of the tea party Republicans was to shut down the entire government.

At the core of this tea party Republican ideology is the idea that the democratic processes our country runs on can be dismissed, that they can be manipulated, that they can be contorted to cater to the privileged at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable, and the disenfranchised of our country.

This isn't about the Republican Party versus the Democratic Party. This is about tea party Republicans versus democracy itself. The essence of American democracy has been our ability to govern by majority rule while respecting minority rights. Our system is inherently designed to enable compromise and avoid the divisiveness of ideological extremists.

I know about these tea party extremists. I served in the House of Representatives with them. They live by the Republican tea party paradox: They hate the government so much that they have to run for office in order to make sure the government doesn't work. And now there is a new Republican tea party paradox: They want to pay Federal employees not to work while blocking the legislation that will put them back to work. The Democrats are fighting to open the government so Federal employees can return to work and can earn their pay, not pay them for not working. That is the new Republican paradox.

The tea party Republicans have a three-step plan. No. 1: Deny democracy. Tea party Republicans ignore the fact that the Affordable Care Act passed the Congress, was signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court. Tea party step No. 2: Manufacture a crisis. The tea party Republicans shut down the government and put our country on the brink of default, because they refuse to accept the fact that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land and the American people reelected President Obama. Step No. 3: Turn out the lights. Just shut down the government.

What is at stake if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? Without the Affordable Care Act, for women everywhere in America the agenda will go back to being a preexisting condition. They could be charged higher insurance rates because they are women. For families everywhere in America, the threat of personal bankruptcy will return, caps on insurance benefits will be reemployed, and medical bills will once again lead to personal bankruptcies. For a young college graduate struggling to find a job, their parents' plan is no longer an option. For a low-income family who has spent years taking their kids to the emergency room instead of regular doctor appointments, it will mean more late nights in emergency waiting rooms.

Who else will be harmed if the tea party Republicans continue to refuse to expand the Medicaid Program in their respective States, the expansion that is a key part of the Affordable Care Act? The answer is two-thirds of the country's poor, uninsured African-Americans and single mothers, and more than half of the low-wage workers in the 26 States where Governors have turned down Federal funds to expand Medicare.

Let's take Texas, for example. Texas currently has the highest concentration of uninsured Americans in our country--6 million people. Many live in poverty. Under the Affordable Care Act, every State has a choice: It could give the poor and sickest and neediest of its citizens health care coverage through expanded Medicaid paid for entirely by the Federal Government or it could say, no, thanks, and leave these poor people, these uninsured people, in a state of uncertainty. Texas turned down cold more than $100 billion in Federal funding over the next decade, denying health care coverage for the 1.5 million Texas residents who live in poverty.

That is what the tea party Republicans are fighting for--to not take the money to ensure that the poorest people get health insurance. That is what it is all about. That is what they are fighting for. They believe they have a right to say, no, we are not going to cover these poor people. No, we are not going to give them insurance. That is their right--they should have the freedom to deny all these people that health insurance. And 26 other States, all with Republican Governors, did the very same thing. Every State in the Deep South but Arkansas said no.

There is an ancient Greek proverb that says the world will know true justice when those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have been harmed. You can see all across America people are angry. People who have not been harmed are angry about those who are being harmed by what the Republican tea party is doing here in Congress. That is why everyone in America wants this shutdown ended. They know that eliminating the Affordable Care Act would gravely harm the poor in our country, the children, the working families. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans suffered from such severe economic problems. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty today. That is $23,000 a year for a family of 4. The poverty rate for African Americans is 27 percent, for Hispanics it is at 23 percent. There are almost 50 million people in our country at risk of not having enough food. Sixteen million children live in poverty in the United States as we stand here today. There are more than 11 million Americans out of work, 13 percent unemployment for African Americans, 9.2 percent for Hispanics, and it is too high for Whites, for Asians, for Native Americans--for everyone in our country.

Behind each of those numbers is a name, each of those statistics is a story, each of those figures is a face and a future that is at risk.

Behind each furlough is a Federal worker who has a vital job not being done. Somewhere in Georgia in the midst of the flu season there is an employee of the Centers for Disease Control who is at home instead of stopping a flu outbreak at a local elementary school. Somewhere in Florida is an FDA employee who was shut out of his job inspecting fish imports for toxic contamination while a mother shops at the local grocery store picking up salmon for dinner. Somewhere in the gulf coast there is an oil rig safety officer catching up on their chores at home instead of stopping the next potential BP spill before it happens. Somewhere in Boston a doctor has now put on hold a clinical trial to bring a new treatment to children born with a rare form of heart disease while a mother in Milwaukee holds her sick newborn, wondering if a cure could ever be found. Somewhere in Massachusetts a civilian military employee tasked with developing the best in protective gear for our soldiers is barred from entering his military base while abroad a soldier takes fire on the front lines. And here at the Capitol there are police officers who threw their bodies in between the public and a threat just this week, doing so without even receiving a paycheck.

This government shutdown is just a preview of coming attractions. If Republicans force us to default on our debt, millions of jobs could be destroyed. We could go from a shutdown of our government to a meltdown of our entire economy.

We won't be blackmailed, we won't be threatened, we won't back down, we won't give up. We will stand and we will fight. We will fight for the families who have dreamed of the security of health care, we will fight for the Federal workers who deserve a paycheck, we will fight for the working families reaching for the American dream. Because--make no mistake--what is at stake here isn't just health care, it isn't just a functioning government, it isn't just the stability of our economy. What is at stake is the future of our democratic system. Because you can shut down the government, you can engage in revisionist history and revise the rules to fit your ideology, but the American people will rise up--and they are rising up--to say put America back to work. They will not let the tea party Republicans stop the progress of our country. They are going to demand justice. They are going to demand that the shutdown end and the spirit of the American people be recognized.

What we need to do is to get the government back to work for the American people. The Senate has to send the House a bill that will end the shutdown. The House should schedule the vote for this bill immediately. It will pass. We should not be cutting the National Institutes of Health, which is working to find the cure for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's and other diseases that devastate.

We should not be keeping our civilian defense workers off the job. We should be coming together to create jobs to build better futures for all Americans. We should make sure America pays its bills and does not default on its debts. We need to raise the debt ceiling. Now is the time. Let's get to work.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, someone wisely declared: After all is said and done, much more is said than done. A lot has been said in the well of this Chamber this week. Unfortunately, not much has been done. On the other hand, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the Members of the House of Representatives, including Members of both political parties, have done much to end the shutdown and to protect the American people. The House has passed bills that would fund veterans' benefits and fund the National Institutes of Health. The House has also approved measures to make sure our National Guard gets paid and to keep our national parks open. The House funded WIC, the program that provides health care and nutrition for low-income women and their children. The House has funded FEMA. Moreover, all of these bills have been passed with significant bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

At the risk of overstating it, I am still frankly stunned at what we are hearing from some of my colleagues. It is difficult for me to understand their objections to passing these bills in the Senate.

First, none of these bills is controversial--not one of them. The bills provide funding for noncontroversial things such as veterans' disability payments, the GI bill, and cancer research. These bills keep our national parks open and make sure our National Guard personnel get paid. There are many things on which Republicans and Democrats disagree, but whether to take care of our veterans should not be one of them, and the last I checked it was not one of them.

Second, the President himself asked Congress to do this. Republicans in the House took the President at his word and acted immediately to draft bills that would make sure his priorities and the Nation's priorities would receive funding. In response, Senate Democrats said that this plan to fund veterans, national parks, and other priorities was unserious. They said Republicans were playing games.

The biggest head-scratcher of them all: the President issued a veto threat for bills that fund the very things he said he wanted funded. Why will the President and why will Senate Democrats not take yes for an answer? Why are they demanding that we fund everything? They tell us: You have to fund everything or we will allow you to fund nothing.

Third, all of these bills received significant bipartisan support in the House. In the middle of a government shutdown, surrounded by all this divisive rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats came together in the House overwhelmingly to approve these bills. I think we owe it to the country to show we can do the same in the Senate.

Fourth, this approach, the approach that has been advocated by the House of Representatives, represents a path forward that was first introduced by none other than the distinguished Senate majority leader himself. On Monday afternoon Senator Harry Reid asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that ensured that our Active-Duty military personnel would be paid in the event of a government shutdown, and in a matter of minutes it was passed. I ask my friends across the aisle: Was Senator Reid playing games? Was that unserious? Of course not. So why is it unserious when we try to fund veterans' disability payments or cancer research or the National Guard or national parks? Why is it all of a sudden playing games to keep our national parks open? What exactly has changed since Monday? Why can we come together to pass a bill funding military pay but not to fund veterans' disability payments?

Finally, none of these bills have any connection to the implementation of ObamaCare. I understand my friends across the aisle support that law despite its numerous and harmful failings. I understand they want to protect it. But none of the bills we are considering relate in any way to the implementation of ObamaCare.

I am concerned that my friends across the aisle cannot see this law for what it is and what it is already doing to American families all across the country. Now the government is shut down because Democrats have refused to work with us to do anything to protect the American people from the harmful, potentially devastating effects of ObamaCare. They will not even consider passing bills to fund veterans' benefits, cancer research, or national parks unless ObamaCare is fully funded and fully implemented. We have an obligation to address the negative effects of this law, but the Democrats refuse to negotiate.

The President has issued a veto threat on funding for things that he himself asked Congress to fund because the bills do not include ObamaCare funding, even though the programs funded in these bills have nothing to do with ObamaCare. I fear that the Democrats are now simply the ObamaCare party. It is the only thing that matters to them even though it is hurting people throughout the country already and threatens to do so far more in the coming months.

A recent report included a story of a man named Tom, Tom from Seattle, who signed up with the exchanges only to find out that his health care costs were going to skyrocket under ObamaCare. I will quote from the story.

Tom of Seattle, who is self-employed, said, ``My premiums would increase approximately 61 percent. I went from $891 a month to $1,437 a month. And also my deductibles all doubled.''

The letter from his insurer said his current deductible for his family of five would double from $4,000 a year to $8,000.

Even though that is for the Bronze Plan, the least expensive option under ObamaCare, he says his additional payment of $550 a month will give him a plan that is no better than what he already has.

What's more, it also carries a benefit his family does not need: maternity and newborn care.

``My wife is 58 years old and our youngest child is soon to be 18,'' says Tom. ``We'll be having no more children. That is not a benefit that we would ever purchase nor need or be able to use.''

These are the kinds of people we are trying to protect from this law. This is just one story among many stories.

I ask my friends: Join us in ending the shutdown. Join us in protecting the country from ObamaCare, and let's do the right thing for the American people. Leadership is not about what is said; leadership is about what is done. So I invite my colleagues to join House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor and the other House Members who are leading. They are leading by doing. We can and must lead. We can end the shutdown and simultaneously protect the American people from the harmful effects of ObamaCare. We can do this. We must do this. If we stand together in support of the American people, we will do this.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Through the Chair, I inquire whether, in evaluating the relative activity of the Senate and the House in trying to bring this shutdown to a conclusion, the Senator would not concede that the Senate has repeatedly voted on House-passed measures? We have taken them up, stripped out extraneous language, and sent them back. We have tabled them. We have over and over done our constitutional duty and voted. The Senator might not like the way the vote came out, but does he concede, A, that we voted on House-passed measures, and B, that the Speaker of the House has never yet called to the floor a Senate-passed measure and had a fair vote on the House side of the aisle?

Mr. LEE. In response to the question posed by my distinguished colleague, my friend from Rhode Island, yes, I will acknowledge that we have taken votes--some votes in response to many of the pieces of legislation enacted within the House of Representatives.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And that the House never reciprocated by taking up a Senate-passed bill?

Mr. LEE. The House has not voted on all the things passed by the Senate just as the Senate has not voted on all the things passed in the House.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. My question was not whether the House voted on some, not all. I think the fact is that the House voted on nothing the Senate passed; they have done nothing but tee up political votes to send over to us.

Mr. LEE. That is not accurate. The House of Representatives has voted on things, sent them back in the form of messages, with some of those messages carrying two amendments that we considered. I see the Senator's point. It is a valid one in that we have had action taken in both Houses. We have had votes cast in both Houses.

