house of representatives to pass the senate continuing resoluti resolution. if speaker boehner would just vote, just vote on the resolution we passed over, the shutdown could end and we could get on to the business of this nation. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. cruz: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: mr. president, i had intended to give remarks and then promulgate a series of unanimous consent requests. however, the majority leader requested for purposes of scheduling that i begin with the unanimous consent request, which i'm happy to do so to accommodate his schedule. but i would ask that at the conclusion of these unanimous consent requests, i would ask unanimous consent that i be given 20 minutes to speak at the conclusion of this to lay out the reasons why i believe the majority should accede to these

unanimous requests. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered.ñ mr. cruz: so the first unanimous consent request i would promulgate, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.j. res. 72, making continuing appropriations for veterans benefits for the fiscal year 2014, which was received from the house. i ask further consent that the measure be read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president,

as the presiding officer knows and our colleagues know, i have spoken often of my own father who was a world war ii veteran who spent most of his life in a wheelchair, earned a purple heart. i know the sacrifices that our veterans make. as chair of the senate veterans' affairs committee before this, i fought hard to make sure every veteran had what they needed that we said more than just thank you but provided them for what they need. so i know our veterans well and what i do know about our veterans, mr. president, is that they, above everyone else, are selfless. they went to serve our country and said we will take care of the rest of you at our own personal sacrifice. they would be the last to come before us and say take care of me before everyone else. they would say to us take care of our fellow men and leave no one behind. so, mr. president, i am going to ask that the senator modify his request and do what our military

has always asked their fellow men to do and leave no one behind. a request that will assure that everyone who fights for our country, works for our country in emergencies depends on our country to make sure everyone has the opportunity, is able to have that opportunity and they are not held hostage to a government shutdown so that we can get back to work and solve our country's problems. we need to end this tea party shutdown and we can do it with the request that i will ask right now. so i have a modification to suggest to the junior senator from texas' request. i ask unanimous consent that his request be modified as follows -- that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, that the joint resolution as amended be read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. this amendment is the text that has passed the senate and is a

clean continuing resolution for the entire government and is something that is already over in the house and reportedly has now the support of the majority of the members of the house of representatives. the presiding officer: does the senator from texas so modify his request? mr. cruz: reserving the right to object, i thank my friend from washington state. i note that she talked about leaving no man or woman behind, and i would note that the continuing resolution that the house has passed to fully fund the veterans administration treats our veterans the same way the house and senate have already treated active duty military. just a few days ago, this body unanimously passed a bill that said the men and women of the military would be paid. unfortunately, it seems to be the position of the majority in this body that veterans should be treated not as well as our active duty military, and in particular that the full funding of the v.a. should be held hostage to every other priority that the democrats in this chamber must have.

i understand the democrats in this chamber are committed to obamacare with all of their heart, might and soul, but the veterans of this nation should not be held hostage to that commitment. it is likely, given the majority's refusal to negotiate, refusal to compromise, refusal even to talk to find a middle ground, it is likely that this shutdown inity gated by the democratic majority will continue for some time, and during that time, we ought to be able to find common ground that at the very minimum our veterans shouldn't pay the price. if, moments from now, my friend from washington simply does not object, by the end of the day, the v.a. will be fully funded. if, as we all expect, she does object, if she repeats the objection that her majority leader and her party has made throughout the course of this week, then much of the v.a. will remain shut down because of that objection. so she has asked if we can

reopen the entire federal government and if she doesn't get every -- if the request is not granted to give every single priority in the federal government that the majority party wants, that the v.a. will remain without sufficient funds. i find that highly objectionable, and i object. the presiding officer: is there objection to the original request? mrs. murray: mr. president, i object on behalf of all americans who should not be left behind. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. cruz: mr. president, the second unanimous consent request i would promulgate, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 3230, making continuing appropriations during a government shutdown to provide pay and allowances for members of the reserve components of the armed forces which was received from the house. i ask further consent that the measure be read three times and passed and that the motion to

reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. durbin: mr. president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the assistant majority leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, the junior senator from texas launched this government shutdown with a 21-hour presentation here on the floor of the united states senate, and it is clear from the actions of the house and his actions today that he is starting to try to reconcile in his mind all the damage which this government shutdown, which he inspired, is causing across the united states. this particular unanimous consent request relates to the national guard reservists, a group which we hold in high esteem, but if the gentleman from texas is really focused on veterans and those who have served our country, take into consideration the 560,000 federal employees who are currently facing furlough or on furlough who are veterans, a fourth of whom are disabled veterans. so what the junior senator from

texas is doing is picking and choosing those he will allow in the lifeboat. at this moment, it's national guard and reserve. leave 560,000 veteran federal employees out in the water thrashing for themselves. that is not the way we should manage or govern this country. i can understand the anxiety you feel about the problems you have created, but trying to solve them one piece at a time is not the american way. i object. and i ask unanimous consent, though, before i object, i ask unanimous consent that your request be modified, the amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, that the bill be amended, then be read a third time and passed, motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, this amendment is the text that passed the senate is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government, national guard, reserve, v.a., n.i.h., all of them. it's something that is already

over in the house of representatives and reportedly has the support of a majority of democrats and republicans and could pass today. i ask for that modification. the presiding officer: will the senator so modify his request? mr. cruz: mr. president, reserving the right to object, no one watching these proceedings should be confuseed. we are in a shutdown because president obama and the majority leader of this body want a shutdown, because they believe it is in the partisan interests of their party to have a shutdown. four times, the house of representatives has compromised. four times, the house of representatives has endeavored to meet a middle ground, and four times the majority leader and every democrat in this body has said no, we will not talk, we will not compromise, we will not have a middle ground. 100% of the priorities of the democrats in this body must be funded or they will insist on a

shutdown. now, i thank my friend from illinois for making clear that the members of the reserve components of our armed forces, in his judgment, are not worthy of being paid during this shutdown that the democrats have forced. i could not disagree with that judgment more strongly. and let us be clear. this bill that has passed the house doesn't mention obamacare, has nothing to do with obamacare. it simply says the exact same thing that my friend from illinois already agreed to, which is that the active duty men and women of the military would not be held hostage and would be paid if it so happened that the democrats forced a shutdown. now, apparently, the position of the majority of this body is that we have got a double standard, that reserve members are not treated as well as active duty members, that reserve members will not get their paychecks, and let's be clear that this bill could be on the president's desk for

signature today if my friend from illinois would simply withdraw his objection. unfortunately, in a move that i think reflects a level of cynicism not befitting of the responsibility all of us have, my friend is prepared to object and to say that not just veterans but reserve members shall be held hostage in order to force obamacare on the american people, that that is the objective. i guess now the democratic party has become the party of obamacare, by obamacare and for obamacare all of the time, and every other priority recedes. so veterans are told your concerns do not matter unless we can use you to force obamacare on the american people. reserve military members are told your concerns do not matter unless we can use you as a hostage to force obamacare on the american people. mr. president, that's cynical. we ought to take these

individuals off the table. i would note that my friend from illinois noted the great many federal employees who have been furloughed. i would be very happy to work in a bipartisan manner to cooperate with my friend from illinois to bring a great many of those federal employees back to their vital responsibilities, but unfortunately the position the democratic party has made is not a one of them will be allowed to come back until this body agrees to force obamacare on the american people, despite the jobs lost, despite the people being forced into part-time work, despite the skyrocketing health insurance premiums and despite the millions of people losing or at risk of losing their health insurance. mr. president, i find that highly objectionable, and i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? mr. durbin: mr. president, i would say to my colleague from texas some of the language which he has used in this debate relative to impugning the

motives of other members may have crossed the line. i am not going to raise it at this point but i ask him to be careful in the future. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. for the edification of all senators, rule 19 reads as follows -- no senator in debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy of -- or unbecoming a senator. mr. cruz: mr. president, i now promulgate my third unanimous consent request. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.j. res. 70, making continuing appropriations for national park service operations, which was received from the house. i ask further consent that the measure be read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. schumer: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: mr. president, and i will object, but let me just

say a couple of things here. first, in reference to a -- the colloquy he had with my -- the senator from texas had with my good friend from washington state, he said that he notes that the -- that the senator from washington talks about leaving no man or no woman behind. she does indeed. and that is why -- that is one of the reasons so many of us oppose this piecemeal approach. it's leaving lots of people behind. the bottom line is the senator -- junior senator from texas is advocating shutting down the government, and now he comes before us and says, well, why don't you pass the parts of the government that i want to open? no one would want to do that. it makes no sense. let's shut down the government and then i'll come to the floor and be magnanimous and offer a few places where the government opens. i'd note that no other

colleagues are standing here on the floor with him. i'd note that at least, according to press reports, most of the many conservative colleagues in this body reject this approach. and i would note that it would make no sense to pick a few -- to shut down the government and pick a few groups. who wants to shut the government down? in my view, mr. president, it is the tea party. they've said it all along. they've advocated for it. there are countless instances where even in 2010 tea party folks said let's shut the government down. and then it is said after the government is shut down that president obama or this side or the senator from illinois caused it, when we had a bipartisan resolution with a majority on

this side, there was an opportunity, i believe the junior senator from texas urged his colleagues to vote against that resolution, but 25 of them did not. and that tent the government open here in the senate. there were many -- everyone on this side, the other side of the aisle opposes obamacare but the majority didn't want to use a bludgeon and say unless you reject obamacare we're going to shut the government down or for that matter, not raise the debt ceiling. we are not, mr. president, in an alice in wonderland world where they who advocate shutting the government down then accuse others of shutting the government down. that isn't washing with the american people and it won't wash in this body with the vast majority of members of both sides of the aisle. so i would say to my colleague if you wish to have a debate on

what parts of the government should be funded and at what level, it is wrong in my opinion to say shut the government down and then we'll decide piece by piece which we open. that's alnuss wonderland in my judgment. -- alice in wonderland in my judgment. i would rather, it makes nor sense to have the government open and have the debate in the proper place, a conference committee that decides future funding in an omnibus appropriations bill what level of funding, if any, each part of the government should get. so to first deprive our national parks of dollars by advocating shutting the government down and then accuse others who don't want to leave 98% of the government behind and of the people who work there behind and of the american people who depend on so many other programs, whether it's student loans or feeding the hungry, is

wrong. and so i would ask consent that the request be modified as follows: that an amend which is at the desk be agreed to that the joint resolution be amended then be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, this amendment is the text that passed the senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government, actually leaving no man or woman behind, and is something that is already over in the house and has the support reportedly of a majority of the members of the house including members of both parties. so would the senator agree agree to modify his request? the presiding officer:s to the senator agree to so modify his request? mr. cruz: reserving the right to object, i thank the senator from new york for his heartfelt concern for the republican party and i note that the senator from new york stated that i, quote,

have advocated shutting down the government. that statement, unfortunately, is a flat-out false hood and i know the senator from new york would not do so knowingly and so it must have been mistaken, because i have said repeatedly we should not shut the government down a shutdown is a mistake and i hoped the majority leader would not force a shutdown on this country. we are in a shutdown because the democrats in this body have refused to negotiate, refused to compromise and by note as well, i am quite grateful for the majority leader admonition this morning toward civility on the floor and the senator from illinois' admonition toward rule 19. that is an dmoongs well heard. it was quite striking. it has been several days since i have been to the floor of the senate but yet i feel i have been here in absentia because so

many democrats have invoked my name as the root of all evil in the world and the same majority leader that gave an ode to civility just a few days ago was describing me and anyone who might agree that we should stop the harms of obamacare, describing us as -- quote -- "anarchists." i think the encouragement towards civility is an encouragement that should be heard across the board. by note also my friends on the democratic side of the aisle have described what they claim to be as the piecemeal approach as following my priorities. several democrats have used that language publicly. and i must note, mr. president, i find it really quite ironic because if i were to stand up here and say it is my priority and not the priority of democrats to fund veterans, it is my priority and not the prior to of the democrats to fund the national guard, to fund the national parks, it is my priority and not the priority of the democrats to fund research

for health care, they would quite rightly be able to rise and claim under rule 19 that i was impugning their motives. i cannot imagine a greater insult than to claim it is not the priority of members of this body to treat fairly our veterans and yet what i find so striking is that so many democrats go out publicly and embrace that. they say funding the veterans the cruz's priority, not ours. and yet i'll note even on that front the funding proposals that the house of representatives has passed are not even the house's priorities although under the constitution they have a legitimate role laying out their priorities for funding, they are president obama's priorities, just a few days ago the president gave a speech to this country, a speech that all of us watched closely in which the president said that if a

shutdown occurred -- quote -- "veterans who sacrificed for their country will find their support centers unstaffed." the president also said with regard to parks as we're discussing and memorials, -- quote -- "tourists wile will find every one of the monuments to the smithsonian to the statue of liberty immediately closed." to the credit of the house of representatives they listened to the president's speech and his priorities and the house of representatives acted with bipartisan cooperation. they said the president we have heard your priorities, let's fund them. let's work together. i would note my friend from maryland a moment ago gave a speech about how important it is he thinks that we should fund food inspectors in the department of agriculture and also our intelligence community. and i would note with my friend from maryland i fully agree with him and would be happy to work arm in arm to fund the intelligence community, fully

fund them today. the only impediment to that happening is the democrats in this body are objecting. and that is what should be abundantly clear. when it comes to parks, to memorials, we've all read about world war ii veterans being turned away from the world war ii memorial. we've you all read about mount vernon which is privately owned, the federal government blocking the parking lot. mr. reid: i ask permission to direct a question to my friend from texas. the presiding officer: does the senator yield for a question? mr. cruz: i'm happy to yield. mr. reid: i was under the assumption that my friend would offer the consent agreements, we would do as we do here brief responses to the competing consent agreements and then the senator would speak for 0 minutes. my only person is is -- concern is this -- i have five or six senators over here wishing to

speak so my question is this, do you wish to take 20 minutes following this in addition to the time you're taking noun? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: i thank the majority leader for his question. at his request, i began with these unanimous consents and it was my intention to keep my remarks at the end but i would note in each of the objections my friends on the democratic side of the aisle have chosen to stand up and give their remarks. and if the remarks are to be given by the democrats it is certainly appropriate that some respond be -- response be given so if the courtesy the majority leader was asking is none of the remarks that his friends and colleagues make have any response, that was not a courtesy i was prepared to give, i was and am prepared to work on timing but not to allow only one side of the discussion to be presented. mr. reid: further, mr. president, i ask profound powppedding a unanimous consent, when the senator from

texas finishes his consent, that he's asking, there's one more as i understand it, then i ask permission the next senator to be recognized, senator mikulski for -- senator mikulski for 10 minutes, senator florida -- the senator from florida -- it's not bad. only a couple of speakers. senator mikulski will be recognized up to 15 minutes. so i apologize for the interruption. the floor is the senator's from texas. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from texas is there objection to the modification? mr. cruz: the modification --. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification of your consent request, by the senator from new york? mr. cruz: reserving the right to object, the modification that

the senator from new york has suggested is that he is unwilling to open our national parks, to open our memorials unless every other aspect of the government is opened immediately and obamacare is forced upon the american people. that is quite simply and directly saying that the senate will not respond to president obama's priorities. president obama gave a speech to this country saying we should open our parks, open our messments st memphis. the house of representatives said, mr. president, we the republicans will work with you to do that and today the democrats in the senate are objecting and saying no, we want every park closed, all of that will be held hostage until obamacare is forced on every american. i find that highly objectionable and i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? mr. schumer: reserving the right to object and i'll be brief. the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i just want to make this point. the junior senator from texas has said it is president obama

and the democrats who are shutting the government down. my modification which he just objected to would open up the entire government. we put it on the floor, we're all for it, he objected to it. therefore i will object to the junior senator from texas' proposal. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the senator from texas. mr. cruz: mr. president, the fourth unanimous consent request i would promulgate, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.j. res. 73 making continuing appropriations for the national institutes of health for fiscal year 2014. i ask the measure are pred red three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? the majority leader. mr. reid: prior to my responding to my friend i would use just a few minutes of leader time and it's very brief with -- here's

what i'm going to say: mr. president, we've heard this back and forth stuff about veterans, but let's also in addition to what the senator from -- the senator from washington said, let me read one paragraph from the record of yesterday. i would note i believe the resolution the senator the senas offering be passed only partial for the v.a. there is no funding to operate the national cemeteries, for the board of veterans' appeals, and the clinics, there is no funning to operate the i.t. system that the entire v.a. needs to continue going forward. mr. president, i reserve the right to object to my friend from texas' request. i object as to most -- do most americans. there is no reason for us to have to choose between the important government functions as has been said by my three

colleagues so brilliantly this morning. i guess my objection is best paraphrased by reading a column from "the washington post" by dana milbank. here's what he said. house republicans continue what might be called the lifeboat strategy deciding which government functions are worth saving in veterans and tourists attractions, out, poor children, pretty good nanltd women and just about every function that regulates business. here are some of the functioning not boarding the g.o.p. lifeboats. chemical spill investigations, antitrust enforcement, work site safety inspections, the environmental protection agency, communication, trade regulation, nutrition for nine million children and pregnant women, flu monitoring and other functions his of the centers for disease control and housing assistance for the poor. mr. president, i spent a month ago a day at the national

institutes of health. i remember so clearly one institute i went to where this young girl about 12 years old had -- she had to come back for her second visit. she had a disease that you really didn't know for sure what it is, but they were trying to figure out what she had. and they felt that they were on the cusp of being able to figure that out, and that her parents, of course, were very, very happy. mr. president, we know how important it is that little children, babies, adults be taken care of, especially toward the time when they have no hope. that's what n.i.h. is about, hope. and so, mr. president, i -- i really believe that we should open the government, all the government. this is -- this is a trip down a

road that is so foolish we need not be there. if people have a problem with obamacare and i know my friend, the junior senator from texas, doesn't care for obamacare -- let's do it in a context that is reasonable and fair. not have all the people in america who are so troubled with this. i heard an interview with the governor of maryland this morning. they are losing $15 million or $20 million a day because of the government being closed in maryland. so, mr. president, i would ask my friend to accept a modification, and it's a modification that is so well intentioned. what it would do is open the government. it would take care of the national institutes of health, it would take care of the veterans including all the stuff that's left out of the consent that we have here before the floor which i read into the record a minute ago, it would take care of the national parks, which in nevada we are really desperate to have those.