It is important, however, to recognize that Republicans have offered significant elements of compromise in all of this. Republicans started from the standpoint that what they would like is repeal of the law. Understanding that is not possible under the current circumstances, they sought first to defund ObamaCare indefinitely. They sought that first. That was stripped out. That went back to them. They responded with a significant compromise offer in the next go-around to defund it for a period of 1 year. That was send back, that was rejected.

There have been other elements since then that have been passed to fund parts of government. Recognizing there are a lot of areas in government spending as to which there is broad bipartisan, basically unanimous consent in both Houses, in both political parties, that we ought to be continuing to fund those things at those levels, they have acted in those areas, and the Senate has so far refused to go along with those. So, in the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if we act on those. In the spirit of compromise, it would be helpful if the Senate would act on those aspects of legislation as to which there is broad-based bipartisan support.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.

Mr. KING. Madam President, my intention coming here was to help solve problems, to find common ground, to work together with colleagues from both sides of the aisle. That is my history, and, in fact, that was my primary motivation for running, for stepping into the shoes of my illustrious predecessor, Olympia Snowe of Maine. In fact, that is what we did this summer on student loans when a small bipartisan group of Senators worked together to find a compromise, work it through both sides of this body, both parties, then through the House and then get the signature of the President. We got 81 votes in the Senate and 392 in the House. That is what I want to try to do. That was a validation of what I am here for.

This situation we are in now cries out for resolution. It cries out for finding common ground, for compromising, getting everybody back to work, getting the government shutdown over. So why are we not doing it? Why aren't we out cutting a deal? Why are we not out compromising?

I talk to my colleagues here in the Senate on both sides of the aisle, talk to House Members, both Republicans and Democrats, and there are lots of options. In fact, the House has sent us a series of options. The first one was essentially to defund--effectively repeal the Affordable Care Act, then it was to delay the Affordable Care Act, then it was to delay a part of the Affordable Care Act. But the important thing about these options and this discussion is that it is all taking place in the context of a government shutdown. That is not where negotiations should be made. That is not where negotiation and discussion should be had, when essentially the government has been shut down and one side is saying: We won't allow the government to operate unless you give us what we want on a substantive piece of legislation.

This is the problem. This is why I think in this one case negotiation really is not the right course. It is a process problem, it is a practical problem, and I believe it is a constitutional problem. It is perfectly appropriate to negotiate budgets. As a Governor, I did it four times for biennial budgets and innumerable supplemental budgets, and it is perfectly appropriate to negotiate up to the deadline--lots of late nights. That is when this work, for some reason, seems to get done. But in the context of budgets, of negotiating the most fundamental governmental document, you negotiate about numbers, about details, about allocations. You don't negotiate about entirely separate substantive pieces of law.

In fact, that happened 1 month ago right here when Leader Reid and Speaker Boehner negotiated a continuing resolution on what the numbers should be, and it was a hot and heavy negotiation. The leader compromised. He said: Let's go forward because we can do this cleanly with a continuing resolution at a lower level than the Senate Democrats felt was appropriate than what was in that budget that was passed earlier this year.

But that is not what is going on here. We are not negotiating about the dollar amounts of the budget or the details or the allocations, such as how much will be allocated to defense or how much will be allocated to Head Start. This is an attempt to rewrite a major piece of substantive law through holding the government hostage, which is a result that cannot be achieved through the normal democratic and constitutional processes. That is the core of this current situation, and that is what is bothering me about it. I don't mind negotiating budgets. I do think we shouldn't use the threat of a government shutdown--or now the reality of a government shutdown--to obtain legislative and policy benefits that we can't otherwise obtain through the normal constitutional process. In a very real sense, this is a frontal assault on the Constitution itself.

Ironically, it is being led by many of those who wrap themselves daily in the Constitution. I don't have one of those books, but we all know those books, such as, ``How a Bill Becomes a Law.'' I can guarantee you can read those books until, as my father used to say, the spots come off, but I guarantee there is nothing in there that says if all else fails, hold the government hostage and then you can make a law. That is not what it says.

My wife Mary got me a book when I was first elected called ``Congress for Dummies.'' Even in ``Congress for Dummies,'' it doesn't say you can make laws, change laws, rewrite laws in the context of holding the country hostage. It is an attempt to create an alternative process, a new shortcut way of achieving political ends without having to deal with those pesky elections.

Here is the electoral history of this bill: In 2010, the Affordable Care Act was passed in the early summer. There were elections in 2010, and, indeed, the Republicans gained substantial seats in the House probably because of concern about the Affordable Care Act. I will concede that. But the Senate didn't turn over. By the way, that is the way the Framers planned it, and that is why there are 6-year terms, so public passions in one electoral cycle don't entirely change the government.

Then there was another election in 2012. In that election, in which the Affordable Care Act was a major factor, Democrats gained seats in the House, gained seats in the Senate, and the President, whose name is attached to the bill, won by 5 million votes.

In my election in Maine in every debate--and goodness knows there were probably over 20 of them--my Republican opponents started the debate by saying: I want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That was the whole mission. I defended it--not in every detail because I think it needs to be fixed--and I won that election and here I am. Mr. Romney said: I will repeal ObamaCare on day one, but he lost.

Here we are, in effect, trying to effectuate that agenda--that policy position--through an alternative process that skips around those annoying elections. The passionate opponents of this act are acting as if those elections didn't happen.

Let's be clear about what this is: This is one faction of one party in one House of one branch trying to run the entire U.S. Government.

That is not the way our Constitution is supposed to work. I am confident of that statement because from talking to my friends in the House, I believe it is highly likely that if a clean continuing resolution--that means one without any strings, without any political baggage, without any repeal of the Affordable Care Act--went before the House today, tomorrow or Monday, it would pass. With most of the Democrats and enough Republicans to achieve the majority, the bill would pass and all of this would be over.

Yesterday, Speaker Boehner said two things that I think were important. One I agree with and one I don't. The one I agree with was when he said this isn't a game. It is not a game. It is it deadly serious. It is deadly serious because of the impact this shutdown is having on our country. It is having a serious impact on people throughout the country and in Maine.

Let's talk about this from a national standpoint. Approximately half of the civilians in the Department of Defense and 70 percent of our intelligence agencies' personnel have been furloughed. Air squadrons have been grounded, there are people who are not being trained, and our defense industrial base is already suffering.

In Maine we have 1,500 people on furlough at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and more coming at Bath Iron Works. Almost half of our National Guard people are on furlough.

This is not a game. But all of this is being done in the name of effectively repealing or crippling the Affordable Care Act. Even if they don't think it is a good law, this is not the way to go about dismantling it. It is not the way our Constitution is designed.

Why won't we even negotiate? Why aren't the Democrats negotiating on this and maybe nick the Affordable Care Act? It reminds me of a story of a city guy who came up to a farmer in Maine. He said: I like the looks of your land. I would like to buy your farm. The farmer said: It is not for sale. The city guy said: How about the 50 percent on the river, I would like to buy that. The farmer said: It is not for sale. The city guy said: How about just the quarter acre where your house is on the road? The farmer said: It is not for sale. Then the city guy says: Why won't you negotiate? Because it is not for sale.

This is not the place or time to negotiate. Listen, I think there are problems with the Affordable Care Act. I would love to sit down in good faith with people and try to fix them--starting with making the Web sites work better. But I think the way to do that is not in the context of the government being held hostage.

Here is the real problem: If we do it now, this will become the normal way we legislate around here. This is a 6-week continuing resolution. So we nick the Affordable Care Act in this one, then next time it is going to be, OK, we will take another nick.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. KING. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have 4 more minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. KING. I am afraid this will become the normal way we do things around here. Police, intelligence people, and military officers tell us they don't negotiate with hostage-takers, and the reason they don't is because they would empower, enable, and ensure it will happen again, and that is what worries me.

Our constitutional system has two principles in tension; one is governing and the other is checks and balances. Governing is to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare; and, of course, checks and balances is the rest of the Constitution so we are not abused by our government. If we take away the governing part, which is what the budget is, nothing is left but checks and balances. The Framers thought of this.

Madison in the 58th Federalist addressed it directly. He said: It might be a good thing to have minorities have additional power above a quorum. He then said:

But these considerations are outweighed by the inconveniences in the opposite scale. In all cases where justice or the general good requires new laws to be passed, or active measures to be pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed--

By minority rule.

It would no longer be the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.

Lincoln put it much more succinctly:

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other.

That is what is at stake--governing. I understand the opposition, although I frankly don't fully understand not wanting people to have health insurance. I understand the passion, and I understand the attempt. I think the Speaker is a good man, and he wants to do the right thing.

I understand the need to get something and win something in this weird atmosphere where everybody has to win or lose. They gave it their best shot. It didn't work. Let's move on. Let's have a clean vote in the House so the American people and the world know we still know how to govern. I want to talk, I want to negotiate, and I want to solve problems but not at the expense of this institution, not at the expense of the Constitution, and not at the expense of the American people.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from South Dakota.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday the White House said it is

``winning'' the shutdown debate, and that it is ``not concerned'' how long the shutdown lasts.

The Democrats may be content with playing political games. The Republicans remain focused on finding a solution to reopen the Federal Government. When the White House says it is winning--maybe winning the political debate or winning the political game, if you will--it is the American people who are losing.

The Obama administration said yesterday it would support a measure providing retroactive compensation to furloughed Federal workers. Yet it continues to oppose funding for the National Guard and Reserve, veterans services, nutrition assistance for low-income Americans, FEMA, lifesaving medicines and cures at NIH, and the national parks and museums.

What I would simply say is that there are bills that have been sent here by the House of Representatives that are available to be picked up by the Senate at any time. We could fund all of those various things right now. The bills are from the House. All we have to do in the Senate is to pick them up and pass them, and there wouldn't be any objection on this side of the aisle.

We could fund the National Guard and Reserve, we could fund veterans services, we could fund nutrition assistance for low-income Americans, we could fund FEMA, we could fund lifesaving medicines and cures by funding NIH, and we could fund the national parks and museums. It is that simple.

Our colleagues on the other side consistently talk about this particular program that is not being funded or this particular Federal issue that is not being addressed right now in terms of funding. It can all be solved that easily.

All they have to do is pick up the bills that have come over to us from the House of Representatives and pass them right now without objection on the Republican side, and all of these things that are being talked about could be funded. It is that simple and that easy.

I hope in the end there would be some colleagues on the other side who would agree with us that that is the simplest way to deal with the immediate crisis. We obviously have other issues at work and at play that will be discussed. I wish to talk about one of those in just a minute, but in the meantime, if we are concerned about some of these important programs that are not being funded, we can do that right now. We can take care of the things that benefit people in this country, such as, the people who defend us, the National Guard and Reserve, and the people who want to see our national monuments and parks open. We have heard stories about how those are not available to people across the country. It is very simple. Pick up the bills and pass them right now.

What I would like to talk about, in addition to getting the government back up and running, is doing something to address our Nation's debt. We find ourselves now on the fifth day of a partial government shutdown that--from my perspective--was completely avoidable. We know the government shutdown is only one of the challenges we are currently facing. The Treasury tells us we are going to be reaching our debt limit in the coming days, which astonishingly stands at almost $17 trillion.

As we look at the near future, we need to address the debt limit, and we need to end this partial government shutdown. I think it is unavoidable. Those two issues have sort of converged and come together. At one time, we were going to be talking about addressing one and then subsequently dealing with the debt limit. Now it looks as if those are all going to be one big debate and discussion.

What I am perplexed about is our friend on the other side of the aisle and the President who continue to insist they are not going to negotiate on those issues. When the people of South Dakota sent me to Washington, they did so with the expectation that I will continue to stand for their values. They also know that when it comes to governing, there will be differences of opinion. Oftentimes that means we are going to have to sit down together with people on the other side of the issue to find common ground.

But to say it is my way or the highway is not the way to approach these issues. These are issues that are important to both individuals and our economy, and they just can't say we are not going to negotiate. That is not a viable or a reasonable position in the eyes of the American people.

To put a fine point on that, earlier this week the majority leader was quoted as saying:

The president said he's not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling. He's not going to negotiate, we aren't either. It has never happened in the history of the country.

At the end of last week while the President was out giving political speeches, instead of engaging with Congress to solve these issues, the President made this statement:

And that's why I said this before. I am going to repeat it. There will be no negotiations over this.

That is the President of the United States.