we have one seven or eight minutes out of las vegas, a million people a year visit that. we have one about 12 miles outside of las vegas where we have 600,000 visit that, lake mead, the other is red rock, and we have great basin national park. we want to open that. mr. president, that would solve this problem like that. so i ask consent that my friend from texas consent be modified, that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to, that the joint resolution as amended be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be made and laid on the table with noint intervening action or debate. this amendment is the text that passed the senate. it is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government and it is something that already is over in the house and reportedly has the support of a majority of the house of representatives. finally, mr. president, the statement i made, that little girl, she came back there now for her clinical trial, likely she wouldn't be able to have any help, just as we learned earlier

this week there were 200 people turned away from clinical trials, 30 of which were babies and children. the presiding officer: does the senator so agree to modify his original request? mr. cruz: mr. president, reserving the right to object, i would note that the majority leader made a plea for compromise, and i think most americans want to see a compromise. the house of representatives has repeatedly compromised already. the house began. it is the view of every republican in this body and indeed every republican in the house that obamacare should be entirely and completely repealed. nonetheless, the house started with a compromise of saying not repealing obamacare but simply that it should be defunded. they defunded the entire federal government and defunded obamacare. it came to the senate but the majority leader and 54 democrats voted in lockstep, no, absolutely not, we won't talk, we won't compromise. the house just then came with a

second compromise. they said fine, if the senate will not agree to fully defund obamacare, then let's all agree to a reasonable one-year delay. president obama has already delayed obamacare for big business. let's treat hardworking american families at least as well as big business. let's have a one-year delay because we're seeing how badly this thing is working. now, that's a big compromise from defunding. it came over to the senate and the majority leader and 54 senate democrats said no, absolutely not, we will not talk, we will not compromise, shut the government down. the house came back a third time and said okay, how about we simply delay the individual mandate, one small portion of obamacare, and we revoke the congressional exemption that president obama illegally gave members of this congress to exempt us from the burdens of obamacare that are inflicted on millions of americans. now, mr. president, that offer represented an enormous

compromise from the view of republicans that obamacare should be repealed in its entirety. and what did the senate say? did the senate say let's sit down and work something out? did the senate say we should find a middle ground? no. the majority leader and the 54 senate democrats said no, absolutely not, we will not talk, we will not compromise, shut the government down, and that's why the government is shut down right now. just a moment ago, the majority leader gave his latest offer. it was give us everything we demanded, 100%, no compromise, no middle ground. that is the position of the democrats in this body. mr. president, that's not a reasonable position. that's not the way people work together to find a middle ground. you know, it was reported that the majority leader urged the president not even to talk to congressional leaders. now, the president apparently had a change of heart and sat down with congressional leaders and had what, by all accounts, was an extraordinary conversation where president obama told congressional leaders i called you over here to say

i'm not going to talk to you. i am not going to negotiate. i must admit that's a remarkable conversation to call someone over to say hi, good to see you, we're not going to talk. mr. president, if this matter is going to be resolved, we need to see good faith among members on both sides. republicans have repeatedly been offering compromises to resolve this shutdown, and unfortunately the behavior of the majority party in this body has been my way or the highway, and one can only assume that their stated public belief as actually a senior administration official from the obama administration said, we think we're winning politically. we don't -- i'm paraphrasing, but we don't care when the shutdown ends. that's a paraphrase that's not exact, but that was certainly the thrust of the statement from what was described as a senior administration official. i think that's cynical, i think

that's partisan. i don't think that's what we should be doing. so i wish the majority leader and the democrats would accede to what should be shared by partisan priorities, but it appears right now that they are not, that their position is give us everything, fully fund obamacare and force it on the american people. that i cannot consent to, and so i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? mr. reid: mr. president, still reserving my right to object. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: mr. president, my friend from texas -- and i have developed a relationship with him -- talks about a meeting that he didn't attend, the senator from texas did not attend. i was there. i was one of five people -- the president, speaker boehner, leader mcconnell, leader pelosi and me. i do -- yes, the vice president was there also. i'm sorry. now, mr. president, i attended

that meeting. the president didn't say come on in, i'm not going to talk to you, i have nothing to say, words to that effect. the meeting lasted an hour and 20 minutes. there was a lot of things said. one thing that wasn't said is this alice in wonderland, what took place in that meeting, who talks about the meeting that wasn't there. so, mr. president, let's talk about compromise. my friend brought up compromise. we have before us a continuing resolution. my friend, the speaker of the house of representatives, john boehner, called me and said we have got to work this out. we have got to have a -- get this done quickly, and i thought so how are we going to get it done? this was on september 9 after our recess ended.

he said we have got to have 788 number, the number for this year -- 988, i'm sorry, thank you, 988. i said i can't do that. i can't do that. chairman murray's number is $70 billion above that that we passed here in the senate. we passed it. i can't agree to 988. i said you have got to do -- i don't want a big fight. i want to get this done. so i talked to chairman murray, chairman mikulski and others, and even though it was desperately hard to do, because we don't like the number of 988, we don't like it, it's not our number, we agreed to do it. that was a compromise. mr. president, i have been in congress 31 years. and that's the biggest compromise i have ever made.

my caucus didn't like it, but we did it in an effort to have a clean c.r. you talk about compromise, that was big time. but speaker boehner, i'm sure he was well intentioned, he couldn't get it done. he couldn't get it done. it was his idea how to get it done. then, mr. president, talk about further compromise. one of the last things we have had walked over from the house is go to conference. so i thought i have something that he can't -- it's an offer that is so good he couldn't refuse it. what did i do? with the cooperation of all 53 democratic senators, here's what we agreed to do. open the government, and what we will do is go to conference, not on little select areas.

we'll go to conference on -- i listed everything -- not everything, but everything i could think of. we listed agriculture, we listed discretionary spending, and yes, we listed health care. but i gave the letter to the speaker, i talked to him 45 minutes later. he said i can't do it. wow. so, mr. president, i -- i am -- i know what legislation's all about. it is the art of compromise. i understand that. and we have compromised in big-time fashion. the problem is the speaker and my -- some other republican members of congress are in a real bind because the only thing they want to talk about is a law that passed four years ago, the supreme court declared constitutional, which is a little unusual, i would think,

in my experience here. so we, mr. president, are where we are because we not only have the government shut down but we have the full faith and credit of our nation before us in a week or ten days. so, mr. president, don't -- i suggest i don't want anyone to say that i haven't compromised. all one needs to do is talk to any member of my caucus, and they will talk about how difficult it has been for us to accept that number and agree to go to conference on anything. so i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. cruz: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. reid: if my friend would yield? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following his statement of 20 minutes, i ask that the following senators be

recognized -- here we go. mikulski already has 15 minutes, murray i ask consent that she follow mikulski for ten minutes, heinrich for how much time? ten minutes. schumer, 15 minutes. so i ask consent that be the case. the presiding officer: is there objection? are the next senators in order or on the democratic side? mr. reid: mr. president, if a republican wants to come and talk, i would be happy to yield to any of them, but we haven't had a large number of people over here this morning. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from texas. mr. cruz: mr. president, you know, bismarck famously talked about legislation being like making sausages, and there are aspects of both that are not pretty. i wish we saw elected leaders in both parties working together to listen to the american people.

you know, the majority leader talked about the meeting at the white house, and i will note he noted that i was not at that meeting. that is certainly true. but the statement that the president said he would not negotiate came directly from speaker boehner who was at that meeting who came and gave a press conference immediately thereafter, and i know the majority leader is not impugning the integrity of the speaker of the house or disputing that that is exactly what president obama said and what the position of the democrats have said. their position is give us 100% of what we want or the government stays shut down. and, mr. president, that quite simply is not reasonable. now, i'd like to address for a moment a few of the arguments that have been raised against these very reasonable bipartisan proposals to fund essential priorities in our government because i think the arguments don't withstand scrutiny. there are some on the democratic side of the aisle that have said we're not going to pick and

choose. indeed, the majority leader said there is no reason to have to choose between government priorities. mr. president, let me suggest that's the essence of legislation. we have a $17 trillion debt because far too many people have said, as the majority leader just did, there is no reason to choose between priorities. we should spend on everything. and i would note also that what the democrats in this chamber deride as a piecemeal strategy is the transitional -- traditional means of legislating and appropriating. the only reason we have this omnibus resolution is because congress failed to do its job to appropriate on specific subject matters. so we should be considering the v.a. on its own merits and i would note the majority leader is right that the house bill funded the most critical proponents of the v.a., pension and home loan and g.i. bill and disability payments, but i would readily accede to the majority leader if we like a continuing resolution that funds

the entirety of the v.a., including the elements he laid out, i think we could reach unanimous agreement on that within hours. the traditional means of slating is one subject at a time. it is not typical when considering funding for the v.a. that the argument be about unrelated matters, whether it is the department of agriculture or obamacare. the way this body has always operated is it's considered one subject matter at a time, except when congress has failed to appropriate and then everything has gotten lumped together in a giant omnibus bill, but there's no reason for that. but secondly, mr. president, every bit as critically, we've done it already. this is not theoretical. at the beginning of this proceeding, the house of representatives unanimously passed a bill saying let's fund the men and women of our military. now, when it came over to the

senate, a great many people expected the majority leader to do what majority leader did, to object to funding the men and women of our military and 20 republican senators came down to the floor prepared to make the argument we shouldn't hold the men and women in the military hostage. yet, much to our very pleasant surprise, the majority leader reconsidered. he decided that it was -- one must assume -- not defensible to hold hostage the paychecks. men and women in the military. so the majority leader agreed and this body unanimously passed funding for the men and women of the military. said look, regardless what happens with the government shutdown, our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines should not be held hostage, they should get their paychecks. indeed i rose on the senate floor, i commended the majority leader for doing the right thing, for acting in a bipartisan manner. and yet sadly, that was the

last of that behavior we were to see. i hope that majority leader returns. i hope the majority leader who said we're going to fund the men and women of our military, returns to say the same thing to our veterans. i hope that majority leader returns to say the same things to our national guard. i hope that majority leader returns to say the same thing to our parks and war memorials. i hope that majority leader returns to say the same thing to the national institutes for health, to say the same thing to children facing life threatening diseases like cancer. you know, we may not be able to resolve 100% of this impasse today. there are differences and to resomeresolve those differencess going to take down sitting down, talking, working through the matters of disagreement. one side of this chamber is prepared to do this, the democrats are not. in the meantime, it ought to be

a bipartisan priority to fund our veterans. you know, a second possible objection -- i can see some watching this debate who think, well, okay but if you fund the v.a., doesn't that mean the democrats have given in on obamacare? somehow it's got to be connected to obamacare, right? mr. president, as every member of this body knows, the v.a. is totally disconnected. the v.a. bill that passed the house doesn't implicate obamacare, it does nothing on obamacare. look, we've got days district agreement on obamacare. part of this body thinks it's a terrific bill, part of this body thinks it's a train wreck that's hurting millions of americans. that's an important debate. but whether or not our veterans get their disability payments shouldn't be held hostage to resolving that debate. it is exactly like the bill that my friends on the democratic side of the aisle already voted for to fund the men and women in the military, exactly the same.

they've done it once and yet for whatever reason they have made a decision that certainly appears to the public to be cynical and partisan. there should be no confusion. the house of representatives has overwhelmingly voted to protect our veterans and fund the v.a. 35 democrats joined republicans in you the house to do -- in the house to do that. it was bipartisan legislation. it came easter here -- over here, every senate republican agrees we should fund the v.a., we should pass this bill. there is unanimity and indeed the president when he addressed the nation said his priority was to fund the v.a. so we've got republicans and democrats in the house agreeing we should fund the v.a., we have republicans in the senate and a democratic president of the united states agreeing we should fund the v.a. and sadly, we have democrats in the

senate, a majority leader in the senate objecting and to being the v.a. from being funded. if my friends on the democratic side of the aisle simply stood up right now and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day the v.a. would receive its funding. if my friends on the democratic side of the aisle simply stood up and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day our friends in the reserve would receive their paychecks or would have the paychecks and the funding returned. if my friends on the democratic side of the aisle withdrew their objection, by the end of the day our national parks and memorials would have their funding and we'd be able to open the statue of liberty, open our war memorials and by the end of the day we could restore the funding to the national institutes of health. let me note there are many other priorities. my friend from maryland when he was talking about other priorities, look, there are a

great many aspects of government, for example, earlier this week the director of national intelligence and the head of the n.s.a. testified at the senate judiciary committee. and the head of national intelligence said that some 70% of civilian employees in the intelligence community had been furloughed and that that presents a real threat to our national security. mr. president, if that's right, where is the commander in chief? why is the president of the united states not down here right now saying look, regardless of what you all do on the rest of the budget, don't expose us to national security threats, let's fully fund the department of defense, let's fully fend our intelligence agencies. and indeed i would note one senator, the junior senator from arizona asked the head of national intelligence have you advised the president that congress should pass a continuing resolution funding the intelligence community? just like we did for the members of the armed forces.

and the answer from the head of the national intelligence, appointed by president obama, was yes, congress should do it, and yes, i will advise the president. mr. president, right now we have senate democrats who are not listening to the testimony and advice of the members of our intelligence community, who say that there is a grave national security threat, that we are not adequately prepared to defend ourselves against. surely partisan politics should end at that point. surely we should be able to come together and say look, we can keep fighting on obamacare, we may may have disagreements and eventually we'll work it out, but surely we shouldn't expose our national security to threats from terrorists or attacks on our homeland in the meantime. that ought to be 100-0,

mr. president. but at the end of the day, there's only one explanation that makes sense for why you saw one democrat after another standing up and objecting no, don't fund the v.a., no, don't fund the reserve members of our military, no, don't fund the parks, don't fund the memorials, don't fund the national institutes of health. the only explanation which is at all plausible is that many members of this body agree with some of the pundits that this shutdown benefits the political fortunes of democrats. you know, i sure hope people are focused on things other than political fortunes and partisan politics because i know every one of us takes seriously the obligation we have to our constituents back home. i sure hope that's not going on. but, you know, it's hard for the american people not to be cynical when they read about mount vernon which is privately

owned and operated, doesn't get its money from the federal government, being effectively forced to shut down because the federal government blocked the parking lots and put up barricades to prevent people from going to mount vernon. it's hard not to be cynical when you read about what my friend senator john thune told me about round mowpt rushmore, that the federal government erected barricades, spent the money to do it, there is a shutdown, spent the money to erect rect the barricades. problem is, those are state roads and the governor said take them down. the only conclusion that's possible there is that you're seeing cynical partisan gamesmanship, a decision by president obama and, unfortunately, by democrats in this body that inflicting the maximum pain on the american people will yield political benefits. we ought to be able to agree our

veterans are above politics. we ought too be able to agree our war memorials are above politics. we ought to be able to agree that defending national security, defending against terrorist threats is above politics. and everyone in congress is prepared to do so except for the majority leader and the senate democrats who are insisting everything be shut down. so, mr. president, if a federal government working worker 19 is at home today furloughed, you should know the reason is in large part because the senate democrats refused to let you come back to work. because we could agree for significant portions of the federal government to come back to work monday morning if simply the democrats would stop objecting, stop insisting they get everything on obamacare. and let me note, the issue on obamacare is very simple. is there a double standard? president obama has exempted big business and exempted members of

congress. and yet he has forced a government shutdown to deny that same exemption to hardworking americans. millions of americans who are losing their jobs, being forced into part-time work, facing skyrocketing health insurance premiums and losing their health insurance. let me remind this body of the words of james hoffa, the president of the teamsters who said obamacare is destroying the health care, and he used the word "destroying" -- destroying the health care of millions of working men and women in this country. if you don't believe me, perhaps james hoffa, who put it in writing that it is right now destroying the health care of millions of working men and women and will underscore what this fight is about. all the seniors, all the people with disabilities, all the people who are right now getting notices that they're losing their health insurance, that's what this fight is about. and at a minimum, we ought to