There will be no negotiations over this, reiterated by our friends on the other side of the aisle in the Senate.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. THUNE. I would be happy to yield when I have concluded my remarks, on the time of the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Senator.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I think the reason Republicans here in the Senate find this stance so perplexing is that the characterization we have never negotiated around a debt ceiling is absolutely not true. Deficit reduction measures over the last several decades have been paired with increases in the debt ceiling. Almost 30 years ago, we had the Balanced Budget Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, otherwise known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. I was a staffer here at the time. That was done in the context of the debt ceiling.

We had several measures in the 1990s that reduced our deficits that were done in association with an increase in the debt ceiling.

Most recently, we all remember the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resulted in restraint largely on the discretionary side of the budget, which many of us would like to change; but it has also resulted, for the first time since the 1950s, in 2 consecutive years where the Federal Government spent less than it spent the previous year--the first time since the Korean war. The common denominator is that these deals were paired with an increase in the debt ceiling.

The point I am trying to make, for those of my friends who are arguing that negotiating around our debt ceiling is unprecedented, is perhaps they ought to take a closer look at history.

This week, Kevin Hassett and Abbey McCloskey of the American Enterprise Institute wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled

``Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History,'' which I think characterizes the history of the debt limit in a more accurate way. They write:

According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress voted 53 times from 1978 to 2013 to change the debt ceiling.

So 53 times in those 35 years of recent history.

They go on to write:

Congressional Republicans who want legislative conditions in exchange for a debt-limit increase are following a strategy that has been pursued by both parties the majority of the time. Of the 53 increases in the debt limit, 26 were

``clean''--that is, stand-alone, no strings-attached statutes. The remaining debt-limit increases were part of an omnibus package of other legislative bills or a continuing resolution. Other times, the limit was paired with reforms, only some of which were related to the budget.

To reiterate, out of 53 increases in the debt limit, less than half were what we say are clean or stand-alone measures. The others had other legislation associated with them, in many cases an omnibus package of legislative bills or continuing resolutions or deficit reduction measures.

To make that happen again, what we need is leadership. We need leaders on the other side of the aisle, including the President, to come to the table in good faith to make the tough decisions.

I have to say I find it concerning that instead of coming to the table this week, the President has embarked on a media blitz suggesting Republicans in Congress want to default on the debt. In an interview this week with CNBC's John Harwood, the President stated that he recently told representatives from the financial services sector visiting Washington that they should ``be concerned.'' They should be concerned over a faction of Congress that is willing potentially to default.

In my view, these statements are both unproductive and misguided. Nobody wants default. Nobody wants a government shutdown. I can assure the President and my friends on the other side of the aisle that Republicans here in the Senate couldn't agree more that those are things we need to avoid.

What I would suggest is that instead of simply kicking the can down the road, instead of pushing the difficult decisions off until tomorrow, we have to get serious about the long-term fiscal health of our country so we can grow our economy and help strengthen our middle class. Rather than stoking fears that rankle financial markets and damage the economy, now is the time to move beyond politics and to work with congressional Republicans to make a significant downpayment to address America's long-term debt problems.

Republicans are seeking responsible and reasonable solutions. South Dakotans, and I think the American people, understand that choosing to do nothing when it comes to the debt while piling it on the backs of future generations is not a responsible way to continue to govern our country. I would pose to my Democratic colleagues that Republicans stand ready to come to the negotiating table and act in good faith to get the government up and running again and to make responsible spending reforms that address the true drivers of our debt.

I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will take a lesson from history and not suggest they are not going to negotiate. That is not a viable position in the eyes of the American people, and it is not a viable position if we want to work in a way that is going to lead to an accomplishment and a result here in Washington, DC, on these issues and matters that are of great importance not only to today but to the future of this country.

I would simply say again, as I said when I began, having a position that we are not going to negotiate on a government shutdown and we are not going to negotiate on a debt limit increase is inconsistent with what the American people have said they want to see done. The latest poll I saw shows that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans think we ought to be around the debt limit increase figuring out what we are going to do about the debt. That is what the American people think. It is also unrealistic to think we are going to be able to solve our problems, and it is inconsistent with what history has shown us in the past, that when we have been able to accomplish something, we have been willing to sit down together in the context of raising the debt limit which, by the way, will be over $17 trillion when this is all said and done. I think the American people believe we are going to ask for another debt limit increase to raise that by perhaps another $1 trillion, borrowing limit. They would like to see us do something meaningful to address the incredible, burgeoning, exploding Federal debt we are putting on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

I see the Senator from Rhode Island is up next, and if he would like, on his time, to ask a question, I would, through the Chair, entertain it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from South Dakota. I noticed he was on the floor during the remarks of the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Maine, a few moments ago. Having heard those remarks, I ask the Senator from South Dakota if he would concede that there is a difference between negotiating and negotiating with hostages; whether the hostage is shutting down the government or whether the hostage is defaulting on the U.S. obligations, there is a difference between negotiating and negotiating while holding hostages.

Mr. THUNE. I would say through the Chair, to my colleague from Rhode Island, that I think what makes a negotiation successful is when both sides are sufficiently motivated. It strikes me, at least, that if we are going to have a successful outcome, both sides have to have incentives to be at the table.

I think Republicans have indicated very clearly that we believe one of the ways in which we get legislation, policy put in place that is good for the future of this country is to do it around a debt limit increase. Historically, that has been the case. That has been a precedent. It has been very clear, as I mentioned, throughout the course of modern history that many of the big budget agreements we have reached have been done in the context of a debt limit increase. So I would suggest to my colleague from Rhode Island that whatever the motivation is for getting people to the table, we just need to get to the table.

We have had a lot of, on both sides of the aisle, I would say, in fairness, people questioning each other's motives. But we are in a pretty tough spot right now. We have a government that is shut down that we need to get reopened. We have a debt limit we are going to hit in the next couple of weeks. I hope we can sit down in good faith and figure out where we can find a common path forward that will allow us to govern in a responsible and a reasonable way, but to address what I think are the big issues facing the future of this country.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I note that the President and Leader Reid have both indicated a very open willingness to negotiate on virtually anything. But in light of the difference the Presiding Officer pointed out on the floor a moment ago between good-faith negotiating under our established constitutional procedures and negotiating while holding hostage either the continuing operation of the Federal Government or a U.S. default on its obligations for the first time in history, that that difference does indeed bear on this discussion.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, today marks the fifth day of the shutdown. I come to the Senate floor once again to call on the House of Representatives to take up the Senate bill. It is a simple bill. It has no bells and whistles. It simply says, Let's open the government again. Let's open all the monuments. Let's open up the research that is going on at the National Institutes of Health which is important to save lives. Let's put our intelligence employees, who every day are putting themselves at risk trying to gather intelligence data, back to work. And then let's take those 6 weeks to do what the Senator from South Dakota was talking about, which is to negotiate a bigger deal, a budget deal.

One of the things I have been concerned about is that the Senate has, in fact, passed a budget, the House has, in fact, passed a budget, but our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not let those two budgets go to conference committee as they are supposed to do so we can work out the differences and have a long-term solution. The solution is not to shut the government down.

What has happened? The Senator from Maine, the Presiding Officer, did a good job of reviewing what has gone on over the past few weeks. First, we passed a sensible bill to keep the government open at low spending levels--sequestration levels, as we call them here--with the spending cuts included, because we knew that was a compromise, but we knew that was a way we could get our friends from the other side of the aisle to agree to have a further negotiation period. Instead, we got back a bill that would have delayed the Affordable Care Act--something they knew very well the President would veto and the Senate would not agree to. Now we have gotten a series of bills where they have agreed to keep certain agencies open--sort of government by Whack-a-Mole. One problem comes up; OK, we will get that one done. Oh, maybe there is a big merger that has been proposed that has antitrust problems and could cost consumers money. Maybe we will put a few antitrust lawyers back to work. Oh, I guess there is an imminent threat going on right now, so let's add a few intelligence officers. Let's handle that one. Maybe there is a foodborne illness problem that has developed in part of the country. Maybe we have to put some of those Centers for Disease Control employees back to work.

That is no way to govern in business and that is no way to govern the greatest Nation on Earth. We are a democracy that has been a model for the rest of the world. This is not the answer.

What is the next vehicle we got? Today we found out they have voted to pay furloughed workers. That is something I support. That is something most of the Senators here support. OK. But does this make sense, that they would decide to do that today and then not also vote to put them back to work? They are essentially deciding they are going to pay them--which I support--that they are going to pay them, but they are going to pay them to stay at home. This doesn't make sense in Lanesboro, MN. This doesn't make sense in Detroit Lakes, MN. They believe Federal workers have been hired to do a job and it is time to put them back to work, and that is what this debate is about.

These are the things I have been hearing from my constituents. I have some random letters that came in on our e-mail system over the last few days. Here is a letter from Jason of St. Paul. He says:

I am a Minnesota resident currently on active duty in the U.S. Navy on deployment in the Middle East for my 2nd tour .

. . As a military member, if I did not do my job I'd be putting the lives of my friends and fellow military members at risk.

Jason is a Navy reservist on active duty. He continues:

At home, I am a full-time professional firefighter and EMT for the St. Paul Fire Department. If I chose to fail on my duties when a fire call came in, people would die. Similarly, the shutdown in the U.S. Government--

He says,

I know it happened in the House, and that the Senate passed a bill, sorry--

He adds that, and then he says:

The shutdown of the U.S. Government is unacceptable. I work in a coalition office with several other European officers from other navies and I am embarrassed at what I see from Congress. I urge you with all of my being to work to resolve this. I am confident that you can get the job done.

Next, Lisa from Oakdale, MN:

Senator Klobuchar, I am 39 years old and have never contacted a representative until now. I felt compelled to do so today because as a federal civilian employee, I want to express my extreme disappointment. I have dedicated my career to federal service, which I am now considering changing given this unfairness. Please work to resolve the budget as quickly as possible so my husband and I can return to work.

That is what Lisa said.

The House of Representatives said, rightfully so, they would pay her while she is at home, but they didn't send her back to work. They didn't do what she asked for in this letter. They didn't send her back to work. She simply wants to do her job.

Here is a letter from Pamela from Young America, MN, a farmer:

Please do whatever you can to stop the government shutdown. We have 14 acres of land enrolled in the CRP program

[Conservation Reserve Program] and our rental payment is to be made to us this first week of October. As long as the government shutdown is in place our CRP payments are delayed. We depend on this money as it is not a small amount for our family. There are many farmers/land owners in this same situation. Please stop the shutdown.

Well, I hope the House of Representatives is listening to Pamela of Young America, MN, today.

Kathy from Braham, MN:

I am an employee of the Social Security Administration, Office of Disability Adjudication and Review.

I have seen you intervene on matters for claimants who have disability hearings pending. I am furloughed as part of the government shutdown. If you want your constituents' hearings addressed, I need to be at work in my office.

Is she talking about pay in this letter? Of course she wants to get paid, and she is going to get her pay, and she should, but that is not what she is talking about. She is talking about doing her job and getting back to work. Yet today the House of Representatives voted to pay workers to stay home. OK, we want to pay them but not to put them back at work, when that is all she is asking to do.

Alicia from Hastings, MN:

Dear Senator Klobuchar:

I am writing to express my extreme concern over the federal government shutdown. I am a teacher, a mother of three boys and the wife of a furloughed veteran who works for the Minnesota Air National Guard. I have never before written a letter to my representatives, but feel so utterly helpless and frustrated at this time; I need to voice my concern.

My concern at this time is that those in Congress have forgotten about people like me, like those in my family, and those in my community. I feel like an inconsequential number, a nameless and faceless casualty in a game that has no winners. I am concerned that my family's experience is lost in the rhetoric exchanged between party members. I am concerned that we are the forgotten and nameless . . . collateral damage in a philosophical debate.

At this point in time, my husband, who is a veteran working full-time for the Minnesota Air National Guard, is out of work because he is a federal employee not deemed essential. I am afraid that not only are the other 800,000 laid-off federal employees deemed non-essential, but the rest of the American citizens are non-essential as well. . . . Our struggles are real-life struggles; not a game, not philosophical, not in theory, not distant and not imaginary. My hope is that those struggles and hardships matter to you, and in a real way. . . . I am hoping you will understand the urgency of this situation for my family and for the thousands of others whom you directly impact on a daily basis. I don't want any representatives to forget the real people affected by these decisions. . . . That is your duty. That is your charge. That is your enormous task. . . . I hope that I can count on you to look out for my family and the many others you affect. I hope that you will consider our lives and hardships. . . . Thank you for your efforts to . . . solve this situation.