agree on common priorities. we ought to come together today right now and fund the v.a. we ought to come together today right now and fund our reservists in the national guard. we ought to come together today right now and fund our national parks, open our memorials, stop barricading and sending police officers to prevent world war ii veterans from coming to the world war ii memorial and woman right now to fund the national institutes of health because everyone agrees on that. and the decision to hold those priorities hostage because the democrats want to force obamacare on everyone, it's not related to them, it has nothing to do with them, it's all about political leverage. and, mr. president, that's not the way we should be doing our jobs. we should be listening to the

people, we should make d.c. listen. thank you, mr. president. ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that senator levin be the next democratic speaker following senator schumer's remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. mikulski: thank you very much, mr. president. before i go into my comments, i want to express my thanks to the capitol police, to the secret service, and all who responded to yesterday's pretty scary and dramatic incident. i also want to express my hope that the injured capitol police officer quickly and fully recovers. and to the little girl that's now been left without her

mother, i just hope that all of this great tragedy that unfolds we give the support to the people who really have suffered from this. mr. president, my colleague from texas has laid out a vision of how he would like to see the day end. he would like to see the day end funding v.a., n.i.h., open the park service, and i think there was one more item. but i'll stick with those three. n.i.h., f.d.a., and v.a. he would like to see at the end of the day they be open for business. mr. president, i have a different vision for the end of the day. at the end of the day today, i would like to see the house of representatives take up and vote on the senate-passed continuing funding resolution that would reopen the entire federal

government, keep it opened not for a long term because we have fiscal issues through november 15, at fiscal 2013 levels. at the end of the day, if they took up the senate-passed resolution and actually voted on it, at the end of the day the federal government would be op open, at the end of the day people would actually be back on the job, getting paid for the job that they signed up to do, and we would have the united states of america's government working the way it should. at the end of the day, it means that the capital hill police officers that were at their duty stations would get their pay. now they're working without pay. under my vision of america, if we open up the entire united states government, it means

f.b.i. agents that are currently working, doing their job, protecting america, at the end of the day, they would be paid. right now f.b.i. agents and other federal law enforcement are working for i.o.u.'s, the very f.b.i. agents that we count on are using their own money to put gas in the cars that they need to go after the bad guys or the bad guys. so under the mikulski recommendation that was passed by the senate, at the end of the day, f.b.i. agents would be paid, and they wouldn't have to use their own money to put gas in th their cars. that's what my vision of the end of the day is. we cannot continue to fund -- we have to reopen government. their strategy, their cynical

strategy, given with ruffles and flourishes and pomp, self-righteous, standing up for our veterans, opening up our national parks, funding n.i.h. really is hollow. let's take f.b.i. -- i mean, let's take the veterans. and it would be great if they actually understood how government works. so let's take the v.a. disability claim. in order to get your disability benefits, your eligibility is determined not only by the v.a. but in fact you get from the civilian workforce at d.o.d., from the social security administration headquartered in woodlawn, maryland, where 9,000 federal employees are furloughed, or you would get it from the internal revenue service, also headquartered in

maryland, where 5,000 federal employees are furloughed. so if we reopen all of the government, at the end of the day, yes, veterans would get their benefits, but they'll get them because not only v.a. is open, but so is social security, so are the civilian workforce at d.o.d., so are the people who work at the internal revenue service, making sure all the paperwork is done in the way that it should. that is what the end of the day should look like. my colleague talks -- from texas -- about how he would like to reopen n.i.h. oh, boy, so would i. 71% of the people at n.i.h. right this minute are furlough furloughed. he wants to, at the end of the day, open n.i.h. so do i. but i also know that after you do your research and you've engaged in that and our private sector comes in and begins to develop the products that they

need to take those great ideas into the new products that will save lives and create jobs in the united states of america, those private-sector people need to go to the f.d.a., the food and drug administration. so, at the end of the day, if you want to help n.i.h. stay open to find the cures for diseases that we want them to do, we also want the private sector inventing the products that will take those great ideas and turn them into the very things that can save lives here and be able to be sold around the world because they've been certified as safe and effective. so, at the end of the day, i would like to open the f.d.a., but i don't want to do it one agency at a time. i want to reopen the entire federal government. it just seems that whatever we

now shame into opening -- talking about, they then decide that agency is important and the house passes the bill. i don't want shame. i don't want blame. and i don't want political games. i want the government of the united states of america to be opened. now, let's go to another agency. they haven't even talked about other agencies. let's take the weather service. right now, mr. president, storm clouds are gathering, not only here in washington over politics, but they're gathering in the southwest. a hurricane is on its way. now, the weather service is also in maryland,800 people are supposed to be on their job. i was there during another hurricane just a few months ago. last october i was there while

they were at their duty station for hurricane sandy. we watched this hurricane come. it was devastating. we all recall how devastating it was. in my own state, my mountain counties were hit by a blizzard. down over on the eastern shore, they were hit by the hurricane, wiping out whole communities and neighborhoods, some owning family homes and farms that go back generations. now, those very weather -- those very weather service people are furloughed. they're absolutely furloughed. now, the weather service is calling them back, but they're going to be without pay. let me put a human face on who i'm talking about. yesterday i spoke to amy fritz. she works at the weather service. she has two master's degrees, one in meteorology and the other as a physical observer shan og

shanographer. her job is to predict storm surges coming from the hurricane. how her work protects walls of water, knowing where that's going to happen, what's going to happen and how we can begin to protect ourselves so that while we try to save property we can definitely provide lives. amy is the primary breadwinner in her family. she is now not getting paid. she has $130,000 in student loans so she could get that great education, and she wanted that great education because she thought, i can serve america. i can be a good scientist and a great american. well, at the end of the day, i want the weather service open. at the end of the day, i want amy getting paid. and at the end of the day, i want the entire federal government open, not on what just emerges as they've decided is important. every part of the federal government somewhere is megan mg

-- is playing an essential part to the lives of this country and to the communities in which they serve. last night there was something called the sammy awards. these are awards given to federal employees because of outstanding service. they've either saved lives or they've saved money. well, let me tell you, there was one federal employee at the national institutes of standards. he has a new way of being able to protect us against fires. the another federal employee who's also been furloughed has come up with how to save $1 billion. employee after employee. so i say to all the federal employees who might be watching, at the end of the day, i think you're important. at the end of the day, whatever job you do, i want you t to do t w i want you to strive for competence and excellence. but i want to do my job well. i extend my hand on the other side of the aisle, as i've done

repeatedly during the year that i have chaired this committee on appropriations. i have negotiated, i have compromised, and i will continue to do the same, because at the end of the day, i want the federal government open doing the job that those people were trained to do, that we hired them to do. i want the federal employees to be able to be on their doing the duty that they signinged up. every job has an important mission. whether you are a meat inspector, a poultry inspector, whether you are at the weather service. so we could continue to do this where they send over a program raprogramat a time. my gosh, once again we're wasting time. and where is our standing in the world? at the end of the day, i want us to be respected. i want us to be respected. what do they think about us around the world?

i've been to hearing after hearing where there is a lot of handwringing and chest-pounding over what we need to do about china. china isn't doing this to us. we're doing it to ourselves. there's no foreign predator attacking our federal government. we're just defunding it. that's what a shutdown is. you're not funding the federal government. this is not the way the united states of america should be. i know the calls that i'm getting from the over 100,000 federal employees that i have. they want to be on the job. it's not only that they want to get paid. they actually want to work. and, you know, they're prohibited from taking anything home where they could be working. this is just terrible. so at the end of the day, let's find a new way. at the end of the day, let's find a new way to keep the government open. at the end of the day, let's be

proud of ourselves and let the federal government be reopened. i once again conclude my remarks by saying to the house of representatives, please take up the senate continuing funding resolution that would extend -- reopen the federal government right away and get us at the desk so that we could negotiate further fiscal compromises. that's the way i would like to see the day end. mr. president, i yield the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i i want to thank the senator from maryland for her very, very self -- emotional response and her great statement. and i hope that all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both houses listen to what she just said to us. she represents a state that is improperly impacted as much if

not -- that is probably impacted as much if not more because a lot of employees work in her state. she did not say open up all of the jobs in my state, make sure my state is tang care of. she came out here and said, open up the federal government so every american, every state, every part of our country is taken care. and she's rievment she is righ. i share her vision for at the end of the day. not that we take a few here and there and what i decide is important here today. but our country gets back to work. and i really share her vision hathat speaker boehner simply takes up the bill that is at his desk. allow it to pass. it has the votes. at the end of the this day, we can being proud that our country is back at wonch than work. i thank the senator for her very, very well-stated remarks. i just wanted to speak today about what's going on. you know, representative marlin stutzman said something that i

think sums up the house republican position perfectly. he said yesterday, and i quote "we're not going to be disrespected. we have to get something out of this, and i don't even kno no kt that even is." we have to get something out of this, the republicans in the house. i think that statement makes 2 very clear. first of all, house republicans have exactly one set of interests in their mind: their own. and secondly, they couldn't be more removed from the impacts of the shutdown that are being felt across the country. mr. president, every day that speaker boehner refuses to reopen the government is another day of inconvenience and stress and uncertainty for families and communities that we all serve. and because house republicans clearly aren't getting the message yet, today i want to describe some of what why -- some of what my constituents in

washington state are saying about the effects of a shut -- shutdown. the families i represent aren't interested in the partisan political strategizing that goes on here in washington, d.c. they have a lot more important issues on their mind right now. every day they are reading about how the government shutdown is affecting their community. many are feeling the impacts themselves. mr. president, there are about 50,000 federal employees in washington state. thousands are being sent home without pay. the shutdown is going to put a serious burden on many of these workers' families, but the consequences reach even further. this week the seattle times spoke to a deli whose job is in downtown seattle. she gets about 30% of her sales from federal workers in a building across the street from her. without their business now -- they are all home -- and without knowing how long this shutdown is going to last, she is concerned about how she is going to pay her rent and pay her

employees. she said -- and i quote -- "i don't think congress is thinking of people like us." well, it is hard to disagree with that. the shutdown is affecting so many. our national parks are closed. campers and hikers have been asked to leave. and if the government doesn't open soon, participants in the bering sea king crab fishery, which my colleague from alaska spoke about earlier this morning when i was on the floor, many of them are based in washington state. they are going to face significant economic losses. why? because noaa employees are needed to process and issue their quotas. they have all been furloughed. there is no one at work to do the work they need to do their job. i spoke with some of my constituents in the washington state construction industry. they told me their business is slow because of all the uncertainty about where our economy is going to be because

of the shutdown and because of the looming debt ceiling deadline. and there's so much more. while our active duty military will continue to be paid, some of those who have heroically served our country are being affected. furloughs in washington state and across this country have forced our veterans to stay home and lose pay. and as the shutdown continues, veterans are watching and they're waiting, because if this government doesn't open soon, v.a. benefits, benefits which many of our veterans rely on just to make ends meet and support from the g.i. bill is going to stop. now, mr. president, our veterans should not under any circumstances be burdened by partisan games. but unfortunately the longer this shutdown goes on, the more they are having to sacrifice. and this shutdown is affecting the dedicated civilian employees who support our military. we have as many as 8,000 civilian employees at joint base lewis-mcchord who have been

impacted. some are going to work without pay and some have been sent home without pay and without any sense or idea of when they're going to be able to return. and, by the way, mr. president, many of those workers are veterans. and many have already been victims of the gridlock and brink man sh*p in our nation's capital. a washington state news station spoke with a lewis-mcchord employee this week and he said his family already lost $1,300 because of the sequestration furloughs this summer. they are struggling to pay their bills and had to refinance their mortgage. this week matthew and his family were left wondering whether they would face more lost pay, more uncertainty. mr. president, the shutdown is creating uncertainty for struggling families as well who depend on or nutrition assistance programs. a spokesman review in spokane washington spoke with a woman who is the mother of an

11-month-old girl. rosa gets support from the women, infant and children, w.i.c. program. now we're hearing the washington state department of health said w.i.c. funds would be threatened as early as next month if this continues. rosa might take her vouchers to a grocery store and be unable to buy food for her families. rosa told the spokane review that is a scary situation. what i talked about are a few of the examples i have seen in my home state of washington, but i know families and communities across this country could tell a lot of similar stories. mr. president, this is beyond frustrating for me. it's beyond frustrating for my fellow democrats and many republicans, including, by the way, at least 20 in the house of representatives so far who see absolutely no reason why this

shutdown has to continue. we may not agree on much, mr. president, but there does seem to be bipartisan agreement the shutdown has to end, and once it does, we should begin the negotiations that many of us, including myself, have been on the floor calling for since march, to work towards a bipartisan agreement that ends the brinksman sh*p, ends the manufactured crisis so harmful to our country and kpheufplt -- and economy. as we continue to hear from thousands of americans, from fishermen to small business owners to struggling moms who are being hurt as this shutdown occurs, i hope they will at least stop standing in the way of those of us who are ready to get to work. so, mr. president, i want to close by quoting kierston watts from tacoma, washington. she works for the bonneville

administration. she told the seattle times it is sad the government is playing games with people's likelihood. she said workers at her agency would still be coming in but she's worried about the others who won't be. she was thinking about how this shutdown will impact others. and i think speaker boehner and the tea party who according to representative stutsman are laser focused on what's in it for them could learn a lot from that approach. i say today to speaker boehner, open up the government. let everybody go back to work. stop hurting our economy. mr. president, all that requires is bringing the senate-passed continuing resolution up for a vote on the house floor so that democrats and republicans who want the government to reopen can pass it. once the government is open, we would be more than happy to sit down and work out our longer-term budget agreement. but we're not going to do it

with our families and our workers and our small businesses being held hostage. this is not the time to talk about opening the government. it's time to actually do it. the entire country is watching and wondering how we got to this point. let's do the right thing and show them we can work together and fulfill the basic responsibilities we were elected to do. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: like many other members who have spoken on the floor today, i too want to just acknowledge the extraordinary work that's done by the capitol police officers. every single day they work around here protecting the people who work here, the people who visit here, and yesterday was another great example of just the skill, the professionalism, the courage that they display on a daily basis in a very quiet and humble

way. i just want to express on my own behalf and the people that i represent our appreciation for their extraordinary work and the remarkable way in which they go about their jobs and just how very grateful we all are for that much mr. president, i want to talk today about what's happening here in washington, d.c.. unfortunately, we find ourselves in the fourth day of what is a completely avoidable partial government shutdown. we -- it's not like we didn't see this coming. the fiscal year ends every year on september 30. so it wasn't a deadline that we didn't know was coming. in fact, as i pointed out before, the house of representatives completed work on four appropriations bills. and fortunately here in the senate, we did move appropriations bills across the floor to comply with the budget control act. we didn't pass a single one this fiscal year. recognizing the need to act at the end of the fiscal year as it

approached, the house passed and sent to the senate a continuing resolution on september 20, two weeks ago. instead of acting quickly to bring us to a resolution to keep the government funded, senate leadership continued to stall, unwilling to negotiate. the house has now sent us four comprehensive proposals to fund the government and to provide fairness under the law when it comes to obamacare. one of these proposals included a request for a conference committee so we could get to work resolving our differences. very straightforward request. the other proposals that have been sent over here which had other elements in here dealing with obamacare as well as government funding were rejected by the senate. they were tabled here. and so this was a proposal that was very simple and straightforward. all it asked was let's have a conference. let's sit down and try to work out our differences. unfortunately, the democrat majority here in the united states senate insisted that they

will not negotiate. they tabled the motion, the request to go to conference with the house of representatives. so so far this week the house of representatives has sent us five bills to fund various parts of our government. i understand they're continuing to work on additional bills today. these are bills that would ensure that our veterans get paid, that children can continue to have access to lifesaving treatments. yesterday morning my republican colleagues and i came to the floor and requested that several of these commonsense bills that the house sent to us be agreed to by unanimous consent here in the senate. specifically, i asked for a unanimous consent agreement for the pay our guard and reserve act. this bill would ensure that the men and women who proudly serve in our national guard and reserves, those who have bravely answered the call to protect and defend our country continue to train and to get paid for their service. congress should send a clear message to these men and women who stand ready to serve in

overseas conflicts or to respond to domestic disasters that they will not be impacted by the spending agreements here in washington. unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle objected to these requests. and unbelievely, mr. president, the president of the united states has actually threatened to veto those very measures. congress has already passed by unanimous consent a bill to ensure that active duty military personnel are paid during this lapse in government funding, and it's unclear to me as to why senate democrats wouldn't pass similar measures to fund these important services. after all, taking care of active duty military personnel was something that everybody agreed here, unanimous consent -- that rarely happens around here in the united states senate. but democrats and republicans agreed this is a priority. we need to make sure the men and women, the active duty men and women in our military who defend this country on a daily basis get paid despite the dysfunction here in washington, d.c.. the bill that i offered

yesterday simply would have done is applied that same treatment to our guard and reserve. in my state of south dakota, we have about 4,300 members of the army and air national guard, a couple hundred of which are deployed right now. the remainder obviously have training functions they perform on a regular basis. if we don't get this issue resolved they're not going to be able to meet those training requirements. of course as we all know, they respond to domestic disasters, to emergencies that require their assistance here at home as well as on a regular basis now being deployed to meet the military requirements that we have in many of the conflicts we're involved in around the world. and so it strikes me as very strange, mr. president, that democrats would refuse to act or engage in a meaningful debate in order to find common ground on issues like this and to get our government back up and running. now, i think that my -- the people i represent in the state

of south dakota, like a lot of other people across the country, expect their leaders to work together to resolve their differences. the position of the democratic leadership is that they will not negotiate, to simply work together. that's not a position that i believe is reasonable. we've heard that from the president. we've heard it from the leaders here, the democratic leaders here in the senate. we're not going to negotiate. well, i think most americans believe that they sent us here to washington, d.c. to work together, realizing there are differences, legitimate differences about how to solve problems and how to approach issues. but they believe on a very basic level that the responsibility that we have as their elected officials is to sit down and try and figure out how to solve these problems. and so to say that we will not negotiate as a starting position is a completely unreasonable position to take in the eyes, i believe, of the american people.