She does not want to be inconsequential. She does not want to be non-

essential--not just her husband, who is furloughed, but she as a citizen of this country. Again, is she asking for money? Of course they want to get paid, and they will get paid, but that is not what this is about. This is about her husband getting back to work to do the duties he was hired to do by the American people.

This is a simple bill. It simply allows them to go back to work.

I am heartened by the fact that the number--I think it is at 22 House Members now on the Republican side--who have said they want to vote on this Senate bill. That is a magic number. That is enough to pass it. We have to let that bill come up for a vote.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today in order to talk about the impact of the current government shutdown on Hawaii's Federal workers.

Here in Washington, we debate in what most people consider abstractions. We use terms such as ``ObamaCare,'' ``filibuster,'' and

``discretionary spending.'' We talk about government programs and initiatives in the aggregate and in the abstract. Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear about some program costing in the millions and billions. While we use these terms and concepts when debating the nuts and bolts of government policy, what we need to always keep in mind is that these dollars and these terms impact real people, real lives.

The work of the Senate is to debate and to deliberate with the goal of finding consensus solutions to the challenges our Nation faces. The core of what we do is about people, families, and communities. When we get away from thinking this way, when we focus on the abstractions and the slogans and who is winning the day's media war, it becomes easy to forget what we are all here for. When we forget that, we find ourselves unable to move forward and find consensus. We lose focus on the people, families, and communities that sent us here.

Public service is a privilege. It is also a responsibility. When we stand for election or enter public service in some other way, we are committing to put ourselves in the back, behind the people for whom we work and serve.

So today, as we mark another day of a government shutdown, I would like to share some stories with my colleagues, stories about people and families affected by the shutdown.

I have received letters like my colleague from Minnesota has received letters from her constituents, from people of all ages, serving in different capacities and at different Federal Government agencies, and even some who are just embarking on a path to public service. These are all people dedicated to their work and dedicated to their country. The damage we are doing by not getting these folks back on the job is serious and impacts our national security, our economy, and a host of necessary services upon which the people of our country depend.

This shutdown and the debate around it is undermining a commitment to public service for many people. It is damaging the effectiveness of our institutions, and it is unnecessarily putting many families in Hawaii and across the Nation in a state of uncertainty and anxiety.

One furloughed man who wrote to me expressed these views clearly. He said:

As a U.S. Air Force civilian, I am a furloughed employee. Hawaii has nearly the highest percentage of federal workers. This has a huge impact on the Aloha state. Unlike the recent sequester, one can't scale back when nothing is coming in.

Some lower-grade workers may lose their homes and with it their sense of pride for choosing to work for the govt. That's the reality of this shutdown.

He went on:

By Oct 9, we'll have lost more than the recent sequester cuts. Many have not overcome that and now we're summarily discharged. And the debt ceiling debate is next? I work in an office of 10 or so. Half active duty, half civilian. We provide the continuity needed year in and year out to manage instrument procedures at all our bases in the Pacific Air Forces. . . .

He goes on:

Are we ``non-essential'' employees? I respectfully ask Speaker Boehner to ask them. I'm upset that a few politicians are holding my country, my community, and yes, my family hostage for political brinksmanship. . . . I stand with you, Leader Reid and the ``responsible'' Republicans in the U.S. House that want to get our nation moving again.

Another constituent wrote to me about the impact of the shutdown on her family. She said:

As the wife of an ``essential personnel'' government employee, I would like to tell you that the shutdown is devastating. We are parents of three children, one of whom is special needs and requires expensive measures daily to survive. Without a paycheck, we will be unable to pay our bills, buy food, support our children. Many, many middle class federal employee families are in the same boat. Savings will not support us indefinitely.

My husband is, right now as we speak, at work doing his duty, protecting the American public against foodborne illness and contamination. Yet he is doing it with no pay. We are devastated. Please please tell our story. Tell the Republicans who have not crossed the aisle to please be reasonable and fund the government. They can argue later. Children are paying the price for the shutdown.

As of right now, at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, three of our Nation's nuclear submarines are in drydock. Work on them stopped due to the shutdown. One of the shipyard workers wrote this to me:

Mazie, I am an employee of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The shutdown has left my co-workers and myself with a sense of trepidation, insecurity and angst. Most of the hard working dedicated and patriotic federal civilian employees I work with live paycheck to paycheck due to the high cost of living in our islands. I have fears of not being able to pay my mortgage on time in November.

But more importantly Mazie, the operational readiness of our Pacific Fleet is in jeopardy because we aren't able to keep our ships ``Fit To Fight'' if we can't go to work, repair them and meet schedule deadlines for returning them to operational status. Our workload already is stretching our resources and demanding we perform more with less. How can we recover a day, a week, a month or more sitting at home when so much is at stake? The long term consequences of this shutdown has ripple effects that are not one for one but a much longer period when moving a large industrial workforce back into a rhythm of productivity and efficiency. Please continue to work with your colleagues in Congress and convince them to end this shutdown sooner rather than later.

This letter is an example of the selflessness of so many workers. While he is concerned about himself and his colleagues, his greater concern is for the impact this shutdown will have on our Nation's security.

I have also received letters from people just starting out in life and in public service. For example, one young woman wrote me:

I am in jeopardy of losing my AmeriCorps VISTA placement, which would prevent me from developing essential workplace skills, and an education stipend that would lighten the load of my student loan debt.

Another shared this:

My husband and I are closing on our first condo today, Tuesday, October 2nd and are now faced with the challenge of my husband not receiving a paycheck during the shutdown. He is a government employee who is expected to work during the shutdown without a payday in sight. I am extremely nervous now about paying our mortgage and other essential bills when I should be excited about our first home purchase. I know eventually this will be straightened out but at what cost to us? We are both in our early 30's trying to make a life together and like many obstacles, this is another setback. I hope this comes to an end quickly.

These are people just starting to make their way in the world. They are working hard and doing all the right things. Yet, through no fault of their own, they are facing uncertainty and are likely questioning whether they have chosen the right path.

The last letter I would like to share today--and I will be sharing more in the coming days about other areas of Hawaii's economy that have been impacted--is one that I hope my colleagues will think about as we go forward. This couple wrote:

My spouse and I are both federal employees, with a combined public service commitment of over 50 years. We have seen and lived through many congressional sessions and many more shenanigans, but neither of us can recall a time when the truculence of a few has caused so much hurt in the lives of so many. I am ``essential;'' my husband is not. We will get by.

Others are not so lucky. Our administrative assistants, for example, both of whom are barely hanging on, trying to feed their kids on the same pay they received three years ago while the costs of health insurance, transportation, and housing have continued to rise, are now not being paid at all.

Our daughter, for example, over $200,000 in student loan debt, who tends to our veterans as a physician in a VA hospital, still had to come up with her rent on Tuesday and still has to pay for healthy food and quality daycare so that she can go to work, but not get paid.

These people devoted their careers to serving the public, helping people, and making our country a better place.

I ask my colleagues to think: How long will this couple's daughter or the administrative assistants they mention in their letter continue to hang on and stay in public service? If our political system cannot function, our institutions and the people who work in them and rely on their services suffer.

One of the most damaging legacies of this shutdown could be the crisis of confidence it will create among the American people toward their own government. That would be devastating.

I am not arguing that government should be the answer to all of our problems, provide all of our services, but the services it does provide should be worthy of the people, families, and communities we are providing them for. Having a dedicated Federal workforce is central to that goal, and our job as Senators is to give that workforce confidence that their work is valued, that they are valued, that their contributions are worthwhile. This shutdown fails miserably in all of those respects.

We have the privilege of serving in the Senate. Let's do our job for the people all across our country who, like all these people who wrote to me and who wrote to all my other colleagues, expect nothing less of us.

Let's reopen the government. Speaker Boehner, let the House vote on the bill that the Senate sent to you. Let's get back to working on what we can do better to serve the people, families and communities that gave us the privilege to be here.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Hawaii for her comments and say that on the basis of what this Senator just discovered, having gone down to the other end of the Capitol, it is going to take a lot of loud voices to get the Speaker to hear us because they have shut down. They have gone home. They are not even coming back until next Monday.

I was just wandering through this deserted Capitol. I encountered Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of the great leaders of the Congress, who is the minority whip now and used to be majority leader in the House of Representatives. He just gave me this report.

Those chambers down there at the other end are darkened. Here we are, on the basis of a small group of people in the House of Representatives who insist on having it their way or no way, we have all of these people and all of these specific events that all of these Senators have chronicled of the deprivation of the lack of security. I mean you can go on and on as a result of the shutdown.

This Senator is going to enumerate a few examples of that while the two Senators from Hawaii and the Senator from Wisconsin are here, and the great presiding officer, one of the bright lights of the new class that just came into the Senate.

If you really examine what is the problem--the problem--it actually goes back to the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Hebrew Scriptures, to two commandments that then were reiterated by Jesus in the new Scriptures.

The first commandment: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is likened to it: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is a practical ``how to'' for what we know as the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. That is a practical application of the second great commandment of: Love your neighbor as yourself.

It is part of the root of the problem we see. It is not only gripping the capital city of the United States, where people are so ingrown and insular and unwilling to respect the other fellow's point of view and work out their differences--the very underpinnings of the greatness of our democracy that has lasted over 2\1/4\ centuries is on that basic principle of: Treat others as you would want to be treated.

In other words, in the political context, do what Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan used to do: Have your fights, but at the end of the day, respect each other so when it is time to do the deal, you can come together and resolve your differences.

Another great model for this Senator when he was a young Congressman were the two leaders in the House of Representatives: Tip O'Neill, the Democratic Speaker, and Bob Michel, the Republican leader. It is the same kind of relationship that Tip had with the President.

They would fight like the dickens during the day, but they kept that personal respect through a personal friendship, so that even though they vigorously disagreed about an issue, they realized that they were not the only ones in this country, that there were other people who thought differently than they did, and in the grand tradition of American democracy, when it was time to build a consensus to achieve a workable solution, then they could come together and work it out.

But what we see is a small--very, I would dare say--totally inward-

looking group that thinks that they know it all and that their opinion is the only opinion, and that they have the political leverage since the Speaker of the House has said that he will only pass something with Republican votes. By the way, it did not used to be that way. They now call that the Hastert rule, named after Speaker Hastert.

Before that, it did not used to be that way. We used to pass legislation in the House of Representatives with Republican and Democratic votes. I give you that great example. I want to give you one of the finest examples of government being able to work during a time of economic emergency. It was in 1983. We were within 6 months of shutting down Social Security because Social Security was starting to run out of money, where it could not make its full payments. It would have made partial payments.

Those two Irishmen, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, said: We are going to fix it. The first thing we are going to do is to take this iron rail of American politics, and we are going to take it off the table to be used as a hammer to beat your opponent over the head with in the next election. Then we are going to appoint a blue-ribbon panel. They are going to bring back their recommendation to the Congress, and we are going to pass it.

All of that occurred. It passed overwhelmingly and made Social Security actuarially sound for the next half century, into the 2030s, all the way from 1983. That is an example of the finest traditions of governing under the American constitutional method in our democratic system.

So when you get at loggerheads in a time such as this, where is that respect--that genuine respect and not that superficial respect, that respect that fortunately we show to each other out here on the floor of the Senate. But where is that genuine respect, and where is that recognition? Those words over the presiding officer are scrolled in the marble: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. We gain our unity from many peoples, many ideas, but we all think of ourselves unum, as one, as Americans.

That is what we are missing. You boil all of this down, and that is what is going on in American politics today. We do not talk to each other. We are shouting past each other. Turn on your cable TV. Look at the shouting match there. Turn on one cable network and you get only one perspective. Turn on another cable network and you get another perspective. We are not talking to each other. We are not.

Also, as the good book says, as Lyndon Johnson as President often reminded us: Come, let us reason together. That is what is happening. I see other Senators that want to speak here. I have got a whole bunch of things that I wanted to enumerate that are happening in the State of Florida, where the shutdown of the Federal Government is affecting the State government. I am not going to list those so that my colleagues can go on and speak.