the dysfunction, the gridlock that we have here in washington, d.c., mr. president, is simply unacceptable. on wednesday the president invited congressional leaders to the white house for what unfortunately turned out to be yet just sort of another photo opportunity, publicity stunt. the president waited until the -- after the 11th hour, i should say, two days into a partial government shutdown, to even engage in a face-to-face way with congressional leaders. it strikes me that when you invite people to the table, in the same breath make explicit that you're not willing to negotiate, that very little work is going to get done for the american people. i would hope that we would see better from our president, better from our leaders here in the united states senate. it seems like, at least, mr. president, the democrats are very content to take their ball and to go home. four days into a partial

government shutdown and they still refuse to negotiate. we haven't experienced a government shutdown now for nearly 20 years, and so i would pose to my friends on the other side of the aisle that the willingness of leaders of both parties to negotiate in good faith during previous negotiations is something we could take a lesson from. 1959-1996, former speaker of the house newt gingrich when he was talking about the shutdowns of that period said president bill clinton and i would talk if not every day, five days a week during the shutdowns, after the shutdowns. we met face-to-face for 35 days in the white house trying to hammer things out. mr. president, as you know, any unnecessary shutdown is not the only challenge we're dealing with here in washington, but when it comes to the debt ceiling, which the treasury tells us will be reached in the next few weeks, again, again, democrats refuse to come to the table to enact responsible spending reforms as part of that package.

well, the american people disagree. according to a recent bloomberg poll, americans by a 2-1 margin disagree with president barack obama's contention that congress should raise the u.s. debt limit without conditions. mr. president, the american people understand that we continue to borrow and borrow and borrow like there is no tomorrow. pile that burden on the back of our children and grandchildren. they understand that if you are going to increase the debt limit, if you are going to ask for a bigger credit card limit, that you ought to be doing something about the debt, and that's why by a 2-1 margin they believe that if you're going to raise the debt limit, you ought to do something to address the underlying debt. in fact, 61% of americans, according to that poll, believe it's right to require spending cuts when the debt ceiling is raised, even if it risks default. now, i don't believe we ought to have a default, mr. president, but i do believe that a

negotiation on the debt limit makes sense if you're serious about doing something about the debt. and every time in the past when we have had major budget deals, whether you go back to the gramm-rudman in 1985 or the 1993 budget agreement or the 1997 budget agreement or the one more recently in 2011, the budget control act, it was not always around and in association with an increase in the debt limit. there is clear precedent, clear history. when we're facing an increase in the debt limit to have a serious, substantive debate in this country about how to address the debt. in many cases, those led to some of the few times in our nation's history where we have actually gotten budget agreements that did something to reduce spending. it might come as a surprise to some of my colleagues here that inasmuch as many of us don't like the sequester that came out of the budget control act of 2011, -- mr. president, i would

ask unanimous consent for an additional minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, what came out of that was now for the first time since the 1950's, literally since the korean war, government spending has gone down for two consecutive years. it can be done. it can be done when reasonable people are willing to sit down and negotiate. but that requires the engagement of the chief executive of the president of the united states. it requires the goodwill of people here in the united states senate. it doesn't entail taking a position that we will not negotiate. that's not a position. , mr. president. what we need is an opportunity where we can sit down together and focus on these big challenges that we have. in the meantime, we continue to have opportunities to vote, to fund veterans' programs, to vote to fund our national guard and reserve, to fund the national institutes of health n.i.h., the important priorities that many of my colleagues on the democrat

side have gotten up and talked about. we have bills coming over from the house of representatives. we could do like we did with the military pay act, pick them up and pass them by unanimous consent, so we don't have to worry about any of these issues not being addressed and important programs and projects not being funded. that's all it simply takes, mr. president. i hope that can happen. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: mr. president, we are here today with our government's doors shuttered because of a failure to understand basic civics, and, frankly, this my way or the highway brinkmanship has been building for so long here in washington, d.c., that i won't be surprised if the american people just say a pox on both your houses, republicans and democrats. but why are we in this fix, mr. president? how did we get here?

sometimes when you're lost in the woods, it helps to retrace your footsteps so that you can find the way back out. we're here because some of our colleagues have forgotten their middle school civics lessons. they have forgotten that i'm just a bill episode of schoolhouse rock that some of the folks from the 1970's and 1980's remember, which reminds us all that to pass a bill or to repeal a bill, that you have to meet certain tests. you need a majority of the house of representatives. you need a majority of the senate, and if someone's going to filibuster, you need 60 votes. and you need the signature and the support of the president. we're here because my colleagues who want to repeal the affordable care act don't have a majority of the senate. they certainly don't control the white house, despite waging an entire election over the health care law. and since they can't repeal the health care law the way that we all learned about in middle

school, they have decided to try something new. they have taken the government hostage. they have said if you don't give me what i want, we're going to close down the federal government. can you imagine, mr. president, what it would look like if democrats employed this kind of reckless and irresponsible tactic? what if we said unless you raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, we aren't going to pass a spending bill. or remember in 2009 when our party tried to pass a cap-and-trade bill, we didn't have the votes to overcome the filibuster in the senate, so i guess the lesson here is that we should have refused to fund the government until republicans relented and passed a cap-and-trade bill. can you imagine? that's not how our democracy works. it's not what our founders envisioned, and it's not compromise. mr. president, it's extortion.

it is our job to pass a spending bill every year. we can fight about how big that bill is, we can fight about how small that bill's going to be, but constitutional duty is not optional. now, some are saying there needs to be further compromise in the spending bill, but it's clear that sometimes the republican house doesn't know when to declare victory. they actually got the spending levels that they asked for. in the interest of keeping the government open, the senate accepted house spending levels, sequester levels in our funding resolution. i don't like those spending levels, mr. president. most democrats don't support those spending levels. but we aren't willing to risk the entire economy or the well-being of our constituents just to get our way. the bottom line here is this -- it's time to reopen the government. no strings attached, no policy

riders and no more hostage taking. just a clean funding bill that stops hurting our public servants, our communities and our economy. a clean funding resolution that keeps the lights on while we negotiate, while we negotiate, mr. president, over a long-term budget. the senate had the votes to pass such a bill, and we did. the house also has the votes to pass a clean funding bill. but speaker boehner won't bring it to the floor. he won't put it up for a vote because the most extreme members of his caucus want to play hostage politics instead. it's time to end this. it's time to drop the hostage politics and simply pass the one plan, the one plan that has the votes to pass both chambers, a clean funding bill. so speaker boehner, let them vote. let your members vote their

conscience on a clean funding resolution. it's your duty, mr. speaker. just let them vote. that's all we ask. mr. president, i would yield back my time. thank you. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: first i ask unanimous consent the period of morning business be extended until 4:00 p.m. and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: and the senator, my good friend, the senator from alabama, has graciously agreed to let us flip the order so that i'm going to go now and he goes next, but i would ask unanimous consent that that be done and that it not change the alternating. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: thank you. and once again, i thank my colleague from alabama. mr. president, i rise to talk about an aspect of the tea party government shutdown that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. sadly, the effects of this tea party shutdown don't stop at our

water's edge. the shutdown is putting our national security at risk. the senior senator from california, the chair of the intelligence committee, has talked to us about how 72% of our intelligence employees are not working. they are not -- sorry. they are not all useless or laggards or slackers. in fact, there is a high degree of professionalism in the c.i.a., the n.s.a. and like agencies, and to have close to 3/4 of them not on the job puts every american at risk. well, there is another area that's putting us at risk. we all know that the greatest threat to our national security and to that of israel -- or one of the greatest threats to our national security and the greatest threat to israel's is a nuclear iran. in order to punish iran for their pursuit of nuclear weapons, republicans and democrats in a bipartisan way,

led in many instances by two of my good friends here, the democratic senator from -- senior senator from new jersey, senator menendez, the republican senior senator from south carolina, senator graham, they have come together to pass tough sanctions that would have a scripling effect on iran's economy, and this body in a bipartisan way and the other body in a bipartisan way have passed those. and just last week, we saw some of the first results of progress as president ruhani said he was open to talks on the nuclear program. iran had been intransigent before that. and one doesn't even know if they really want to give up nuclear weapons, whether this is a feint, but we certainly know that the sanctions is having a dramatic effect. what's changed iran's mind? have they suddenly had a change of heart out of the blue? no. the only thing that's changed their mind is the sanctions, and

that's why they are at least acting differently than they have acted in the past. and who knows? hopefully they may actually do some real things if the sanctions continue. we know that these tough sanctions are a huge weight around the ankles of the iranian economy, but right now when iran feels cornered for the first time, the shutdown of our government could well take that pressure off the iranians, and it comes at exactly the wrong time. that's because the shutdown and the furloughs are preventing us from fully enforcing the sanctions, allowing companies that are trying to do business with iran to escape punishment, allowing the iranian economy to expand faster than it normally would have. there are many companies that try to evade these sanctions, but the federal government has

cops on the beat that have been by and large overwhelmingly successful to make sure nobody can slip through the cracks and do business with iran. but now because of sanctions -- sorry. but now because of the government shutdown and furloughs, those offices are greatly weakened. two of the major offices in the treasury department that enforce sanctions, the office of intelligence and analysis and the financial crimes enforcement network have only 30 of their 345 employees. let me repeat that. two of the most important offices that enforce sanctions have less than 10% of their employees. 90%-plus are on furlough, they can't work. the office of terrorist financing and intelligence, a vital cog in our enforcing tough sanctions against iran, is

usually staffed by ten people. right now, mr. president, they just have one. 10%. and the treasury department's office of foreign assets control, the primary office responsible for enforcing these sanctions and punishing those who violate them is also operating with a skeleton staff. and so, mr. president, just at a time when we need the sanctions to continue to bite, this government shutdown is making it a lot easier for rogue actors to send oil and trade with the iranian regime. we all know that those who try to avoid sanctions find the weakest place, and now with so few of our people on the job because of the shutdown, it's going to be a lot easier for them. new sanction designations will halt.

we won't be able to investigate sanction violations. we can't punish those who have violated the sanctions. the government shutdown sends a dramatic and strong signal to those who seek to violate the sanctions and give the iranian regime hope that they can continue to keep nuclear weapons couldn't come at a worse time. the iranian sanctions have been our best pressure point and the shutdown is letting the pressure off iran at exactly the wrong time. now, we've seen a pattern over the last few days, and i have a feeling i know what the response from the other side of the aisle, particularly the junior senator from texas, will be. he'll say okay, democrats, that's a good point. let's fund the sanctions and maybe tomorrow or the next day we'll have a bill on the floor

to restore those offices in the treasury department. and then maybe we'll point out that the government shutdown is hurting middle-class students getting college loans, something again that has had bipartisan support. and then maybe the junior senator from texas or house republicans will say okay, let's fund that, too. after a while it gets a little ridiculous. the house republicans and their seeming acquiescense to the junior senator from texas have given the junior senator from texas a veto power over which parts of the federal government are funded and which are not. at the request of the junior senator from texas who has fervently and passionately -- we heard him a few minutes

ago -- don't fund the government unless obamacare is eliminated, the house republicans have shut down the government. and that's not a surprise, the junior senator from texas' actions because after all, he said ten months ago, he said that he and the tea party -- quote -- "have to be prepared to go as far as to shut the government down." it's not a surprise. anyway, republicans have shuttered the entire federal government and they say they're willing to reopen it a piece at a time provided that piece is blessed by the junior senator from texas. to allow any one person to pick and choose which parts of the government can reopen is a cynical and ultimately extremely damaging way to run the government. it's dangerous for the country and it's obvious that it won't succeed. one final point, mr. president.

it seems that today's talking point from my republican colleagues is let's talk. it's obvious they feel the pressure. because america sees the intransigence of shutting down the government unless our colleagues in the house get 100% of what they want. but it's obvious when their talking point is "let's talk" they've left out a key point at the beginning of their new talking point. because to talk, only talk, while the government is shut down does huge damage to millions of innocent people and to our country's economy. they forget to say let's vote. then let's talk. so their motto should be modified. ours is just vote. just vote.

vote to let the government stay open, it will take a single vote in the house of representatives, and then let's talk to say let's talk while the government is shut down prolongs the devastation to our colleagues. so i say to my republican colleagues who have come up with this talking point, let's talk, you forgot the first part of your talking point. just vote, then let's talk. i yield the floor and thank my colleague from alabama for his courtesy. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate senator schumer's remarks about the iran sanctions. they are very important. it's a -- an action by the united states that i think has helped in a number of ways with the radicalism in iran and we need to keep it up. i did hear mr. clapper yesterday

testify, i believe it was yesterday or the day before, before the judiciary committee, and he said he had this number of people not working. senator grassley said, well, if they're not critical people, why do you need so many? you got a critical job, you need enough people to do the critical duties, how many do you need? you must not need all these people, you say they're not important to us. so mr. clapper i don't think had a very good answer to that, and when those raised the question of defense cuts and -- under the budget control act and that sort of thing, he expressed concern about that, which i would share. i think mr. clapper is right to be concerned about it. so i asked him, director clapper, do you know the way to

1600 pennsylvania avenue? have you ever heard of the commander in chief of the united states? and the house, the republican house, i must say, has a half a dozen times or more over several years passed legislation that eases those cuts and finds other reductions in spending from other departments and agencies that receive no cuts, and reduces the burden on the defense department. indeed, the defense department represents one-sixth of the united states budget and they're being asked to take one half the cuts. and don't think that counts bringing down war costs in iraq and afghanistan, that's entirely different. this is the base defense budget that's taking half the cuts under the budget control act. there's too much on the defense department, it ought to be spread around, the house has

more than half a dozen times tried to do that, it's died in the senate because he want, i guess, utilize the military to threaten the republicans if you don't do what we want, we're not going to defend -- fund your military. and my goodness, the president is the commander in chief of the united states military. doesn't very a responsibility to make sure we're adequately funded? i'm just getting a little frustrated with that argument. i got to say. and first of all, i don't think he's required to lay off that many people, he indicated he was reviewing it, he's going to bring back more people as he could have been doing all along. but it did allow another example of disastrous complaints beyond reality, i think. and one more thing. senator schumer and many of our democratic colleagues have been conducting a sustained and

direct attack on the millions of people who supported and identified with the tea party movement. make no mistake about it. they don't believe that -- they don't respect the people in the tea party movement, they demean them in every way and virtually every day in this body, and everybody that's a part of that movement, because they believe that america, they thought this united states congress has gone lunatic in spending the country into bankruptcy and passing obamacare over the overwhelming objection of the american people and they did it anyway. without listening. and they spontaneously rose up and it clobbered a bunch of democratic house members and senators, switched the whole majority in the house by a big number. so they don't like it. so everybody that opposes them,

that says you're not listening to us, they're now demeaning and attacking. i think the american people and the people that have identified and supported the tea party either directly or indirectly need to know that. i know the people in the tea party. they care about america, they love america, they can't understand what's going on here, and they think we're moving us into bankruptcy and we forgot the entire concept of constitutional limited government. well, mr. president, we've heard a lot of talk about the challenges facing the government during the funding lapse we're in. all of us want to see the government returned to normal operations, and i certainly do. but what we seem to be losing is -- sight of is the permanent consequences, the debt consequences of the affordable

care act. and it needs to be a part of this discussion. and the democrats have refused to listen. they've basically blocked any effort in the senate to reform in any significant way the affordable care act. and it's been going on ever since it passed. their goal is to put up a wall around it, anything that comes up, they won't listen to, they won't consider, they won't discuss. it's a fact. it's a deal. you can't even discuss it. the house has a right to fund what they want to fund under the constitution, and not fund what they choose not to. they're trying to initiate and force a discussion on one of the most important issues facing america, and one of the things that's so dangerous about this bill has not been properly discussed, and i want to talk about it today. so, you know, a lot of us are going to donate our pay during