I have got a bunch of issues to talk about related to national security, where we are genuinely harmed today with the shutdown of the government. I want to point out that one of our military commanders--it happens to be a tanker unit, the big KC-135 tankers. They fly and refuel all of our aircraft. They refuel in the air.

He said, ``We are effectively shut down.'' Another commander of another active duty wing, Colonel DeThomas says that when you take the furloughs, these furloughs on top of the 6 days that they lost unpaid in the sequester in the last fiscal year, which ended September 30, he says: You do that, and it creates a double whammy. That is what is happening. That is just one little snippet of our national security. I am so glad that these colleagues are here to speak. I will share all of the details that I intended to share at a later time. I thank the Senators for their attention.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor today to deliver a message from the people of Wisconsin. They are fed up with the political games that are being played here in Washington. They have had enough. On Tuesday, Congress failed the American people and our government shut down because the tea party faction in the House put their own personal agendas and partisan politics ahead of progress for the American people.

The Republican leadership in the House could end this shutdown by simply letting the House vote on the Senate-passed bill to fund the government. Instead, the Speaker of the House has, for over a week, prevented the House from voting on a clean funding bill that would open the entire Federal Government.

In my home State of Wisconsin, we believe in hard work. We believe that hard work should be respected and rewarded.

Every day people get up and go to work to build a better life for themselves and their families. They trust in the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will get ahead.

They are right to expect that both parties in Washington work together to help keep that promise. They are right to expect that both parties in Washington work together to respect the hard work of Americans who have helped lift this country up from the worst recession since the Great Depression. They are right to expect that both parties in Washington work together to reward the hard work of families and small business owners who, through sheer grit and determination, have been moving our economy and our country forward.

In my home State of Wisconsin, our State motto is one word: Forward. The people of Wisconsin live up to that motto every single day, and I would say all Americans do as well.

As I stand here today, in the midst of the fifth day of a government shutdown, I can't say that Congress has. Instead of working together to move our economy and our country forward, the Republican leadership in the House has offered day after day of political games and brinkmanship.

Here is the price: In Wisconsin, more than 800 workers in the National Guard are off the job--hard-working people who have committed themselves to public service, to something bigger than themselves. They get up every day and work for our common good. They deserve to have a Congress that does the same.

These are particularly tough times for my State. Even as the national economy is rebuilding and rebounding, my State's economy has lagged behind the rest of the Nation. Our economy cannot afford to have the tea party extremists in the House making it harder for small business owners to create jobs.

Their shutdown has blocked small business loans and investments in Wisconsin and that threatens our ``made in Wisconsin'' economy and tradition, our work ethic, and our entrepreneurial spirit.

Due to this tea party shutdown, Wisconsin's small businesses are missing out on about $3.5 million in SBA-supported loans every day. That means Wisconsin's small businesses have been denied access to critical loans since this shutdown began.

We know the majority of new jobs in the United States are created by startups, and small businesses are engines of our economy, creating two out of every three new jobs. Our economy needs to have a Congress that is supporting and strengthening small business efforts, not a Congress that steers from one manufactured crisis to another.

Groundbreaking research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, adds more than $800 million a year to Wisconsin's economy. We should all be able to agree, both parties in the House and the Senate, that in order for America to outinnovate the rest of the world we must protect and strengthen our investments in research, science, and innovation.

The failure of the House leadership to step up and actually lead has put in place a shutdown that is threatening Wisconsin's leadership on bioenergy research and on biomedical research. This failure in leadership in the House means new patients are being turned away from the benefits of cancer research being done at the University of Wisconsin.

On a broader scale, our NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins, told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that as long as the government is shut down, the National Institutes of Health says it will turn away roughly 200 patients each week from its clinical research center, including children with cancer. He said:

We've had to tell people ``I'm sorry, you can't come here.''

This is the price extracted by a small tea party group in the House who can't see past their own political agenda to defund, delay, or repeal the Affordable Care Act. It is reckless and it is irresponsible. But it doesn't have to be that way. It is time. It is time the House leadership steps up and actually leads.

More than 1 week ago the Senate passed a clean bill that funds the government, ends the shutdown, and that opens the Federal Government for business again. They have obstructed that measure from going to the House floor for a simple up-or-down vote. The House Republicans need to end these politics. It is time for the House to have an up-or-down vote to end this shutdown.

House Republicans need to break with their divisive threats. They need to start governing and pass a responsible budget that invests in the middle class and strengthens our economy. It is time. It is time for the House to have an up-or-down vote to open our government for business.

House Republicans need to stop standing in the way of progress. They need to start working to build a better and stronger future for our country. It is time. It is time for the House to have an up-or-down vote to end this gridlock and to move our country forward.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. CASEY. We certainly appreciate the hours of the Presiding Officer in presiding. I don't know whether the Presiding Officer's time is at the beginning or the end, but we are grateful for the time this weekend.

I wish to start by commending the work of the Capitol Police. I didn't have a chance to do that yesterday in light of what happened in Washington the other day. It was a terrible incident and a terrible tragedy. As usual, the Capitol Police handled it with professionalism and with very effective policing and law enforcement and kept people safe. We should commend them every day, not only on days when there is a dangerous incident that takes place. We thank them for that.

We gather here today to talk about our country and whether we are going to finally, after almost a full week now, have a government that is open, operating, and functioning. I think a lot of people in both parties, and maybe more so on the Republican side of the aisle, have a better chance this week to understand, appreciate, or have insights into what our government does every day, how it helps people, keeps our economy moving, and keeps us safe. I only hope those lessons are being learned.

When I am in Pennsylvania or in Washington and getting communications from Pennsylvania, people ask, in light of this shutdown, some basic questions. A lot of the questions are the same: When will it end? How will it end? Is there a way out? They ask those kinds of questions. They don't know because there is often not a readily identifiable answer.

But as complicated as this is, and as difficult as it has been, especially for people directly affected or even affected indirectly for folks around the whole country, there actually is a pretty simple answer, and maybe it has been overlooked this week. It comes down to one word--technically it is two words. The first word is ``just'' and the second word is ``vote.'' But in our social media age, often words are jammed together, so maybe we will say it is one word, ``justvote.''

People might say what does that mean? Congress should have votes all the time, and we understand the House and the Senate votes things all the time. What does ``just vote'' mean? Actually, it is rather simple. A week ago yesterday the Senate voted on a measure, a simple amendment, that was sent over to the House that was a clean resolution--in other words, a continuing resolution. It is another way of saying to keep the government operating. It didn't have anything attached to it, nothing about anything extraneous or additional. That is where the phrase a clean CR, continuing resolution, comes from. It is a way to keep the government open.

The House, led by Speaker Boehner, decided not to consider that. Here it is. It is actually pretty simple. It is an amendment to H.J. Res. 59. It is amendment No. 1974. We can see the markings on it when it was being considered here. It is all of 16 pages. It doesn't even get to the end of page 16. It is a simple document, and it has been sitting over there for a week. I, of course, won't read it, but it is a very simple way out of this predicament.

It has overwhelming support across the country. Even for people who disagree with me or disagree with Democrats about health care or about any other issue, there is overwhelming support for this. When someone says ``just vote,'' this is what they should just vote on in the House. The House passes this, and it is over. The government shutdown is over. The President will sign it and literally within--I don't know how long it will take them to consider it in the House, 20 minutes for a vote, or an hour for all the procedural mechanisms to play out--and then the President would sign it. I am sure there are people who would drive it to the White House to have him sign it.

That is what this is. It is a 16-page bill that is simple. It even has growing support on the Republican side.

When we say just vote, just vote on this 16-page document. It may not look like a key--it is 16 pages of legislative language--but this is the key to ending what I think is not a Republican-Democratic shutdown, but this is the key to ending the tea party shutdown. That is what this is. I think most people understand that now we are into a couple of days of government shutdown.

It would be very easy for that vote to take place. It would transpire very quickly. The Speaker would only have to put the bill on floor. He wouldn't have to vote for it. Most Republicans wouldn't have to vote for it and likely would not. But the combination of getting Democrats voting for it, virtually every one, and a handful of Republicans, is not only possible but I think there are people waiting to do it. Maybe the number would even grow if it actually happened. This is what should happen. That could happen today or the next opportunity would be Monday.

I would hope the Speaker would do that because I think a lot of people are asking a fundamental question about who is in charge, who runs one part of the House or the other. It is my judgment that the tea party is in charge now. I hope conservative Republicans, very conservative Republicans, and moderate Republicans can get control of their party.

What I worry about--and I think what economists worry about even more than I because they know more than we do about the economy--the concern is if they don't get control of one wing of one political party, we are going to have an economy that gets out of control. No one wants that, I don't believe, in either party.

The other point I wanted to make about where we are--and I know there are people who hear a lot of back and forth and they get a little tired of the debate. They would rather have everyone vote in the House and this would be over. I think it is important to talk about the words

``compromise'' and ``negotiation,'' because they have been used a lot by the Speaker and by Republican Members in the last couple of days.

I think the record is pretty clear, even though some have forgotten it--and there were reminders this week--that the negotiation and the compromise on the resolution to keep the government operating already happened. It happened weeks if not months ago. Both sides agreed a resolution to continue funding the government would go forward with nothing attached to it.

The hard part for Democrats is that we had to compromise in a very substantial way, and I think that is an understatement. The compromise we put on the table and we adhered to is the compromise of a $70 billion cut in fiscal year 2013 enacted levels.

What does that mean? That means we agreed to a much lower number. Democrats on this side passed a budget resolution in the early hours of a Saturday morning. We voted all night. I don't know how many votes we had through several days and throughout the night, but we passed a budget resolution which had a higher number than the number we agreed to later. So we compromised substantially.

I think you could even make the argument the compromising so far has been all on one side--the Democratic side--to agree to a much lower number. But one of the most important parts of that is we compromised on the core issue before us. This continuing resolution and funding the government, keeping the government operating, is not a health care debate. I realize people have made it into a health care debate, but the core issue is will the government remain open. We said yes. Will the government remain open at the Democratic number? We wanted that, but we said no in order to keep it functioning and moving forward. We agreed to a lower number. That is the core issue, what will the number be to fund the government.

So the compromising and the negotiating was done a long time ago and we were the ones who compromised. The idea that we should have a drawn-

out discussion, which they call negotiating, to open the government doesn't make a lot of sense. Once the government is open, we have a lot to debate and talk about and negotiate.

One of the illustrations of what I am talking about in terms of what happened here and that transpired over many months, where Democrats compromised to keep the government functioning, was set forth in several news articles in the last couple of days, but I won't read them.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent to have 3 more minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. CASEY. Looking at the Thursday, October 3 edition of Politico, on page 19, here is the headline. I will hold it up, but it is probably too small to see so I will read it: ``How the Shutdown Fight Is Obscuring a Major Republican Victory.''

They are saying here that the compromise the Democrats made to cut

$70 billion is the compromise that already happened and should keep the government open. That is the reality.

The good news is there is a growing number of Republicans in the House and Senate who are saying just what I am saying: Let's just have the House vote and pass the continuing resolution as it is.

I have a number of examples from Pennsylvania. These are examples of what middle-class families are facing.

I have heard from several constituents who may not be able to make their mortgage payments this month due to furloughs and from others who can't close on homes because their federal loans are not being processed during a shutdown. I want to take the opportunity to highlight two letters from my constituents. This letter No. 1:

Because of the government shutdown, my husband has been furloughed, and is now home without pay for nearly a week. Our mortgage payment is due next week and we are going to be short because of this. My family barely gets by as it is and we cannot afford to lose an entire week's salary because of government tantrums over a health care bill . . . I cannot even begin to express how disappointed I am in our government and your lack of consideration for middle class families who are struggling.

This is letter No. 2:

After searching for a house for over two years, we have finally found our home. We have gone through all the underwriting for our mortgage, and we only need the stamp from USDA. Unfortunately, since the government shutdown, USDA has closed. We were supposed to have settlement on October 11th, 2013. My husband . . . and I already put in our notices that we will be moving. This is absolutely unacceptable. Please help us in making our home, OUR HOME.

Every day that Speaker Boehner refuses to hold a vote on the Senate passed bill that will reopen the government causes more uncertainty and difficulty for Pennsylvanians and citizens across the country. It's time for this shutdown to end and for the House to just vote on the clean continuing resolution that will reopen the government.