this furlough to charity, and i will, but i wish our friends would begin to be more concerned for the private-sector workers, millions of american workers who will be permanently affected by the affordable care act. hammered by it. eventually, full funding will resume to our government, we know that. this furlough will end. but if this obamacare remains in full effect, the cons qens for american -- cons scwendz for -- consequences to for american workers will be disastrous. as ranking member of the budget committee, i'd like to focus on the huge and fundamental accounting manipulation that lies at the center of this health care law. i'm going to make some statements today and i hope somebody if they got the

detailed objections to it or rejections to it, i want to see them and i'll respond to them. but i'm correct in what i'm saying, and i look forward to any discussion anybody would like to have. but so far people don't want to talk, they want to ignore. so we've got a deal with these accounting manipulations because it's a colossal blow to our treasury. the affordable care act was packaged and sold based on a promise that i am going to disprove. the american people knew it wasn't true anyway. before a joint session of congress, before a joint session of the united states congress, the president of the united states said and promised this -- quote -- "i will not sign a health care plan that adds one dime to our deficits now or any time in the future,

period, close quote." that is a bold statement. as good as "read my lips" i would say. as i addressed earlier this week, hundreds of billions of dollars in medicare savings to their hospital insurance h.i. trust fund were double counted under the legislation that was passed. at least $400 billion over the 2010-2019 ten-year period, $400 billion. so i ask for an analysis before the bill passed, december 23, we ended up voting on december 24, christmas eve, they rammed it through before scott brown, who would have denied them the 60th vote, was elected in massachusetts, liberal massachusetts on the commitment he would be the vote to kill obamacare, but they still were able to get it through before he

could take office. so the night before we voted, i asked c.b.o. about it. i insisted they give an answer and they did. they said -- quote -- "the key point is that savings to the h.i. trust fund -- that's medicare -- under paaca -- would be received only by the government only once so they cannot be set aside to pay for future medicare spending and at the same time pay for current spending on the other parts of the legislation, obamacare, or other programs. to describe the full amount of h.i. trust fund savings --. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: i would ask unanimous consent to have an additional two minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sessions: c.b.o. went on to say, to describe the full amount of h.i. trust fund

savings as both improving the government's ability to pay medicare future benefits and financing new spending outside of medicare would essentially double count a large share of those savings, and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position." what a statement that was. and, in fact, c.b.o. estimated that if medicare savings were truly set aside to pay future medicare benefits, the new health care law would not decrease but increase the deficit over the first ten years and subsequent decade, in 2010. they said it would increase the deficit. but there's a lesson --, lesser known equally shock being

account gimmick how it was done with social security. they would retain another $100 billion over the next ten years by double counting social security money. my time is up and i could explain it in more detail, but we've got to understand this. according to the government accountability office, and i asked them not too long ago and they issued a report, that over the next long-term implementation of this obamacare, it would add $6.3 trillion to the debt of the united states. that's almost as much as the liabilities that social security have, and fully accounted for, my budget staff tells me that the obamacare legislation will be harder to fund and add -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: and add more to the deficit than will social

security under current problems we're under. so we need to stop digging the hole and we need to start fixing medicare and social security, not adding another program we can't pay for. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: mr. president, i know this is not a town that's ever been known for having a long memory. in fact, the recent warning bells that have rung about our deficits and debt have predictably faded into the background with all the attention on the rocky start to this fiscal year. just last month, the congressional budget office released its long-term budget outlook. headlines and news stories associated with that release used words like grim and gloomy and raised alarms about -- quote -- "long-term fiscal crisis." the very first line of that report reminds us that between 2009 and 2012, the u.s. government recorded the largest budget deficits when compared to the size of the economy in over

half a century, reflecting on the current state of play, c.b.o. noted that the federal debt currently stands at roughly threthree-quarters of our gross domestic product. more alarmingly, they predict that our federal debt will match the size of our economy or be equal to 100% of g.d.p. by the year of 2038. i understand the temptation to just roll our eyes and lightly suggest that these facts and figures are of more interest to green eyeshade bean counters or to simply waive them off, as last month's news. but frankly this is made much easier when the administration says things like -- quote -- "we don't have an urgent debt crisis." and when appropriation bills come to the floor at levels that make little sense give you are our current fiscal reassments unfortunately these facts and

figures only tell part of the story. and the impact they will have on the federal budget deaf. if the growth of our federal debt is left unchecked, we could eventually see a further drop in private investment, an increase in interest payments, a decrease in congress' flexibility and, obviously, risk a fiscal crisis. sib notes that -- quote -- c.b.o. notes that -- quote -- "the unsustainable note of the current government's tax-and-spend policies presents lawmakers with difficult choices but the federal government on a sustainable path for the long run, law makers will have to make significant changes to taxing and spending policies." we all know that given the current environment, it's difficult to do that. it's -- it's difficult when we have a problem just bringing routine spending measures to the president's desk. so this is not an easy conclusion to hear.

but within our dim current fiscal landscape and even dimmer outlook, there has been at least one bright spot. in 2011, congress agreed to and the president signed into law the budget control act, or the b.c.a. this included statutory discretionary spending caps as well as automatic across-the-board spending cuts for a failure to enact additional deficit-reduction measures. certainly trimming federal spending via across-the-board sequestration is an inelegant means, at best, of addressing our spending problem. it's on which referred to as a blunt instrument. at a minimum, it is a lazy way to legislate. but i believe that i join a number of my colleagues when i say that i'm open to providing additional flexibility while staying within the budget caps with respect to the sequester. but you simply can't deny that locking in discretionary spending caps and enforcing them with automatic sequestration has

yielded some of the most significant spending cuts that we've seen in congress in years. as my colleague from tennessee, who recently came to the floor, said two years ago, discretionary spending stood at nearly $1.5 trillion. last year under the b.c.a. spending caps, that number dropped to just under a trillion dollars. and this year, if no changes occur to the sequester and forced spending cap, we'll be at $976 billion. that's a significant drop. that is significant. and that is a good thing. a recent "wall street journal" story entitled "the g.o.p.'s unheralded victory on spending" quoted the head of americans for tax reform concluded that we had -- quote -- "made a fundamental shift in the size of the government equation." while runaway spending on mandatory programs represents an ever-present issue that we have to get our arms around, the b.c.a. caps and the sequester have put a real -- have put real

and meaningful downward pressure on discretionary spending that represents about a third of our federal budget. my colleague from kentucky, the minority leader, recently pointed out that the b.c.a. that had passed two years ago -- quote -- "actually reduced government spending for two years in a row for the first time since the korean war." and i agree with him when he urges that we not walk away from the spending reductions that we have already promised taxpayers. now, i've made no secret of the fact that i do not favor the strategy of tying the defunding of obamacare to the current continuing resolution. as the resulting shutdown drags on and there are more stories about the fights over funding next year, um, and then the coming debate over the debt ceiling, i find myself favoring this strategy even less. it's entirely likely that the

sequester opponents will use the larger debate to push to undo the gains that we've made and meaningful spending cuts by abolishing the sequester and replacing it with meaningless savings, budget gimmicks or even new taxes. far from a conspiracy theory, in recent months there have already been calls for a two-year sequester hiatus. i agree with taxpayers for commonsense when they say that -- quote -- "this may be the convenient answer but it is no way to get our fiscal house in order." madam president, it's my hope that we can find a way through this shutdown sooner rather than later. it's also my hope that we can at some point have a real conversation about the long-term drivers of our crushing debt that underline -- that underlie our need to regularly hike the debt ceiling. in the meantime, and as this debate unfolds, i urge my colleagues to resist any effort

to undermine the sequester enforced budget control act spending caps. i yield the floor. mr. levin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: madam president, house speaker boehner is sending to the senate a series of bills to put one band-aid at a time on the house republicans' government shutdown. it's an obvious attempt to fool the american people into thinking that house republicans are acting to end the shutdown. but their transparent tactic is not fooling many people and here's why. the people of this country know that the harm of a government shutdown isn't about the hands full of programs that house republicans will dangle in front of us. the house republican gambit will not put food inspectors back to works it will not put centers for disease control experts back to work tracing, tracking outbreaks of infectious diseases. it's not going to reopen head start classrooms for kids.

their piecemeal approach won't restart lending to small businesses or bring back the f.a.a. inspectors who make sure commercial aircraft are safe, and it won't restore hundreds of other vital services and functions. no matter how many rifle-shot bills the house republicans try, all they do is leave our government full of holes. we could spend months legislating in bits and pieces while house republicans ignore the yowbs solution -- ignore the obvious solution -- the house should vote on the clean continuing resolution that the senate has sent to them because that vote will end the shutdown. now, the republicans bits-and-pieces strategy is like smashing a piece of crockery with a ham he, glueing -- hammer, glueing two or three bits back today, a couple tomorrow, and two or three more the day after that. house republicans should stop before they do any more damage,

put down the hammer, pick up the senate's continuing resolution and at least putted i put it to. i heard one republican on the senate floor yesterday argue that we should adopt the piecemeal approach because, after all, he said, under regular order, we pass separate appropriation bills for different parts of the government one at a time. now, while that's true, it's irrelevant. we have a mechanism for keeping the government open while we go through the regular order process. it's called a continuing resolution. and it keeps the full government open while we adopt appropriation bills one at a time. five days ago, the senate bagged fopassedfor the third time a cog resolution to keep the government open and sent it to the house. it's well past time for speaker boehner to bring it to a vote.

republicans want to negotiate changes in the affordable care act. of course we'll talk about that once the government is functioning but we should not and will not allow the united states government to be held hostage by the republicans while we're talking about the affordable care act or any other subject which they or we wish to talk about. now, madam president, i'm keenly aware, as chairman of the armed services committee, that one of the most devastating effects of this republican shutdown is its damage to our national security already our men and women in uniform have been asked to operate under the damaging effects of sequestration. those cuts have done serious harm to our military readiness and military families and the shutdown is just making things far worse. because of the house republican shutdown, workers at defense department maintenance depots around the country, who should

be repairing and preparing vehicles, ships and aircraft for combat, are instead furloughed, along with hundreds of thousands of other department of defense civilians. training exercises have largely come to a halt, and anyone who thinks that's no big deal has never spent any time with our men and women in uniform. the key factor in our military's effectiveness isn't our sophisticated weapons systems, as important as they are, it's the highly-trained men and women who employ those weapons. every day of this shutdown wears away the sharp edge of their readiness to respond to crises around the world. now, some troops and their families won't get tuition assistance. most travel is suspended, including many permanent changes of station. that means that military families scheduled to move to a new location, who may have already sold a home at their old

duty location or committed to a lease or a mortgage at their new location, and spouses who need to start a job search face financial loss and disruption and uncertainty in their lives. our troops and their families can't even go to their on-post commissaries because they're closed. now, the bill that we passed last week to ensure that our troops would receive paychecks were all well and good, but that did not address the many shortfalls that our troops and their families face during this shutdown. another truly outrageous example is that the families of the brave men and women who are killed while defending this nation will see a delay in the payment of death benefits because of this shutdown. now, some may say, you're right, these problems for our national security written tolerable; let's pass a bill to fix them.

we have. the senate passed a continuing resolution three times, the last five days ago, that would keep the government functioning. speaker boehner trophies allow the house to -- speaker boehner refuses to allow the house to vote on the senate-passed continuing resolutions. and no matter how many piecemeal bills that the speaker sends to us here in the senate, he'll be leaving out millions of americans who will continue to suffer from the shutdown that he and tea party dominated republicans have created. every day they spend obsessing over medicare -- excuse me, over obamacare is one more day of unfairness and uncertainty for our troops and their feassments every day the house republicans' destructive submission to the tea party is another day that food isn't inspected, it is another day that f.b.i. agents are working without pay, it is

another day s.b.a. isn't approving loans for small businesses and it's another day that n.i.h. workers are barred from their labs. speaker bain can bring the senate resolution to the floor for a vote. senate has voted three times on house resolution resolutions. speaker boehner refuses to vote even once on the senate bill. why? this is the question, by the way, the media has not yet asked speaker boehner. why? why has he not brought to the floor of the house the senate-passed continuing resolution? and here's the answer: and it is a stunning answer, becausbecause it might pass. you know, you heard me right.

the reason that speaker boehner is not bringing the continuing resolution passed in the senate to the floor of the house for a vote is because it's going to pass. now, that's an anathema. it would be anathema to the speaker of the house for a continuing resolution to pass if it depended upon democratic votes. it is his policy not to depend on any democratic votes to pass legislation in the house. the policy of the speaker is truly the epitome of rank partisanship. in fact, i don't know of a clearer example of extreme partisan policy than speaker

baiboehner's refusal to hold a e on bills that would rely on some democratic votes to pass. madam president, one of speaker boehner's republican colleagues, congressman dent of pennsylvania, has verified this sad fact. here's what congressman dent said last night on pbs's "news hour." quote -- and i would ask unanimous consent that be allowed to proceed for four additional minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. levin: madam president, here's what congressman dent said. quote -- "i do believe it is impair that i have we do have a clean funding bill to fund the government." and then he continued, "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 here's his conclusion.

this is now a republican congressman speaking last night saying, "a few dozen folks in the house republican conference weren't prepared to vote for a clean bill, and that's why we're in the situation we're in right now." close quote. madam president, that is an astonishing report of abdication of leadership in the house of representatives. what an incredible statement about the stranglehold that a few dozen ideological zealots now have on the republican party in the house of representatives. it is an extraordinary moment in history when a speaker of the house allows a few dozen members of congress to bring the government of this nation to a standstill. when you cut through all the claims and all the counterclaims, all the press

conferences, all the press conferences, all the photo ops, there is one unassailable, indisputable fact that remains: the senate has passed a continuing resolution to keep the government open, and speaker boehner refuses to bring it to a vote in the house of representatives. it need not be this way. all that is required to break the stranglehold that the tea party has on house convenience for speaker boehner to bring -- has on house republicans is for speakespeaker boehner to bring e senate-passed continuing resolution to the house for a vote. i hope until every hour that he does he is asked to defend his refusal to do so. i yield the floor, madam president. mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask consent that i be athrowed speak for two minutes -- allowed to

speak t for two minutes and be followed by senator enzi for the normal time he was allocated? the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sessions: madam president, we share being attorney generals of our states, and i just wanted to take a moment to express my sincere and deep thanks and for all of us to the men and women who protect us every day, the capitol police. we had a very serious incident yesterday. our people rallied and responded in an appropriate way. i believe they conducted themselves in a professional way. for example, i saw one young m man, and he said that he'd heard and respongedded -- and responded immediate, once running towards the scene. and we think, well, that's okay. that's what they're supposed to do. but we need to understand that when one of our young men and women responding to a scene of a firing, a weapons discharge,

they don't know what's there. and in this environment, it could be a very serious thing. and their very life is at stake every time, in every place they stand on our streets, every place they stand in our building here, the capitol, the office buildings, they're standing there subject to a threat from someone that could appear out of nowhere with deadly force. they do it with professionalism and courage every day. we've been very fortunate, i think, in seeing this capitol be well-protected, and i want to express my appreciation for them and all of them who place their lives at risk every day to protect the operational functions of this government. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. mr. enzi: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. dedisee i wanmr. enzi: i want te senator from alabama for his

comments and i also want to express my thanks for the police officers of this united states. they often have to do things like write tickets that they don't get anything but grief for. and they definitely deserve our admiration and our credit and our prayers. i also want to comment a little bit on what the senator from michigan said with his indisputable facts. the indisputable fact is we're only where we are right now with a government shutdown and the attempts to get a continuing resolution through because congress didn't do its job, the senate didn't do its job. the job that we have is to pass spending bills. if we had passed the spending bills -- and there are 12 of them -- if we had passed the 12 spending bill, there wouldn't be a need for a continuing resolution. what's a continuing resolution? it's permission for government to continue functioning like

it's been function, spending o 1/12th of what they spent the year before, until we finally come up with a spending bill. we're supposed to have a budget by april 156789 that' 15. right after that we're supposed to be doing spending bills and we're supposed to allocate the amount of money that we want each agency, program, department to spend. and we haven't done that for years. and consequently we get into this bind where we're saying, go ahead and spend money and we'll figure it out later. well, we've had a sequester, and the way the sequester works is it's supposed to be a 2.3% reduction from each agency, program, department. and we did continuing resolutions last year.