Let me conclude with this. I think one of the best lines of the week about this piecemeal approach the House is taking day after day, instead of just voting on the measure before them to open the government, came from the commander in chief of the VFW--the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He said:

We expect more from our elected leadership, and not a piecemeal approach that would use the military or disabled veterans as leverage in a political game.

I think that is a pretty good estimation of why we shouldn't go in the direction of piecemealing. The House should, in a word, just vote so we don't have--and I say this respectfully to my Republican friends--a tea party shutdown evolve into a tea party default. It is bad enough we are in a shutdown, but it will be a lot worse if, for the first time since 1789, the U.S. Government defaulted and the full faith of credit of the United States was badly, badly damaged.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the other day a reporter came up to me and said: You have been here a while. What do you think it will take to end this shutdown? I replied with a single sentence: The Speaker of the House needs to lead.

A majority of House Republicans want to end this shutdown by voting for a clean continuing resolution, but a small number of the most ideological Members of the House oppose such a move and oppose a vote, and the Speaker has given this small group a veto over the functioning of the U.S. Government.

Congressman Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican, made one of the most stunning statements about this situation. In a television interview this week, Congressman Dent said the following:

I do believe it's imperative we do have a clean funding bill to fund the government. That was the intent of the Republican leadership all along, but obviously there were a few dozen folks in the House Republican Conference who weren't prepared to vote for a clean bill, and that's why we're in the situation we're in right now.

Congressman Dent, a Republican, makes it very clear what is going on over in the House of Representatives. There are a few dozen folks in the House Republican Conference who aren't prepared to vote for a clean bill, and that is why we are in the situation we are in right now. So the Speaker of the House is allowing a ``few dozen folks'' to shut down the U.S. Government. What an indictment of the House Republican leadership.

Speaker Boehner could bring all this chaos to an end. All he has to do is bring the Senate's bill reopening the government to a vote. The Senate has voted three times on House continuing resolutions. Speaker Boehner has yet to schedule a single vote on the Senate's bill. Why? Because it would pass.

That has to sound totally counterintuitive--that you don't bring a bill to the floor because it would pass. When the Speaker himself says he wants the government to open, and 90 percent of his own Republican Caucus wants the government to open but 10 percent of his caucus doesn't, that means he would have to depend on a few Democratic votes to pass the bill. And that is anathema to the Speaker of the House; a bill with bipartisan support cannot be allowed, in his judgment, to come to a vote because it would pass. That means it would be a bipartisan bill. It would depend upon some Democratic votes. It is his policy--the Speaker's policy--that he cannot hold votes on bills that require Democratic votes to pass.

I cannot think of a more striking example of rank partisanship than that policy. I hope the Speaker will be asked one of these days to explain his refusal, as to why he is following the dictates of a small group of his caucus when there is a bipartisan solution right in front of him. We have looked through the media, and we cannot find where the Speaker has ever been asked or answered this question: Why will you not bring the Senate continuing resolution vote to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote? Why will you not allow a vote on that bill?

Instead, the Speaker sends us piecemeal bills and demands we open the government one program, one agency at a time. Today, there is a new element--a bill that would pay Federal employees whether they are on the job or not during this shutdown.

Federal employees didn't ask to stop working, so we should pay them. But why in heaven's name--why in heaven's name--should we not let them get back on the job serving this country if they are going to be paid? Why not pass a continuing resolution and let them work? This bill to pay retro actively Federal employees who aren't working passed, apparently, unanimously today in the House of Representatives.

Why not let them work? Pass a continuing resolution.

I also want to ask the Republicans who support this bits-and-pieces approach this question: When all this piecemeal legislating is through, what is it that you propose to remain closed? Is it the USDA inspectors or offices that process small business loans? Is it the agency that works on Pell grants for college students? Is it NOAA forecasters who keep the watch on hurricanes? Is it FEMA workers who respond when storms come ashore? Is it the furloughed workers at the National Institutes of Health who process the grants that fund so much of our Nation's health research? Just which Americans do the House Republicans intend to keep as hostages to their obsession with repealing ObamaCare?

One of the problems with the Republican approach is it makes gross judgments as to who will be ransomed and who will remain a hostage. What agencies get ransomed and which ones remain hostage? I don't think we can be satisfied with freeing some of the hostages while the rest remain captive. That is not what this country is all about. We are not the United States of National Parks Visitors or the United States of NSA. We are one Nation, and that is why the attempt of the Republicans in the House to pick out one group of Americans at a time is going to fail.

I heard one Republican say the other day that our call, the Democratic call, to open the entire government was ``cynical.'' What a remarkable statement. Here is what I call cynical: Shutting down government cancer trials for young patients, Head Start classrooms for students, benefits for the families of our troops who fall in combat, shutting down all that and hundreds of other things, and then offering to restore the government in slivers, piece by piece, while pretending you are doing the country a favor. That is pretty doggone cynical--

acting as if it is a compromise worthy of praise to shut down our government and then to allow portions of it to reopen today, perhaps another portion or two tomorrow, and another portion or two the day after that. That is cynicism.

The anecdote to that cynicism is the true spirit of this country, and it is embodied in people such as Congressman John Dingell and former Senate majority leader Bob Dole. Bob Dole is a Republican. Both of those great gentlemen, Congressman Dingell and Senator Dole, served this country in peace and war. And when the House Republicans tried to cover up their destructive behavior by draping it in the love our Nation feels for our World War II veterans, these two men, Republican and a Democrat, both World War II veterans, said it clearly:

If you want to honor the service, give the nation we risked our lives for its government back, all of it.

Here is what they said in a joint statement:

If this Congress truly wishes to recognize the sacrifice and the bravery of our World War II veterans and all who've come after, it will end this shutdown and reopen our government now.

Senator Dole and Congressman Dingell added:

Piecemeal or partial spending plans do not adequately ensure that our veterans--and indeed all Americans--have access to the system of self-government established to serve and protect them.

Republicans have a simple choice: Continue their current dead-end approach or reopen the government and then have discussions about health care or the budget or other issues they wish to discuss. It is time for those Republicans who say the government should be open, who say they do not believe in these destructive tactics, to match their words with deeds. It is time for the rhetoric now to give way to leadership.

Speaker Boehner can end this all now--end this farce of rifleshot funding that leaves our government full of holes--and bring up for a vote in the House of Representatives a clean continuing resolution. Open the government, all of it. Open it now, Speaker Boehner, by allowing the House to vote on the Senate bill which will reopen this government.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, most people believe in compromise. Coming from Hawaii, I certainly believe in compromise. It is part of who we are.

When you live on an island--no matter how contentious issues may get--because of your geographic limitations, you will always see someone the following morning at the Safeway, at the coffee shop, at the bus stop or back at work. So I am deeply personally inclined toward compromise, and so are the people that I represent back in Hawaii.

The problem here is that the House Republicans' supposed compromise is not a compromise at all. Absent from their press conferences and their photo ops is the truth. They are attempting to extort the end of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for doing the job that they were elected to do--a job that 800,000 Federal employees need them to do--

which is to simply just pass a bill to fund the government.

Passing observers, people who were busy last week may be tempted to cast blame on both parties, but the reality is that there is no question, by any objective measure, of whose recklessness has forced our government to halt many of its most important services. This shutdown is on the Speaker and the tea party.

Meanwhile, my friends and neighbors back home are suffering. About 25,000 people in Hawaii are civilian Federal employees, and most of them are going without paychecks. More than 36,000 women and children in Hawaii depend on the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants, and Children, which makes sure that low-income mothers and infants are fed. Without funding, these families could actually go hungry. More than 3,000 children in Hawaii participate in Head Start programs. Head Start is a program that provides early education and related social services to children and their families. Without funding, these kids will have no place to go every day.

Only 3 weeks after 250,000 gallons of molasses spilled into Honolulu Harbor--one of the worst environmental catastrophes in the history of the island of Oahu--Federal support for investigation, cleanup, and restoration activities have essentially had to stop. Those Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees responsible for assisting are not allowed to report to work.

At the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, 2,600 employees are furloughed. Workers are forced to stay home, causing real economic hardship. This continued uncertainty not only affects them, but affects the decisions of future shipyard workers who may now choose other professions rather than become the naval engineers that Hawaii and our Nation desperately need. With nearly half of their workforce at home, officials at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard are forced to make hard choices about what work they can perform. We need to end this shutdown so that the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard can continue to ensure that our entire naval fleet is ready to respond to any contingency in the Asia Pacific.

These are not theoretical hardships or decisions. My constituents have been sharing their situations with me. I have received many letters. Let me give an example of a person from Kailua on Oahu, who wrote to me saying:

Let me start by stating that I am a U.S. citizen. I love my country, I love my job, I want to work and am proud to support the war fighters when I can work. But I am truly disappointed and feel a sense of betrayal over the past three months of furloughs, budget cuts and being worried about my job and career.

Another constituent of mine from Mililani on Oahu serves in the Reserve. She relies on the money she receives from her monthly unit training assembly to pay her mortgage. She knows she may not be able to meet all of her financial obligations at the end of this month, which is when her paychecks may stop arriving. But she asked me not to give in on the Affordable Care Act because millions of uninsured Americans deserve access to health care.

Even residents who do not collect a paycheck from the Federal workforce are suffering. One small business owner from Makawao, on the island of Maui, is suffering because her business relies on traffic to and from the Haleakala National Park, which has been closed since Monday. She says:

Many small businesses like mine felt an immediate impact on our sales as tours cancelled their trips into Hawaii's most visited attraction.

Last night I got an e-mail from someone who is waiting on a small business loan that is not coming through because of the delay in processing SBA loans. This person is expecting to have to lay off 40 individuals from their small company.

So the idea that this is somehow a pro-business shutdown, the idea that they are protecting the rights of employers, the idea that this is in any way good for the economy is just belied by all of the facts.

Personally, working with a reduced staff, I began answering phone calls myself this week and many of the stories were similar: Without pay and Federal services, life has become uncertain and worrisome for thousands of families. This is all because House Republicans are throwing a temper tantrum and refusing to take a reasonable vote to reopen the government. This really is a tea party temper tantrum, and it is totally unprecedented. It is a low point for the Congress.

But there is a solution to this, and the senior Senator from Michigan pointed it out. It is simple. All that has to happen is for the Speaker of the House to put our legislation on the floor and let the House vote. There is a broad bipartisan majority of Members of the House of Representatives who want to reopen the government.

So I have two questions. First, for the media and for the constituents of Speaker Boehner: Please ask him, why in the world--if there is a majority of Members of the House of Representatives prepared to reopen the government--why he would not use his authority to put that legislation on the floor? And I ask everyone to ask all of their Members of Congress to let the House vote. If we let the House vote, this crisis will be done on Monday morning.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. FRANKEN. 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. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 20 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about reopening the government. We are now 5 days into a government shutdown that should never have happened. Minnesotans do not want a government shutdown. They want us to do our jobs, not refight the same old political battles over and over. With each day of the shutdown I hear more and more reports about how it is affecting Minnesotans, as I am sure the Presiding Officer hears about how it is affecting the people of Maine.

Minnesotans seeking basic government services are being turned away. Hundreds of people go to the Minneapolis Social Security office each day to get Social Security cards. But on the first day of the shutdown, according to the Minneapolis StarTribune, those Minnesotans--some of whom took time off from work and drove long distances--arrived to find the card center closed.

Minnesota's small businesses are also feeling the impact. Small businesses in Minnesota receive an average of $1.8 million in loans every day under the Small Business Administration's Guaranteed Loan Programs in 2012. With the government shut down, these programs will no longer take new applications and our businesses have to put their plans on hold.

It is not just businesses that are facing problems getting access to loans. Minnesota is home to a lot of great, smaller financial institutions. We have the second most community banks in the country. It is the home of a lot of credit unions, and I talk with them regularly. Earlier this week, I met with folks from some Minnesota credit unions, and they explained to me that as a result of the shutdown, they are having problems approving mortgages because the Social Security Administration can't verify Social Security numbers. That is not just bad for those Minnesotans who are trying to buy or sell a home, it is also bad for the economy.

This week my office heard from one of those Minnesotans who is in the process of buying a home. Jesse is using a USDA Rural Development loan. His banker now has all of the documentation compiled and ready to be submitted to Rural Development for approval, but they are shut down. Jesse was originally supposed to close on October 11, next Friday, and the sellers were scheduled to close on another property right after closing on the property they are selling to Jesse.

Jesse and his family are now living with his in-laws, and they have all of their possessions in storage. He doesn't know whether he will be able to close on his new home--all because some people thought it was a good idea to insist on shutting down the government to repeal the health care law, which isn't going to happen and never was going to happen.

Jesse is really frustrated and disappointed. He felt compelled to let me know how this is affecting him and other people. He asked me to do whatever I could possibly do to end this shutdown quickly.

The shutdown is also affecting other Minnesotans who depend on vital programs, such as Federal nutrition programs. An estimated 125,000 Minnesota mothers and mothers-to-be depend on the Women, Infants, and Children Program, or WIC, so they can buy healthy food for their families. With the shutdown no new Federal funds are available to support WIC. That puts the program in Minnesota, and the women and children it serves, at risk. Hopefully, we can avoid any terrible consequences by getting the government up and running as quickly as possible.

But in some other States, such as Utah--according to Forbes--they have already stopped accepting new participants.

In a shutdown the Administration for Community Living in the Department of Health and Human Services can't fund senior nutrition programs such as Meals On Wheels. Seniors who rely on Meals On Wheels face uncertainty. If the shutdown goes on, State and local agencies will not be able to replace Federal funding and that will result in an outright inability to access the program. That is why I will be donating my salary during the shutdown to Second Harvest Heartland. It is a great hunger relief organization which works throughout Minnesota to help people who need to get food.

Meanwhile, Minnesota's farmers cannot get the resources they need. Susan Magadenz, a constituent of mine from Eden Valley, MN, works at the USDA Farm Service Agency. She wrote me to say:

This shutdown has cut off services to thousands of American farmers. They cannot get grain checks released and are missing access to funds they require to carry out their operation.

The shutdown is hitting Minnesotans in many other ways as well. The shutdown means that the National Institutes of Health is not awarding any new funds or making payments on recently awarded grants. The Mayo Clinic receives 40 percent of its research funding from NIH grants. By the way, this is one of the many reasons we are going to have to address the sequester. This sequester has hit vital NIH funding really hard, even though this is an agency that some people seem not to have noticed until the shutdown.

Speaking of the effects of the shutdown compounding the damage from the sequester, tribal schools are being hit even harder because they get a substantial part of their funding from the Federal Government in what is called Impact Aid. Impact Aid is Federal money that goes to school districts where Federal property or Federal activities significantly reduce the local tax base. The biggest recipients are the schools on military bases and on Indian reservations. We have 11 tribes in Minnesota, and some of them get about one-third of their school funding from the Federal Government.

I am on the Indian Affairs Committee, and I can tell you that the sequestration has been hitting them even harder than it has been hitting other people. These are some of the most vulnerable kids in the country. Their afterschool programs are being canceled because of the sequester. And now, on top of that, Impact Aid is at even greater risk because of the shutdown. That is not right. It is just wrong.

Some veterans services, through the Department of Veterans Affairs, are already being curtailed, and if the shutdown goes on for very much longer, VA will not be able to process benefit claims and payments, aggravating the claims backlog we have been working so hard to address.

These are just some of the effects the shutdown is having on Minnesotans. People are suffering. Minnesotans who have written and called my office want Congress to get things done, do our work, and not shut down government. More than a week ago, I voted--with the Presiding Officer and a majority of my colleagues in the Senate--to pass the bill to keep the government open and prevent the damage that a shutdown does to our country and to our economy.

The House could take up that bill and pass it in a matter of hours, and it would reopen the government immediately. It has been widely reported that enough Republicans and Democrats support that bill for it to pass in the House if Speaker Boehner would only put it up for a vote in the House. That is all he needs to do. Let the full House vote on the continuing resolution. But the House hasn't done that.

Instead, a faction of the Republicans in the House has decided that rehashing old political fights and political brinkmanship are more important than getting back to the job we were sent here to do, which is putting Americans back to work, improving education, and strengthening our economic recovery.

Earlier this week I was asked what I would be working on if there were no shutdown. I would be working to pass my Community College to Career Fund Act. This legislation is aimed at closing what is called the skills gap. What is a skills gap? Recent studies in Minnesota show that about one-third to one-half of all manufacturers in our State have jobs they need filled, but they can't fill them because they don't have people with the skills to fill them. There are more than 3 million of those jobs across the country that are going unfilled because of the lack of workers with the right skills. My bill would help those companies that have open positions. It would help workers find jobs, and it would help our country be more competitive globally. It would address college affordability. It is the kind of thing we need to be doing.

I have seen partnerships between businesses and community colleges in Minnesota that work--at Hennepin Technical College in Hennepin County, for example. A group of manufacturers worked with the school, Hennepin Technical College, and created a curriculum where students could get credentials. I went to a roundtable there and they told me they had put over 300 students through this course and 93 percent of them had permanent jobs.

The manufacturers who are involved in this partnership had skin in the game. They gave Hennepin Tech machines and helped design the curriculum. Now they have people filling the jobs that need to be filled. I have seen this model work throughout Minnesota, and I have seen it work throughout our country.

However, we still have a skills gap. That is why my bill would create a competitive grant program to incentivize partnerships between businesses and community colleges. This isn't just manufacturers; it is in health care, it is in IT. It would incentivize businesses and community colleges to create programs targeted at getting workers the skills they need to fill these jobs.

This is what I want to be working on. This is what the Presiding Officer wants to be working on for the people of Maine. This is the kind of thing Americans sent us to do. Americans want us to learn from strategies that are succeeding in our States--in Minnesota and in Maine--and then work together to make our country more prosperous and stronger. What else are we supposed to do? That is why they sent us.

I recognize we have political differences we have to work through, but brinkmanship and crises can't be the rule; they should be the exception. After the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, Standard & Poor's downgraded our Nation's credit rating and they cited the dysfunction in Congress as a main reason. After that, people thought--I thought and I believe most people in this country thought--OK. We have learned our lesson. We are not going to govern by crisis and brinkmanship.

In fact, this year, in March, the Senate passed a budget through the regular process, through regular order. The House passed a budget--a different budget, but that is the way it works--and then we are supposed to get together for a conference. We have sought for months to have a conference with the House to resolve the differences in regular order. But we were blocked by the same Senators who thought it was a good idea to shut down the government and to defund the Affordable Care Act. The House has simply refused to go to conference; instead, they waited for the government shutdown and then sought to go to conference on a 2\1/2\-month continuing resolution that would delay the health care law for 1 year.

That is irresponsible. Minnesotans and Americans want us to govern responsibly.

Brenda Gregorich from Duluth wrote me on Wednesday about her husband, a disabled veteran whose disability benefit is now further delayed due to the shutdown. She says:

We would rather do without, than have you give in to delaying the Affordable Care Act. Please stand strong and do not let anyone change or delay this. We will sit tight without income while you work towards this.

Overwhelmingly, Americans do not want us to shut down the government to stop the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Earlier this week, Minnesota's health care exchange opened and, according to Minnesota Public Radio, received approximately 100,000 Web hits on its first day--the second highest number of hits in any State. Believe me, we are not the second largest State.

So the shutdown is not actually stopping the implementation of the health care law; instead, the shutdown is threatening to do serious damage to our economy.

Today, jobless claims are close to a 5-year low. The second quarter of 2013 marked nine consecutive quarters of economic growth. The private sector has created 7.5 million jobs over the last 42 months. There are more people on private, nonfarm payrolls than at any time since September of 2008.

But the shutdown is putting our still fragile economic recovery in jeopardy. Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi testified before the Senate a few weeks ago that a shutdown lasting just a few days would cost the economy approximately 0.2 percent of GDP, and a longer shutdown could cost it as much as 1.4 percent. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called on Congress to keep the government open stating:

It is not in the best interest of the U.S. business community or the American people to risk even a brief government shutdown that might trigger disruptive consequences or raise new policy uncertainties washing over the U.S. economy.

This shutdown is painful for our constituents and it is damaging the economy. Everyone should understand this is costing the government money. Some people may think at least if the government is shut down, we are saving money. But, actually, the very opposite is the case. Recently, in the New York Times, they had an editorial that detailed some of the reasons shutdowns end up being very expensive. A shutdown government cannot collect fines and fees, contractors build in the cost of the shutdown and the added probability of future shutdowns to how much they charge the government. Furloughing government workers means lost productivity. Lost economic output means lower tax revenue for Federal, State, and local governments.

This shutdown is unnecessary and it is irrational. Please, let's reopen the government and get back to the work the people elected us to do.

I thank the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today marks the fifth day of the government shutdown. With each passing day, the consequences grow more severe, more people are affected, and the implications grow far more serious.

Federal civilian employees working to support our National Guard, overhaul our nuclear submarines, and analyze the latest terrorist threat are being furloughed, leaving us less safe as a country. I understand this afternoon Secretary Hagel, in response to a letter the Presiding Officer and I signed, along with many of our colleagues, is recalling some of those civilian workers. But there are still other implications.

Disabled veterans who have sacrificed so much for this country are facing delays in the handling of their claims. Pregnant women and little children who depend on the foods provided by the WIC Program are at risk. Vital biomedical research is being disrupted such that even the sickest children cannot enroll in clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health.

The impact goes beyond these services provided by essential Federal programs. Jobs in the private sector are affected as well. In Maine, our gem of a national park, Acadia National Park, is shuttered during the peak of the foliage season. This not only disappoints tourists, it hurts the innkeepers, owners of bed and breakfast organizations, servers at restaurants, and the small gift shop entrepreneurs who depend on these tourists during this time of year.

The list of harm goes on and on and on and worsens with each passing day. It is time for this shutdown to end.

From the start of this debate, I have urged our House colleagues not to adopt a policy that linked ObamaCare with the funding of government. I have been outspoken in my own opposition to ObamaCare and have cast many votes consistent with that position. I have cosponsored and introduced bills to reform the law so we can better rein in health care costs and truly help the uninsured without jeopardizing their jobs and without imposing billions of dollars of new taxes, fees, and penalties that discourage job creation and drive up costs. But the fact is the Democratic Senate is never going to pass, nor is President Obama ever going to sign, a bill that repeals his signature accomplishment.

So now that we have all made it crystal clear where we stand on ObamaCare, it is past time that we reason together on how to bring this impasse to an end. In that regard, I must express my own disappointment in the lack of results from the President's meeting with congressional leaders and what I understand to be the President's refusal to enter into negotiations with Congress.

So let me present to my colleagues and to the President for their consideration a proposal to bring an end to the shutdown. The proposal is based on concepts that have been discussed by Senator Pat Toomey and Congressman Charlie Dent, and they also reflect my own personal discussions with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Even the staunchest advocates of ObamaCare, including the President himself, recognize the law is not perfect. What 2,000-plus-page law dealing with extremely complex issues could be? The President himself has delayed the implementation of the employer mandate and certain consumer protections.

I have, therefore, searched for common ground on reforming ObamaCare, seeking a proposal that has widespread bipartisan support in order to attract the necessary votes of our House colleagues on both sides of the aisle; that is, the repeal of the 2.3-percent tax on the sales of medical equipment. When such an amendment repealing this tax was considered by the Senate during the budget resolution, it passed by a resounding vote of 79 to 20. Clearly, it has strong bipartisan support.

This $30 billion tax on medical devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators will cause the loss of as many as 43,000 domestic jobs, according to industry estimates. It will reduce investment in research to produce new medical devices and, ironically, it will increase health care costs because the manufacturers will simply pass on the costs to consumers.

Now the administration has protested the idea of repealing this tax because it would lose $30 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. Fair enough. Let's make up for the lost revenue by providing an offset. It is a complicated one, but it works. It is called pension smoothing. It would smooth out the amount of payments businesses make into pension plans. This is not an unusual concept. New York State has adopted it to allow local school systems to reduce their annual pension contributions somewhat next year in exchange for higher payments in future years. The result of allowing private businesses to smooth out their pension contributions would produce tax revenue by lowering their deductions, and that could be used to offset the cost of repealing the tax on medical equipment.