we did continuing resolutions i think for at least seven months -- probably 7.5 months, maybe eight months. so they got to continue spending what they'd been spending the year b the before. they knew a sequester was coming because congress didn't do its work and come up with an alternate way to fund government. you know what that does it it makes it 5.3%. that's not barred enough. we have an administration that sent out word to make it hurt. and we have an administration that also took care of washington but didn't take care of the people out in the hitherlands of wyoming, wyoming and the rest of the united states, the people that are out there actually doing the work person to person that is supposed to be done with what we are funding. instead it went to a lot of administration. i had some people in this week

from the head start program, and they showed me how they were cut 7.5%. what part of 2.3% would 7.5% be? part of it is that 5.3% because it came so late? 2.5% of the.5 2.5% goes 7.5% god the federal government. civil air patrol came to meesm they do search and rescue from the air when people are lost around wyoming. they said, we're being cut 60%. i said, what part of 2.3% would 60% be? they're even taking three of their five airplanes. i said, if they don't have any money, how can they take your airplanes? how would they have the money to fly them anywhere? well, it just is one more of

those things the administration saying, make them feel the pain. part of that was closing down white house tours. now, how much can it cost for a self-guided white house tour? that's what they are. they're self-guided. you get a brochure. that's about an $18,000 savings. that's nothing compared to what we're working wsm we have $9 billion a year worth of duplication just in the things under health and education and labor and pensions -- $9 billion in duplication. what's $18,000 do? why shouldn't we take a look at those budgets in detail and get rid of duplication? this is duplication that is evaluated by the white house. but when we have a shutdown, we don't do that. we don't eliminate any of that. i mean, everybody has seen the world war i memorial with the barricades. now, ever since the world war ii memorial went urnings up, i har

seen barricades there. i have been there in the middle of the night and been able to walk through the world war ii memorial, or any of the other memorials down there. i don't think i could use the restroom. there's probably some justification for having the restrooms closed because there is the problem of cleaning them that would require some additional personnel. but just to walk through things? we are making progress, though, because they also barricaded off lincoln park. it is a children's playground up here on the hill. there were pictures in the paper the other day of a little girl looking at the sign on the gate that was looked saying that the park was closed. i'm pleased to report that yesterday that sign was gone, kids were playing in the park much there is no cost to that. so there's no purpose in having any kind of a shutdown regarding that. the smithsonian out here is a national park. and there are streets that go through the national park. they go through it one way,

primarily, but they don't really have any additional cost to them. they don't serve anything. they don't -- but they were blocked off. you couldn't go through streets that people normally drive through on any given day. in my own state, in jackson hole, if you're driving from dubois to jackson, on the right-hand side of the vowed a gorge just view of the tetons. these are some land left over from the alps that god had, so he put them in wyoming. people like to stop and take pictures of them, especially this time of year because they're turning to gold, and they're mixed in with the pine trees and there is a river that runs through there and then these majestic mountains. well, the turnouts along that road are barricaded off. you can't turn out -- you couldn't turn out to fix a flat tire. you couldn't turn out if you needed a nap. you can't turn out to take a

picture. why? and how did they get the barricades? how much did they have to spend for the barricades? how much did they have to spend to have somebody go out and put those bea barricades up? incidentally, if you drive along g.w. parkway around here, it's the same way. the little turnouts barricaded off. where did we get all these barricades? if it was a business and they treated their customers that way, they'd be out of business, and they'd deserve to be out of business. and we should be operating differently than this. i did notice that the air force are going to play navy tomorrow, but the justification is that there's some revenue with that. and there really is. if you charge admission to those things and they're highly popular sporting events, there will be a lot of people go and

they'll pay a lot of money for it and it will exceed the cost of putting on the venue. that would be the government making money. boy, there's an oxymoron. but yellowstone park is in my state, and yellowstone park was the first national park. in fact, it was the first park in the world. and it's a huge park. in fact, it's the size of connecticut, and it just fits up there in the corner of wyoming. and a lot of people go through yellowstone in order to get to idaho or to get to montana or maybe montana folks trying to get down to wyoming. but that's all closed off now. and what's interesting to me is that if you do drive through there, you pay a fee. it's actually revenue. now, of course, when i brought that up, i was reminded that the revenue goes to the general fund. but i had to say do you know where the money for the national parks comes from? it comes from the general fund. so if you don't collect the

money, you don't have the money to put back into the park. and not only that, there are concessionaires that pay to be able to sell gad and food and lodging in -- gas and food and lodging in yellowstone park and their customers can't get to them. i don't think we relieved them of paying the fee they have to pay. and i'm pretty sure the concessionaires were expecting $4.5 billion this month. not the busiest month. i think there are ways we're -- we can continue to collect revenue but we're not doing that. let's make it hurt. so we're here with this continuing resolution. and the last vote that i got to do was actually a vote to have a conference committee. it wasn't any demands from the house. it was a request for a conference committee.

what happens to the conference committee? the leader appoints some people from here, and in conjunction with the minority leader, and they appoint some in the house and they get together and they try to work this out. but, no, that was voted down by the democrats, so we're not going to have that. i have a lot more that i'd say on this, but i realize that my time has expired. we're in this position because we've been doing a bad job of governing. i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you very much, madam president. we are in fact in day four of a tea party republican shutdown, and we need to be very clear at how we got here. the senate majority leader negotiated with the speaker of the house. and after long negotiation where

the senate made major concessions, we agreed to pass a six-week funding bill for services of the united states government to keep services open while we negotiate the larger issues around the budget. we passed the bill with the funding levels asked for by the house republicans. so republicans asked that we continue funding below the levels we believe are necessary to grow the economy for six weeks. rather than having a government shutdown at the time we believed it was in the interest of the american people, of all those who provide those important services to us, that we in fact agree with the house on a six-week extension. and we sent it over to them. asked for by the speaker, agreed to by the senate. and there it has sat.

let me quote again from congressman dent who said last night on "pbs news hour," a republican colleague of speaker boehner's. "i do believe it is imperative that we do have a clean funding bill, straight 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." a few dozen folks. a few dozen folks, part of the tea party wing. he says that's why they are where we are today. now, you can overcome that. it's very simple. and that is just bring the bill that the speaker said he wanted, that we were willing to agree to for a short-term funding of federal services, bring it to

the floor, and those few dozen folks can vote "no," and everybody else can vote "yes." and then we would have the government back open. so it is truly a question of just letting the house vote. just vote right now, today, before 5:00. we could be done with this irresponsible -- irresponsible action. we could then make sure the federal government can pay its bills and not default, and at the same time go to conference to negotiate the larger budget issues which we need to do. but that's not what's happening. so it's now day four. government services still closed. a bill that could open it up, that has a majority vote, that has republicans and democrats sitting in the house because admittedly republican members of the house saying a few dozen folks didn't like it.

well, in our great democracy, our founders said majority rule. but somehow we seem to have forgotten around here. we have elections. the person who gets the majority wins. the others aren't happy. they lose. majority rule. the same thing happens on legislation. and so now we're in a situation with a group defined as a few dozen folks in the house driving the train because there is no leadership in the house to bring the vote up and be able to pass this with a bipartisan vote. we are paying a very big cost right now as a country for waiting for the house to vote. nearly 800,000 people have been laid off. 800,000 people, we're just barely coming out of a recession. we're coming back. we're creating jobs.

not enough. when this president came in we had six people looking for work for one job. now it's down to three people looking for work for one job. better. not good enough. more to do. we all know it. so what is the response? let's just lay off 800,000 people in the middle of this effort to try to bring back a middle class roaring back in this country. this is about 7,500 people in my home state of michigan, people providing important services, people who are in middle-class jobs, have a mortgage, have at least one car payment, many sending their kids to college, trying to make sure that they can care for their family, proud of what they do, providing various public services that we all benefit from, who are now sitting and waiting. it's costing our country about $300 million a day. $300 million a day in lost wages

and productivity. $300 million a day that we cannot afford to lose. and this could all be ended in five minutes if the speaker of the house would just allow a vote on a bill that contains the funding levels that the speaker himself asked for. not those that we would like to see, because on a longer-term negotiation we're going to fight very, very hard to increase opportunities through an education innovation, focusing more on economic growth and jobs. this is a number asked for for a short-term continuing resolution for six weeks. they evidently cannot take "yes" for an answer. madam president, today i got an opportunity to meet a wonderful little boy tphaoeupld -- named kye, two years old. he and his mom anna were with us talking about the impact on the

national institutes of health, the center for disease control, the food and drug administration, other public health functions for our country and what it means to families. ky was born with a heart defect. he's had two bypass surgeries now in just his two little years of life. and thanks to a clinical trial at the children's national health system, kye was able to get innovative treatment that he needs, and he was running all over the place this morning. a great success story. now it's the things that we do together as a country that we should be proud of. the work that's being done by our doctors and researchers at places like the national institutes of health, the centers for disease control and prevention, the food and drug administration are literally saving lives. these men and women who are now furloughed -- not working because of the shutdown -- have gone through years of training.

they're dedicated. they love what they do. these are some of the top experts on infectious diseases and food safety and cancer research in the country and in the world. and right now they're sitting at home maybe watching us trying to figure out what the heck is going on, or stronger language. they're not allowed to work. if they are working, they're not working with pay, all because of a few dozen folks in the house of representatives, the tea party folks who are running the show in the house, who have decided they want to shut the entire government down over the affordable care act, over the fact that we believe, the country believes there ought to be a way to find affordable insurance for up to 30 million folks that haven't been able to find and purchase affordable insurance.

the director of the division at the c.d.c. that monitors foodborne illnesses -- scary stuff like e. coli outbreaks -- said recently he has three people working in his whole department right now. three people for our country. monitoring foodborne illnesses. three people in charge of tracking every possible case of food born illnesses in the entire country. this needs to be a wakeup call, madam president. it's time to get the government open so that people can go back to work who are in positions to monitor and protect our public health, the defense of this country, educational opportunities, safety of our country, get these c.d.c. officials back to work and make sure our families are safe. cbs news reports that the center

for disease controls headquarters which is in atlanta, georgia, is a ghost town. folks that monitor infectious diseases have 6,000 employees in atlanta, georgia, and they are calling it a ghost town. in america, the greatest country in the world, the director of the c.d.c., the nation's top doctor in charge of infectious diseases says he is -- quote -- "losing sleep" because -- quote -- "i don't know that we will be able to find and stop the things that might kill people. i don't know that we would be able to find and stop the things that might kill people." i ask for an additional minute. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. stabenow: let me go on and conclude with this. we have heard earlier on the floor from the junior senator from texas who spoke eloquently about the great work being done

by the veterans health care system. and it's unfortunate that it took a government shutdown for my colleague, madam president, if i might say through you, to understand how important a completely government-run health care system is. the v.a. is completely government run and funded. and colleagues who are opposing people buying private insurance through private exchanges to make their own decisions about what works for them, who are saying it's the end of the world if families can buy insurance that's more affordable for them and that they can actually get what they're paying for because doctors can't kick them off when they get sick, or block them from getting insurance with a preexisting condition, saying that's awful. but a completely government-run health care system called the v.a. should be funded. well, i happen to agree with

that. our system through the v.a. is important for veterans. we need to keep it funded. we need to keep the c.d.c., the national institutes of health, the f.d.a., and every other part of our important system funded. the house needs to vote. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. donnelly: thank you, madam president. first, i'd like to thank the capitol police and the secret service for their bravery, their heroism, and their work not only yesterday but every day to keep this capitol safe and to keep the people in it safe. we are in their debt. madam president, the people of indiana all want jobs. we want to go to work. we want and we know the dignity that comes with a good day's

labor and the chance to take care of our family. and the people in indiana have told me time after time and they have said it very clearly, joe, focus on jobs, focus on the basics. i couldn't be prouder of my home state, and every day i'm thankful i have the amazing privilege to represent all hoosiers in the united states senate. but our economy in indiana isn't as strong as we would like it to be. the national unemployment rate is 7.3%. indiana, 8.1%. indiana's median household income declined 13.2% from 2000-2012, and it lags behind the national average. we have dropped to 40th among states in per-capita income. we have so much work to do in my home state and in our country.

and, madam president, as you know, i am an optimist by nature but i'm incredibly disheartened by what i have seen in washington recently. some in congress are playing a game of chicken with our jobs, with our economy, with our future, because these folks haven't gotten their way, thousands of hoosiers are furloughed and are not receiving paychecks, the paychecks that help them feed their families, pay for college and invest their hard-earned money in local-run businesses. many of the good people at the naval surface warfare center in crane, indiana, who keep our troops in afghanistan and around the world safe, they were sent home recently, and they can't do

their critical work that keeps our nation safe. the demands of a few here have caused the scientists at the center for disease control to be unable to go to work. these actions have also caused many of the patriots at fort wayne's air national guard station and grissom air reserve base and at terre haute to have their work and their operations idle. we are now at a point in the debate where some are putting our economy at risk simply to advance their own political agendas. these folks are shutting down operations across our nation and in my beloved home state, and that hurts our still-recovering economy. we have so much work to do to move indiana and our nation forward, and congress isn't

helping. we talk all the time about providing certainty to our businesses. hoosier businesses thrive on hard work, creativity and teamwork. they also deserve a government that provides certainty, a steady hand in choppy seas. they don't need a government that creates the storm. most folks back home, we think congress can play some role in improving the economy, even if that role is simply not to make things worse. but over the last year, congress has made and continues to make things much more difficult. it is embarrassing that the actions of some in congress these days are now the greatest obstacle to future job creation in our country. americans' economic confidence is measured daily by a polling

by gallup. it's currently at minus 22. it matches the low for the year. and it's worth pointing out that the other low for the year happened right before sequestration took effect in march. another problem, another self-inflicted wound caused by congress. the implementation of sequester cuts, which is what happened when congress proved itself unable to make the tough decisions that congress was sent here to make, has led to job losses and furloughs. so many families, they just don't have as much to make ends meet. the nonpartisan congressional budget office reported we could lose up to 1.6 million jobs next year with these across-the-board cuts continue. further, a number of economists have concluded that congress significantly reduced this

country's economic growth because we failed to replace the cuts with something smarter, an economic growth is a fancy term for people going to work and people who have jobs. the american people are losing confidence in their economy because of congress. here we are six months later, four days into a government shutdown, 13 days away from defaulting on our debt. history tells us government shutdowns are terrible for the economy and terrible for jobs. if we look at the last time the federal government shut down, in 1995-1996 for 27 days, congress put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, cost over a billion dollars in damages and consumer confidence took a double-digit hit. back then, our country's economy, though, was in a

stronger place than it is today, and it recovered a little bit quicker. this government shutdown is damaging our economy and damaging our economy at a time where it is very, very fragile. however, this government shutdown has damaged our economy, but a default on our bills as we look forward would be absolutely devastating. what happens if we fail to raise the debt limit and if we stop paying our bills? that's what the debt limit is, it's our obligation to pay our bills. well, -- while it is completely unprecedented, well-respected economists warn it could send us right back into a tailspin. we are still recovering from the last recession. at a time when hoosiers are trying to get back to work and take care of our families, congress' inability to work together is making it so much

more difficult. congress is not helping and is actually hindering job creation and economic growth. madam president, this is no way to run a country. i stand ready to work with anyone in a commonsense way out of this train wreck. we must find a way to stop hurting the economy and to actually help the people who have made this country such a great place. thank you, madam president. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: madam president, like my colleague from indiana, senator donnelly, i also want to take a moment before i deliver my remarks here to thank capitol police and all of our law enforcement and first responders that put themselves in the line -- on the line to protect

others. i know i speak for every republican and every democrat and all of our staffs that we deeply appreciate their work and their sacrifice. these brave men and women are here every day, whether they are paid or not, and we appreciate that. there's one thing that we're united here, and i wish there were more, it's our respect for those who serve to protect. those serving us here at home as well as those serving us in harm's way abroad. we owe them our support and we owe them our thanks. madam president, i am hearing from a number of hoosiers, as my colleague has from indiana. they're tired of political gamesmanship. they are tired of paying taxes to a government that isn't listening or delivering for them. and now we're in a situation where they're tired of our careening toward these cliffs

and shutdowns, but when the republican-controlled house sent over legislation to the senate calling for house and senate leaders to conference together, to sit down in a room to talk through this problem and come to a solution, this good-faith effort was rejected out of hand by the senate majority leader, senator reid from nevada. we wanted -- we were willing to sit down and debate this issue. once again, yet another good-faith effort sent over by republicans helped fund the essential functions of this government, dead on arrival from the united states senate. senate majority leader, parroting the words of the president, we will not negotiate refusing to allow republicans and democrats to try to find a

way forward to resolve this issue and get our government up and functioning. now, in the past, when these things happen, presidents realizing that they were elected to lead, we're elected to serve here, we're elected to serve the president, we're elected to serve the people that we represent, but the president is elected to serve this country, and when the president in the past has come up in a stalemate situation, there has been a reachout to the other side whenever you have a divided government. now, of course, after 2008, the democrats won control of the house, the senate and the executive branch, they had total control, and they pushed through a number of measures without any single republican -- or opposition support. those programs now we're dealing

with, obamacare being the primary one that has brought us to this particular point. the lesson learned here, when one party has total control without support from the opposition party, you end up with a legislation that is dysfunctional, that doesn't work, that reflects the ideology of one party, that doesn't have any balance to it. we're now in a position where we have a divided government, and what we would like is to have some say on how this goes forward, to point out those things of this bill that are not working, to point out the disaster that this is turning out to be, the dysfunction of this particular legislation. but the point i'm trying to make here is that whatever the issue, whenever we come to a stalemate, historically throughout the history of this country, it is the commander in chief, it is the president who has stepped forward in taking the initiative and said we need to work