Second, I would propose that the continuing resolution funding government include a bipartisan bill that Senator Mark Udall and I introduced earlier this year to give agencies flexibility to deal with sequestration. It makes no sense at all for Federal managers not to be able to set priorities and then submit their plans to the appropriations committees as they do now with reprogramming requests. Sequestration is a flawed policy. It does not discriminate between absolutely essential programs and those that are duplicative, wasteful, or simply less important. Now, it is Congress that should be making these decisions, but if the across-the-board meat-ax cuts of sequestration stay in effect, the least we can do is let Federal managers set priorities and manage their budgets subject to congressional oversight.

It is my hope that if repeal of the medical equipment tax, offset fully by the pension-smoothing proposal, plus the Collins-Udall flexibility bill were combined with a continuing resolution to fund government, we might well have the combination necessary to secure the votes and reopen government. Surely, it is worth a try. So on this late Saturday afternoon, I offer this proposal, and I urge my House colleagues to send us such a bill, which I would then urge the Senate majority leader to schedule for an immediate vote.

We have a lot to do to restore the public's confidence in our ability to govern. We can start by offering and voting on specific proposals such as this one. It is time that both sides come out from their partisan corners, stop fighting, and start legislating in good faith. The shutdown represents a failure to govern and must be brought to an end.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am not happy to be here, but it is an honor and a privilege to be on the Senate floor representing the people of Louisiana and speaking for constituents around the country on this important subject. It is unfortunate we are here today because of the irresponsible behavior of one group of Members from one party in basically one Chamber.

While I most certainly respect my colleague from Maine and think that the proposal she has generally outlined has a lot of merit--and I would add, there would probably be 15, 20, or 25 other Senators from both parties who have worked together to find common ground on many issues who could come up with equally meritorious proposals--it misses a very important point. The point is simply that the House Republicans and a handful of Senate Republicans have forced the government into a shutdown, hurting their own constituents--hundreds of thousands of their own constituents--and small businesses in their districts that do not deserve in any way to be dragged into this fight or to be used as bait in these negotiations. That point cannot be understated, and it cannot be ignored.

This whole issue is not caused because neither side can compromise or we cannot find common ground. We have proven that over and over on hundreds of issues. I myself, along with the Senator from Maine and the Presiding Officer--who is new here but not new to government--have been part of dozens of extraordinary efforts when there did not seem to be any way forward to find a way. So we know how to do that. We can do it. The problem is that there is a rump group of Republicans and the Republican House leadership that have made a terrible mistake in shutting the government down and putting government workers and our private sector partners--and I want to underscore ``our private sector partners.'' This government does not work with just Federal employees alone. They do the bulk of the wonderful work--many of them do--that we rely on every day--our neighbors, our relatives, our aunts, uncles, et cetera. But the real power is not just with them, it is with the private sector that helps this government and our nonprofit and not-for-profit sector that joins with us in fulfilling the missions, the important missions of government that have been put at risk.

What that rump group did, though, was basically take all of this hostage until they get something. What they want to date is not clear. They want many things, all sorts of different things. One of them is to repeal the Affordable Care Act or to dismantle it in such a way that it cannot work to provide for the first time in the history of America affordable access to health insurance. There are other reasons that have been stated. They do not like the spending levels. They do not like the debt. They do not like Democrats generally. They do not like President Obama. There have been many things I have read about what they have said.

But no matter what they have said, their actions are irresponsible, reckless, and neither the President nor the Democrats should enter into negotiation with a gun to our constituents' heads. That is as simple as it is. There is a difference, but it is an important difference. House Republicans cannot get Democrats to any negotiating table unless they put the weapons down. These weapons are being used against their own constituents and their own businesses in their own districts, and it is not fair.

I want to read from one of my constituents, who says it better than I could. It is one of the messages that came into our office. We have been closed but functioning with a small staff. This message is from Vicki Cusimano, whose husband Mark is a 13-year military veteran who works on planes as a technician at one of our great air stations in Belle Chasse, LA, which, by the way, would be on high alert today because there is a storm out in the Gulf of Mexico. Thank goodness it is not a hurricane, but it is tropical storm Karen that has put the whole gulf coast a little bit on edge. It is not a huge and powerful storm, but these storms are unpredictable, as the Presiding Officer knows, being from a coastal State himself, how these things can happen.

Anyway, Belle Chasse is right there. Vicki is there with her husband Mark, a 13-year veteran. Mark says:

They've--

Speaking of Congress--

just pushed us away and said, ``Hey, we're going to fight, and you're going to pay for it.'' Well, they're still getting paychecks. We're not, and now we're trying to figure out how we're going to fend for our families.

That is what Mark said.

Vicki says:

We have bills [to pay], and you can't tell Wells Fargo,

``Sorry. I can't pay my house note today because the federal government has furloughed my husband.''

So I want to clarify because I have been one of the ones saying we do need to negotiate, but we need to negotiate without a gun to our head. We need to negotiate when the House decides and the House recognizes that their reckless behavior cannot be encouraged, that it is wrong. I know it is hard when you make a mistake to admit you are wrong. It is very difficult to do. But this would be a time to do it and then move on to negotiations that we can have over everything, whether it is the Affordable Care Act, whether it is the budget, whether it is appropriations. I am chair of the Homeland Security appropriations bill. I most certainly know how to negotiate a major bill, $42 billion. Dan Coats is my ranking member from Indiana. We have been in negotiations literally on and off for years as partners on the Homeland Security bill.

But when we asked, the Democrats and the President--but the Democrats asked to go to the budget conference to work out the differences between the budget in the House, the Ryan budget, and the budget in the Senate, the Murray budget--which, unusually, was cast during the same week. People will not even remember this because it was so long ago. It was sometime in April, sometime in April. The House passed their budget after an open, raucous debate. We passed our budget. I think we stayed on the floor until 5 o'clock in the morning, as I recall. I can remember being very tired and everybody was pretty aggravated. But we stayed here. We got our work done.

So when people call for negotiation, the time for negotiation was then, and we can still have this 6-month-delayed negotiation. But the House Republicans--the tea party Republicans and House Republicans--

have to put their weapons down. You cannot negotiate with a gun to your head. It is not fair--not just to us but to our constituents and to our businesses.

I am saying to my delegation and to the House Republicans: Do not use these reckless and irresponsible tactics. In addition, do not even threaten--do not even use the threat of not living up to the full faith and credit of the United States of America. You are really playing with fire then. That is what I believe the President is saying. That is what Democrats are saying.

Now, we have proven--it is not a matter of conjecture or a matter of guessing or a matter of, well, they say they negotiate, but they really will not. This is the record. Here is the record. This is evidence. This is not something anybody made up. It is in the Congressional Record. I am not going to read the whole sheet here, but I am going to say--what this says is that on 19 separate occasions Senator Reid or Senator Murray or Senator Wyden or one of the Democrats came to the floor--and here are the dates: April 23, May 6, May 7, May 8, May 9, May 14, May 15, May 16, May 21, May 22, et cetera, et cetera, June 19, 26, July, August, and then the latest was October 2. OK. Those are the facts. On every single occasion, there was one out of six Senators who stood on behalf of the others here and blocked it and said: No, we cannot, we will not go to a budget conference. Those Senators were Senator McConnell on May 8, Senator McConnell on May 9, et cetera, et cetera, Senator Paul on May 21, Senator Toomey on June 19, Senator Cruz--who has been the leader of this irresponsible and reckless strategy, which I do not think is getting his party or his future anywhere, but I will have to see about that--Mike Lee on July 17, and then Senator Rubio on August 1.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. LANDRIEU. So this is the record. When people say Democrats have not been willing to negotiate, that is false, false, false. We have been trying to negotiate for 6 months, and the way you negotiate is going to a budget conference.

Even now we are in control of the Senate. People elected us. No one appointed me to be here. The people of this United States elected us in a fair and square election. Some of us won by a lot, some of us only by small amounts, but it was an election by the people of the United States. The people elected the Republican leadership in the House.

They passed a budget. We passed a budget. All we have to do is go to conference. Not everyone in Washington is reckless. Not everyone loves to fight over our constituents' misfortune of unemployment and lack of business. There is a small group that put them on the chopping block. They need to take them off. They should not be used as fodder in political fighting and debate. It is not right. That is the argument.

When they remove the constituents and re-fund the government and put the government open again, we could then ask to go to conference. This time they should say yes. They just have to not show up. Sit at your desk and do not say anything, do not object. We will go to conference, a budget conference. Then you put everything on the table. Everything. You can talk about anything you want. You can talk about taxes, no taxes. You can talk about how much money you want to spend overall. Most importantly, you can decide how much revenue, how much in taxes you want. What the American people want is a budget. We have not had one for a while. We need to get one. We have had spending limits, but we have not had a budget. We have had spending limits, but we have not had a budget. Let's get a budget.

Then those of us who are appropriators--I am one of those, and in charge of helping to try to build the homeland security budget--the chairman then will give us the number that is agreed to by the Democrats and Republicans. They will say to me and Senator Coats: Okay, you have X amount of money to spend. You have lots and lots of requests out there. You have lots of responsibilities. Let me list a few: Securing the entire border of the United States, all airports, all land ports, all river ports. We have to check all the cargo that comes into the country.

Our budget funds TSA, not the most popular group. But we try to keep our air travelers safe and support international commerce at every level. Every business traveler who is trying to cut a deal in Germany or in England or in Asia has to get either preclearance or global entry or travel. We support that effort. We want our businesses out there making contracts, bringing jobs to America. We cannot do that if this budget does not get done. So give us a number. We will put the budget together the best we can together. We will live within the restrictions that are given to us--or the guidelines. We will not spend one penny more than what the budget tells us.

But we cannot even get there because not everyone is being reckless. Not everyone is being unreasonable. There is clearly an identifiable group, led by the Senator from Texas. One of his colleagues or someone in the press--I am not sure who, but it was a great quote--said that Senator Cruz has led the Republican Party and the tea party into the middle of eight lanes of traffic and walked away. Eight lanes of traffic with traffic coming both ways is a very unsafe and dangerous place to be. They are going to have to find their way to the side of that road.

Open the government, and then say yes to a budget conference where all things can be negotiated, and have been for literally hundreds of years. This is not a new process the Senate and the House have been undertaking. This is regular order.

I am going to end here. This is day 5. I want to have this printed in the Record, since they are in the middle of traffic now, with very few safe ways out, but we could open the government and get to the negotiating table.

I want to have printed in the Record that for businesses, 800,000 workers--I know they passed a bill a little while ago to say those workers could be paid. That is important to do. But, again, it is not just workers. What about the contracts they are supposed to be giving out or the projects? They still do not have authorization even if they come back to work to do that. It is going to affect business. Let me say how much.

The Federal Government spends $400 billion in the private sector. That is $1 billion a day. So this reckless behavior has already cost $5 billion; every day $1 billion gone.

Is their resolution in the House going to reinstate that $1 billion that small businesses have lost or business generally? I do not think so. I did not read the fine print. I do not think that is in there. Every day, if you say 25 percent of all of our contracts should go to small businesses, that is $240 million a day for small businesses lost.

The government roughly makes about 150 loans to small businesses every day. We are in day 5. That is 600 loans gone. I could go on and on with every day how that affects businesses.

I am happy to see, in conclusion, that the House, in realizing they are in a bad, bad situation, has sent a lifeline out to the 800,000 Federal employees, their own constituents that they put on the chopping block and took these paychecks as negotiating fodder because they do not like the bill that passed 3 years ago, upheld by the Supreme Court, and being implemented in the majority of States, including States with Republican Governors.

That is foolishness, recklessness, and irresponsibility. But that is what they did. We did not do that; they did that. If we open the government, get contracts going again, stop threatening small businesses that have nothing to do with this, then we can go to the budget conference and open everything for negotiation.

Maybe we can do the medical device tax. I would like to work on flood insurance, for one. My constituents are going crazy. Flood insurance has gone up tenfold. I cannot even get to a negotiating table. We would like to pass the WRDA bill in Louisiana. I would like to see the Keystone Pipeline negotiated. I am for the Keystone Pipeline. The President is against it. But maybe we can find some way forward.

But we cannot go anywhere until we get out of eight lanes of traffic. The only way to do that is to admit you were wrong, open the government, and then go to conference and put everything on the table and let's talk.

I see my good friend from Connecticut here. I thank him for joining us on the floor today.

I yield the floor.

____________________

SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 159, No. 137