together to solve this. we can't impose our will on the body that is the american people that is divided, giving control to one house to one party and the other house to another party. so ronald reagan reached out to tip o'neill and some very significant measures, stalemates, were resolved because the president reached out and was willing to negotiate. a democrat president, bill clinton, reached out to a then-republican speaker of the house in the 199 1990's, and -- in the 1990's, and we addressed a major, major issue. welfare reform, much-needed welfare reform, it couldn't have happened without the president reaching out. i could give other examples, but here we are another stalemate situation, and yet what do we hear? no matter what republicans send over, no matter what the offer is, if the offer is to let sit

down -- is to let's sit down, conference this, the reaction from the senate majority leader is we refuse to negotiate. the reaction from the white house and this president over and over and over and over again is i will not negotiate. even though the american public sent you control of one house of congress, even though the constitution establishes the roles of the congress vis-a-vis the president and calls for an agreement between the two before we can move forward, this president, for whatever motive, says i will not negotiate. we can do something right now to help americans. we can come together and fund important programs and departments that should not have been jeopardized because of this impasse. we can at least do that. if we can't get the president to negotiate, can we not at least take some steps forward for

those essential functions of government? now, republicans have sent over nine such propositions and proposals. each one of them has been reject ed, dead on arrival. not even allowed to debate. procedurally stopped by by the majority leader. but let me suggest four that are waiting in the wings, and surely, surely for reasons of health and safety of americans, surely we can agree to support these four and perhaps more, some others have been suggested. surely you have to conclude that this is an essential function. how it was that they were declared nonessential is beyond me, but let me mention these four that go to honoring our veterans and the commitments that we have made to them, and go to providing for our national security and protecting

americans' health. i spoke earlier this week on the honoring our promise to american veterans act, a bill providing funding for disability payments, a g.i. bill, education, training, and v.a. home loans under the same conditions that were in place last year. the house passed this but the senate majority leader has blocked it here. the house also passed the pay our guard and reserve act. this bill provides for pay and allowances for military personnel in the reserve component and national guard component who are scheduled to report for duty as early as this weekend. denying support for that, for them who wear the uniform and stand ready and have engaged when called on and have been trained to do so, denying that is a great disservice to the men and women who have dedicated so much and put themselves at great

risk to wear the uniform of the united states. secondly, funding the department of homeland security. there are a number of ways our homeland security is impacted under the shutdown. one of the impacts on the -- on fema, the fema fema, is, we're only a breaking news headlines away from another natural disaster or some other need for fema to engage yet their employees are furloughed and not in place ready to respond. we have a tropical storm in the gulf right now, may turn into something dangerous. our emergency response efforts to provide for homeland support is inadequately funded. can we at not least do that? how about funding for intelligence community. the house will send us

preserving our intelligence capabilities act which will provide immediate funding for personnel compensation and contracts for those individuals that have been determined by the director of national intelligence as necessary to support critical intelligence activities and counterterrorism efforts. under the current shutdown, 70% of our civilian employees in our intelligence community have been sent home on furlough. director of national intelligence clapper said this lapse of funding is a dreamland for our foreign intelligence add adversaries. can we not at least -- if we have the delay and in resolving our issues here and we had have that delay as i said because the senate majority leader has not allowed us to sit down and work -- i would ask i ask unanimous consent for an additional three minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. coats: madam president, i thank you. can we not at least fund those

agencies that are looking to protect us from terrorist acts, that are in place to keep the american people safe? how can we reject that? finally, let me mention a fourth and there are others but let me mention a fourth. fund the food and drug safety programs. safety programs. those who are in need of the approvals for new drugs and new devices that are experiencing significant delays because the federal employees at f.d.a. that review these functions can't report to work. now, madam president, frankly, i'm perplexed why the majority leader continues to oppose even consideration and debate for individual funding bills when they just agreed a couple days ago to funding our

troops. and i applaud that and support that. but if we do did that because of the essential nature of their function, shouldn't we also include these other items? wouldn't we -- shouldn't we agree we need to fulfill our commitments to guard, reserve, our intelligence community at this critical time? the house has already sent over nine proposals to the senate for consideration, nine. nine times the senate has had the opportunity to pass legislation to reopen our government and fund essential programs. but the senate majority leader chose not to and the president refuses to even engage. a government shutdown is a pox on all of our houses. we need to do what the people of this great country elected us to do, to work to find a solution to the government shutdown. we cannot do that if the

democrat chair at the negotiating table is empty. what we're looking at here is a clint eastwood moment. we're looking at an empty chair. mr. president, where you are? with that i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i want to thank the senator from indiana for invoking the name of one of my favorite directors and actors. i didn't think that was one of his finest moment, i'm not talking about the senator from indiana, but it is what it is. it's nice to be with you and nice to nol you on the floor. if left up to the senator from indiana and this senator, my colleagues here from north dakota and rhode island, i think we could probably work out a good budget deal in a short period of time that raises so revenues through tax reform to reduce the deficit and reforms

the entitlement programs, to save money, save the programs for the long haul and to make sure we don't savage old people and poor people. and while we're doing that probably the change the culture of the federal government a little bit so we focus even more on not a culture of spendthrift but of thrift. those are things we need to do. i'm always happy to follow him. nice to be with you. let me say, madam president, maybe following up on what senator coats has been saying, i want to re -- reminds me of a phone conversation i had with a delawaran today and she asked me why don't we all just agree to what the republicans are proposing and adopt a couple of bills or amendments to fund some piece of the government but not many. and i said let's just go back a little bit in time. and what i sought to do in that conversation, madam president, was to explain in pretty

simple, straightforward terms how the budget process works here, how the budget process works here and where it's gone awry. as we had a budget loss i think since 19 -- law since about 1974 and it calls for the expectation from the budget act is the president, usually january or february of every year will give a budget address. this is what the president and his administration or her administration thinks we ought to do. in terms of revenues, in terms of spending, what our priorities should be. the expectation in the law is that this body, the senate and the house down the hall here, will agree on a budget resolution sometime by let's say late april of the year, for again for a budget starting october 1 that same year. the -- for a number of years, about four years we didn't do our jobs in terms of developing a budget, it was a divided congress, dustin difficult to do that, and the republicans criticized us harshly for not

having passed a budget. what they're talking about was a budget resolution. there's a difference between a budget and a budget resolution. in my home state of delaware we actually have three budgets. operating budget, capital budget and something called grant in aid which the legislature cares about, only a couple percentage, but there are three budgets. here we have one. and it's the unified budget, with capital and operating expenses thrown in together. but before -- there's no real direct core larry between what we -- corollary between what we do here. most states have a operating budget and a capital budget. here we is have a budget resolution and it's not a nitty-gritty line item budget. it sets a framework for what is to follow the appropriations bill, roughly aing dozen of them and what we do on the revenue side through the finance committee here and the ways and means committee in the house. the budget resolution says,

well, this is roughly how much we're going to spend in these general areas, and this is roughly how much revenue we're going to raise from these general sources. that's the budget resolution. it's, if you will it's a framework, i call it the skeleton. like a skeleton and later on we have to come along and put the meat on the bones and the budget resolution is supposed to be adopted here by the end of april and usually the senate will adopt one version, our version, the house will adopt another version. we did that this year by the end of april as i recall and they were different. we in our budget resolution we did deficit reduction, didn't balance the budget over the next several years but we continue to reduce the deficit. remember four years ago the deficit peaked out at $1.4 trillion. this last year that just includedded we cut -- concluded we cut it more than half as i understand and we expect it will be brought down further this

year. do we need to do better? sure we do. and the budget resolution we passed year took a 50-50 approach, half the deficit reduction for the next ten years on the spending side, half on the revenue side. the budget resolution adopted over in the house of representatives did as i recall nothing on the revenue side, nothing on the defense side, as i recall, and basically took the savings out of for the most part out of domestic discretionary spending which is you set aside entitlement programs, social security, medicare, medicaid, set aside defense, set aside interest payments, the whole rest of the budget everything from agriculture to transportation, everything else, that's where they took their savings and reduced that part of the budget from about 15% to -- of all federal spending down to closer to 5%. that's not my vision of what government should be about. anyway, we came the end of april, senate and house passed different budget resolutions and there was an effort here to go

to conference, to create a conference committee and for us to send conferees, for people watching us, who say what is he talking about, a conference committee is like a compromise committee. some members of the house, some members of the senate, democrats and republicans, go to a committee we create for a short period of time to hammer out a compromise. in order to be able to do that somebody has to come to the floor, usually the leader says i ask unanimous consent that the senate appoint conferees, democrats and republicans to help created this conference committee to work out a compromise. it was objected to, and it's been objected to again and again and again whether the person making the unanimous consent to go to conference, to work out this budget compromise, has been made by democrats and republicans, at least one republican i think senator murray has made the request, she chairs the budget committee, she's made the request i think close to 20 times and i think john mccain, republican,

presidential candy --, candidate, long time friend and colleague, has made it because he wants to solve the problem. so do i and so do most of us. the way to do it is things i talked about. entitlement reform that saves these programs, saves some money, doesn't savage old people or poor people. tax reform that generates revenues that can be used for deficit reduction. then just focus on everything we do, how do get a better result for less money in everything we do. long story short, here we are, it's not the first of may, it's not the first of june, not the first of july, not the first of august or september, it's the first part of october. we've yet to be able to get the unanimous consent to form that conference committee to work out a compromise on the budget. that's where we've fallen short. we hear a lot about obstruction, the speaker -- rather the majority leader or the president won't let us go, work with the republicans on these piecemeal approaches.

for everybody here, dan coats, i love dan coats, but for everybody in the senate, we could call all come up with a list of four. we could come up with 14 priorities. you multiply that by 100, that would be 1,400 priorities. ought to be on these piecemeal changes we're going to make to the spending for the next couple of weeks, couple of months. why don't we just do this, why don't we agree to what the speaker and the house agreed to, a spending level for a short period of time. a continuing resolution, a spending plan for a short period of time, not for the whole year, in this case i think we've been talking about a continuing resolution, short-term spending bill that runs about 45 days until maybe the middle of november. the level of that spending, we can argue about that. but what we ended up doing is saying harry reid, our leader talking to john boehner, the speaker of the house, who has a tough job.

none of these jobs are easy, they have really tough jobs. our leaders said -- leader said to the speaker what would be a level of spending for those 45 days or the 60 days for the short-term spending bill, what level of spending works for you? and my understanding is the speaker had it out with his folks over there and came back and said how about using the level of spending we're ate for the last fiscal year, for 2013, and fund for those 45 days or 60 days, whatever is covered by the continuing resolution, fund it for that period of time at that level. that's not our level. the democratic level to be honest with you is not $986 billion which was last year's spending for discretionary spending. we were more interested in something i want to say about -- about 1.05 in trillion dollars, another $70 billion. that was our number, the house had their number, we agreed to

the house number and said okay, we've agreed on the number, let's figure out how long we're going to fund the government at that level, same level as last year. and then the ship ran aground. and our friends over in the house said that's not enough. we also want to defund obamacare, the affordable care act. and, this is -- this is -- this is an act -- it's not like a proposed bill. this is the law. i was here when we debated it. in the finance committee when we debated it, argued it, here, debated it and voted on the president signed it into lawsm the president ran for reelection on that. it wasn't a landslide. the electoral vote was pretty big but it was a reasonably close election. but he won. and he won fair and square. and the electoral college, he won by quite a bit. this has been litigated in the court. the supreme court looked at the one area which they thought -- some people think is unstill and

unconstitutional, the individual mandate, they said it was constitutional. the republican presidential nominee then turned around and ran way from his own idea in the last presidential election. i think there's some irony to that. on october 1 of this week, what happened? well, i think some good news happened. and the good news is that people who -- there's 40 million people in our country who don't have health care had a chance to sign up for something new and different. it's not socialism, it's not communism, it's not government-run health care, it's a republican idea, it's called the exchange. it's called the health marketplace. and my understanding is when hillary-care was kind of discarded back in the early part of the clinton administration, the republican counterproposal to hillary-care was something like a large purchasing pool, which we called the option, the health care exchange, rather, we call it the marketplace today.

well, on october 1, all over the country people in this nation, 40 million people who don't have health care coverage, had a chance to start signing up for that health care. and a large purchasing pool in their state. with a variety of options. health insurance companies competing with each oh, driving down costs. a -- each other, driving down costs. in my state, thousands of people. in other states, like big states, wisconsin, hundreds of thousands of people, other states like north dakota, tens of states like new york, california, mit yons, literally millions of people who don't have health insurance coverage get a chance to take advantage of health insurance, driving down competition among insurers and also taking advantage of economies of scale, driving down administrative costs as a percentage of premiums. you know, i went out on our own to buy health insurance in delaware for we'll see our families or for maybe a small business of five employees, we would pay a whole lot more money than folks are going to pay in the exchanges and large

purchasing pools. for one thing, the administrative costs are so high when you go out and buy for yourself or a small business. when you're buying health insurance for tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of peernlg the administrative costs -- millions of people, the administrative costs are lower and prices are lower as well. well, our friends on the other party, they want to pull the plug on the efforts of 40 million people to find health care coverage for themselves. they want to pull the plug. and i just think that's wrong. i think it's -- it's the law of the land, it's a done deal, it's litigated. it's going to be with us. and i think for some of our republican friends, they're not afraid that it's not going to work. i think really maybe they're -- their greater concern is it's going to work and it's going to actually meet the needs of -- of people. abraham lincoln used to talk, when he would talk about the role of government, he would say the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. the chamber of commerce in rural

sussex county, they tried to set up a purchasing pool. couldn't do it. tried it ten years ago, it floundered. and this is something where another guy, david osborne, in a book called "reinventing government," he described the role of government, and he said the role of government is to steer the boat, steer the boat, not row the boat. and the exchanges are really that. it's the idea to create large purchasing pools, partnership between state and federal government in many cases in tell dell andelaware and others, butn let the private sector do its job, to do its job. and these are really a great example of government, its role, steering the boat, private sector and other providers rowing the boat. i want to close with this. for people who say, well, we ought to change obamacare, we ought to change the affordable care act, we ought to make significant changes to it. well, i agree. and the president already made one big change, one big give a month or so ago when he announced that the employer mandate was going to be delayed for a whole year. to give us a chance to stand up the exchanges, see how they

work, make sure they were working and then to -- to revisit this issue of the employer mandate. the coverage if you've got more than 50 employees -- actual ail year from now it will be more than 100 employees, i think that's the way it works, but at least more than 506789 but fo for -- more than 50. but for some so say, we've got to change it right now, i want you to go back with me six, seven, eight years. we debated on this floor the issue of prescription drugs. prescription drugs. should we have a prescription drug program for medicare? most people thought yeah, we should have that. if when we created medicare in 1965, if we could have done as much then with prescription medicines, pharmaceuticals, as we can do now, it would have been a no-brainer. prescription drug coverage would have been part of medicare from its inception. well, it wasn't in 1965. and it wasn't until probably about 2005 that we actually got to a place where we had some agreement that this is what we ought to do. ted kennedy, the democrats, had one idea how to do it. and some of our republican friends, certainly president bush, had another idea. and do you know what we ended up

doing? sort of a hybrid, really a little more like president bush's idea. george w. bush. and a lot of our democrats objected. but you know what? they didn't say we're going to shut down government because we didn't get our way, because we didn't get our specific prescription drug program. they said, why don't we figure out how we can make it better. and we took this -- everybody's hefortheard of the doughnut holh respect to the medicare prescription drug program. and if the way -- the way the original program worked, the first $3,000 of -- of pharmaceuticals that a person in medicare part-d, prescription drug program, that they used, medicare paid about 75% of the costs. for most people if they -- anybody who's over $6,000 in prescription medicines in a year, medicare paid about 95% of the cost. everything over $6,000. but roughly between $3,000 and $6 of,00,000, when the program s introduced, and for its first half dozen or so years, the first half dozen years, if you were between $3,000 and $6,000

roughly in prescription medicine purchases in a year and you're in medicare prescription practical, you got nothing from medicare. it was all on you. that's called the doughnut hole. when we got to the affordable care act, guess what we did, our friends from rhode island anded in, what we did is we -- north dakota, what we did is we started to fill the doughnut hole. and now if you're there, medicare pays over half. and eventually medicare will pay over 75% of that. that's the way we took a good program, medicare part-d prescription drug, and we made it better. and we can do that with the affordable care act and we will. for our republican friends, let me close with this just to say the -- our friend, winston churchill of course, once had a great quote. he had a budge of them but one of the favorites -- and i'll close with this -- he used to say, you can always count on americans to do the right thing in the end -- right thing in the end after trying everything else. that's what he said. you can always count on americans to do the right thing in the end after trying

everything else. this is a tough time. i feel bad, especially for our federal employees across the country who have been furloughed. we're employing going t going t, and i hope we bring you back this month. and my hope is we bring you back and we make sure you're financially whole. i think and that's right and fair thing to do. sty my republican -- and i say to my republican colleagues, whether it's next time john mccain, patty murray or somebody else who asks consent to go to conference to work out a real budget agreement, don't object. let's accept that and get on with the work that lies ahead. thank you very much, madam chair. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. heitkamp: yesterday was a scary day on capitol hill. i was sitting in your chair, saw the bells ring. this is a new experience for me. saw all the capitol police hustle our great pages in to protect them. and senator mccain was speaking. and like the veteran that he is, he continued to make his impassioned plea for help for

the syrian opposition. as things swirled around. you know, i think for members of our staff and members of the senate and the house and all the tourists and the visitors, the only thing that stood at that moment between them and potential harm was the capitol police and the secret service. and i was struck by that. and as a former attorney general who actually ran a law enforcement agency,ive a lo, i t of great relationships with law enforcement people. in fact, i lost two officers in the line of duty during my tenure as attorney general. and i know the sacrifices. and i know the fears of the families. and i know that every day, regardless of what's going on, something, some average, ordinary, beautiful day can turn into a catastrophe where an officer loses their life. and as we were standing there, i was visiting with one of the

officers who was protecting the pages and she told me a story. she told me a story about a uniformed officer who -- capitol police who told her that morning that he has a stay-at-home wife and she's raising their children and he has $115 in his checking account. and doesn't know how he's going to get through this time period to the next paycheck. because even though they're here and some of them are working overtime, they are here without a paycheck. and potentially might not receive a paycheck. and so today we wear these buttons saying thank you. and i think about the hypocrisy of that. i think about the hypocrisy of buttons and galas and ribbons of all of that. and i want to say, you know, it is time for the united states congress to not just pass out buttons saying thank you but pass out paychecks.

that matters more. that's a real thank you. that's a real recognition of the value of those services. and so it was with great outrage that i left this body last nig night, as we were working through the challenges, and i realized the great humor of the capitol police. i was leaving the building and visiting with my guys at the door and he was giving me a hard time and i said, "i want to thank you. i want to thank you for being here every day. i want to thank you for your sacrifice. i want to thank you for your family goes through." and he goes, "yeah, just think how good i'd filibuster you actually paid me." and so i want to say to all my friends on the capitol police who have been really, truly friends and some days i feel like the only friendly face i see, that we care deeply. but it's not enough to wear a button. we have got to start solving the problem of this impasse. we have got to start recognizing

that all of our people, all of our employees in the federal government -- i mean, you know, you have heard all day here this laundry list of, let's do this and let's do this. and i think we're up to 910 and they're building and they're growing, each one of these lists. and it should be at one point where we get to the tipping point where we realize all of the functions are important. everybody who's out there who's working is important, is essential. and that the best way forward is to fund government. now, i want to build on what senator carper has been talking about because i think it's so important. probably i was sitting in the first time this happened and most of you know i'm new to the senate, new to these procedures, and senator murray, who's chair of the budget committee, came out and she asked to appoint a budget conference committee. i -- i know this process fairly well. you know, we get the big targets and then they get passed down to the appropriators who then build the budget within those

guidelines. and senator from texas stood up and objected. and i thought, why would you object to the appointment of a conference committee with the house and with representative ryan, who has been a staunch conservative and a staunch proponent of targets that i would think that the senator from texas agreed to? and -- and there was this long back-and-forth, and senator murray sat down and that was the end of it. and i was perplexed. i thought, well, when do we get to vote on this conference committee? when do we get to, you know, kind of tell her it's okay, because i doubt there's a whole lot of people in this place who agree that we shouldn't go to conference. only to find out there's something called unanimous consent. and the sam peopl the same peope brought to us the brink of triggering a result of a slowdown in our economy with this behavior also have stopped

the compromise. and now adding to the hypocrisy of the day we have the same claim for, let's compromise. the easy compromise here is when senator murray comes to the floor and asks for a conference committee,we all agree to start doing it, we all agree to start doing our job. and there's been a lot of attention to the so-called tea party shutdown and the tea party faction and, you know, calling them out and saying, you know, you're a minority. but i want to take a different tactic this afternoon and i want to challenge the good people in the house caucus, republican caucus who have already recognized that the best thing to do would be to pass a clean c.r. and stoip i want to say, i knows like to pass a bill that your party doesn't agree w i know

what it's like to feel like you are leating people down. i know what that's like. i've been there. and i no that it doesn't feel well. but i know that at the end of the day, doing the right thipg for what you believe your state believes in is a better feeling. and so i'm just suggesting that maybe the minority, the minority of the majority that has an opportunity to step forward and to take on this challenge and do the right thing are those folks who know this is wrong. those folks who know over there that we could do better, that we have an opportunity to make -- to end this nonsense and move forward. there is a procedure for doing this. as i understand it. and so i really want to just speak to those folks who i think are good-hearted, who understand the impact of this on families, on children, on our native

americans. i could tell you terror stories right now. we're looking at a snowstorm in south dakota. many of our native families rely on fuel assistance and the people who do that aren't at the job. and so how are they going to heat their houses in the middle of this snowstorm? this is life and death. and i don't see a special provision coming across for those folks. and that's the problem, when you speos meal this. and i think there's good people in house republican kaw courthouse know thaflt and if there is a way that they can in fact step forward. there won't be a lot of glo glon their caucus. there won't be a lot of pats on their back. but you will have your conscience clear knowing you that the did the right thing. so i am hopeful that we can get good people to step forward, to stand up, to behavior that can only be dispriebd in some ways

as -- described in some ways -- it's been described as hostage taking here. it's really bullying behavior when the small minority does this. so let's step forward. let's do the right thing. i challenge you to do the right thing on behalf of the native americans, on behalf of my sheriff from fargo who was sent home from quantico, the premier training facility, and waited years and years to be in the queue to get that training and now has been sent home. on behalf of law enforcement and on behalf of the capitol police that where we, yes, honor them today by wearing these buttons, let's honor them more by passing out paifntle thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, i would like to join my former attorney general colleague senator heitkamp in expressing all of our

appreciation for the -- for what the capitol police d we all know that when that event transpired our job was to go and hunker down, to stay are away from windows, to keep out of the way and to not add to the difficulty or confusion. they had a much tougher job. their job was to go to the danger and to keep the united states capitol safe. they did their duty, and they did it well, and it's now incumbent upon us to do our duty. thansd tthansdz toand that is te tea party shutdown. we're now in tea party shutdown pa day four. and i been watching this debate as he is it's been transpiring on the floor, avenged been participating a little bit in it. i have heard some interesting comments that have been made out here. the first one is the suggestion this is not a tea party shutdown. they say it is not a tea party shutdown but the tea party warned of it the tea party wanted it, the tea party is

cheering it, and the tea party says they're profiting from it. that it's a big success. when did the tea party warn of it? well, one example is when lynn westmoreland, the republican from georgia, long before this all began, told the faith and freedom coalition, i quote, "this is what we're going to do. if the government shuts down, we want you with us." the ta tea party wanted it. joe walsh, republican of illinois, most people in my district say, shut it down. representative jack kingston told reporters that his georgia constituents would rather have a shutdown than obamacare. representative tim hulescamp said, if you say government is going to shut down, my constituents say, okay. which part can we shut down?

the tea party not only warned of it and wanted it, but they're cheering it. michele bachmann, republican of minnesota, said this: "we're very excited. it's exactly what we wanted and we got it." she pointed out in another quote, "this is about the happiest i've seen members in a long time." how happy? how happy are the tea partiers about the tea party shutdown? well, here's what republican representative devon noons said, and i quote, "they're all giddy about it." "they're all giddy about it." well, dictionary definitions of "giddy" say "feeling or showing great happiness and joy."

"joyfully elated, euphoric." now, "gidty" also means light heartedly shrill or dizzy and disoriented." but that's another story. "elated, giddy, exactly what we wanted." and now they say that they're profiting from it. here's g.o.p. cheerleader john tamney in "forbes" magazine. "republican politicians and members of the party should cheer." "should cheer." "the republican party disoition allow a shutdown of the federal government" -- and get this -- "and to ideally allow it to remain shut through the 2014 elections is good politics."

i'll say that again. "republican politicians and members of the party should cheer. the republican party decision to allow a shutdown of the federal government and to ideally allow it to remain shut through the 2014 elections is good politics." and echoing that sentiment, we had our colleague senator rand paul the other day say, "we're going to win this, i think." so the tea party warned of the tea party shutdown, the tea party wanted the tea party shutdown, the tea party is cheering the tea party shutdown, they're so happy that they're giddy, and they're claiming that their tea party shutdown is a big success. it's a little late now to say,

wwell, it's really not our tea party shutdown. i've also heard colleagues come to the floor and say that nothing that they're doing is extremist. it's not extremist to shut down the government and make the demand that they're making. well, one dictionary definition for quks extremist" is "one who advocates or resorts to measures yoangd the norm, especially in politics." well, i'd say that shutting down the united states government is yoangi don't understand the nor, evening in politics. i'd say refusing to ever allow a vote on a senate-passed bill under the constitutional procedures that prevail between our houses is beyond the norm. and i would say that deliberately hundreds of thousands of people who serve our country out of work is beyond the norm.

the norm would be for them to vote on our senate bill over in the house. over and over we in the senate have voted on their house measures. we voted to strip out the extraneous measure and send the continuing resolution back. we voted to table. we followed the constitution. we've done our duty, and we have voted. they may not like in the house that they didn't win the senate vote, but we did our duty in the senate and have repeatedly voted on house measures. over in the house, they have not yet once voted on the senate mairchlmeasure. it is sitting on the speaker's desk without ever a single vote. if the speaker just called up the senate measure and allowed a vote over there in the house, it

would pass. and the tea party shutdown would be over. but, remember, who wants this shutdown in order to use it for bargaining leverage? well, the giddy folks, the folks who are so happy that they have caused this, the folks who think that this is good politics. so i think it's safe to say that they are extremists, both by the dictionary definition and in their disregard of our traditional back-and-forth, one house voting on the other house's measure. last -- and this one is particularly rich -- they say that we won't negotiate. let's remember that this all began with a deal negotiated

between the speaker and the majority leader that we'd pass a clean continuing resolution funding the government. what did the speaker get out of that deal? we agreed to fund the government at the speaker's level. he actually won that negotiation. that was what was negotiated. but the speaker did not honor the deal. so, as i say, it is rich that we negotiate, we give the speaker the funding level that he wants, then he breaks the deal, and now he claims that we won't negotiate. one of my colleagues came to the floor a little while ago and he called to mind the radio commentator paul harvey. paul. mrpall harry harvey used to sayw

for the rest of the story." he talked about the rest of the story. well, the president made his position very clear. it is "we will not negotiate while you're holding hostages. open the government and we can negotiate about anything and everything. but we will not negotiate while you're holding hostages." all the republicans report in this chamber is the first part -- we will not negotiate. wcialtion it's not just a question of the res rest of the story. how about the rest of the sentence? we will not negotiate while you're holding hostages. let's remember that 19 times we have tried to appoint conferees to negotiate a budget between the senate and the house, and

every time -- every time -- the tea party extremists have stopped us. let's remember that they don't want to negotiate. they want to negotiate with hostages. that is a very different thing. they want to negotiate with hostages, hundreds of thousands of people who serve our country whom they are using as hostages and won't let go back to work and earn their living. that's not just negotiation. there's something more than just negotiation going on when it involves hostages or other threats. every mom wh whose 4-year-old getting a tantrum over not getting what they want knows that that's not just

negotiation. every 12-year-old picked on by the school bully in the playground knows that that's not just negotiation. and every businessman who's asked to pay protection money knows that that's just not negotiation. there's something else going on. ordinary americans get the difference between negotiating in good faith the way we'd have to if we appointed conferees and went to have an actual conference between the house and the senate about our budget, the way the rules of the constitution propose and negotiating with a threat or negotiating while holding hostages. we are not going to negotiate while you're holding hostages. there are two parts to that sentence. i have one minute to conclude. i see that senator portman has

arrived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: the majority leader has said publicly he'll negotiate on anything and everything as soon as the hostages are released and the tea party shutdown is ended. to now pwhraeuplt majority leader for this -- to now blame the majority leader for this tea party shutdown reminds me of when president lincoln was put in such a position, when president lincoln was accused of the very thing he was trying to prevent. that is cool, he said. a highwayman puts a pistol to my ear and mutters through his teeth stand and deliver, or i shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer. that was abraham lincoln. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio.

mr. portman: thank you, madam chair. so, madam chair, we find ourselves here in washington with a government shutdown in place and a debt limit approaching, and i read this morning in the newspaper that a senior white house official has said with regard to the shutdown -- and i quote -- "we are winning. it doesn't really matter to us how long it lasts." that's not the right attitude. today i call upon the white house to stop the political posturing, come to the table so we can find common ground and end this government shutdown and negotiate something sensible on the debt limit. this notion that a senior white house official would say we are winning. it doesn't really matter to us how long it lasts, shows that it's politics, not substance, that matters.

it may not matter to the white house how long it lasts but it does matter to the american people because they expect us to fulfill our constitutional duties, to get our work done, not to take america to the brink. they expect us to do the job that we were sent here to do. it matters, by the way, to a lot of americans too that they're being affected by it. there are 8, 700 civilian employees at wright air force base outside of dayton, ohio who have been affected. so we can stand here and we can point fingers at each other as to how we got here. the truth is that how we got here is that we didn't do our work. the fact that we have a continuing resolution at all, which is a continuation of funding from last fiscal year, is a mark of failure. it's a mark of failure because it means that the congress

didn't do its appropriations bills that it's supposed to do. there are 12 of them. and the idea is that congress sits down and has hearings about the agencies and departments to provide proper oversight to the federal government, and then they put together appropriations bills in 12 different areas. that hasn't happened. congress is not passing these appropriations bills in an orderly way. if they did, there wouldn't be a continuing resolution. we can talk about the fact that over the last four years, under the leadership of the majority here in the united states senate, we have passed exactly one appropriations bill out of 48 on time. one out of 48. that was the military construction bill. i think it was about 2011. that should be a relatively easy one to pass. the house has done better. they have passed more appropriations bills. they have passed a budget consistently every year. this year, in the fourth year after three years of no budget,

the senate did pass a budget, and i applaud the senate for that. i did support going into conference with those budgets. but the fact is that congress has not done its work, and that's why we're here. only one appropriations bill out of 48 in the last four years has passed the senate on time. one. there is another way to get around this, and we can talk about that. there's legislation called the end government shutdown bill which simply continues funding from year to year if you get to september 30 and any appropriations bill is not done. what it says is same level of funding as the previous year except after 120 days there is a 1% reduction in funding, another 60 days another 1% reduction in funding, and so on. and the reason is you want to encourage the appropriators to meet and get their work done so there is inducement in there. that legislation is bipartisan. that legislation we voted on here in the chamber earlier this year. it was supported by 46 of the

100 members. it was supported by every republican except two. and it was support bid -- supported by three democrats. we tried to bring this up. it's my legislation. we tried to bring this up as an amendment last week on the continuing resolution. it would have made all the sense in the world. instead of us having this discussion we're having now in the context of a government shutdown, if we had passed the amendment, we would know it was going to be reduced by 1% in 120 days which gives us time to get the appropriations together and then another 1% for 60 days, another 1% after the next 60 days. we wouldn't be sitting here today in this situation with a government shutdown had we passed that. the majority refused to allow that amendment to even come up for a vote. i don't know if we could have passed it or not. again, we got 46 of us to support it last time. my sense is given the fact that we were heading toward a

government shutdown, we could have gotten a majority of this body supporting that. but we don't know because as is the case so often, the leadership here blocks amendments, so we never had the opportunity to have our voices be heard as senators. so look, without a doubt, there is plenty of blame to go around. but whatever brought us to this point, it's where we are, and i can promise you this. as long as the white house and the majority in this chamber continue to refuse to talk about it, to refuse to negotiate, as long as they refuse to attempt to find common ground, any common ground, we're not going to make progress. as long as they treat it as a political opportunity, one to score political points, then we're not going to be able to move forward. it's a failure of leadership, because governing is bus talking, negotiating, debating and then finding common ground.

it's hard, but it's what we're hired to do. we talk a lot in this chamber about this notion of finding common ground, and i support it strongly, and we don't do it enough. but to find common ground, you've got to step off your own territory and on to some territory in the middle. that requires negotiations. sitting down with both parties and talking. it's what the american people, by the way, want us to do. they do it in their lives every day. we do it in our marriages, don't we? in our businesses. and yet, you have this unbelievable quote this morning i talked about of some senior official at the white house saying we are winning. it doesn't matter to us how long it lasts. and as important to me, we have here in this chamber legislation coming over from the house that says let's have a conference. that's the conference between the house and the senate. you have a formal process where

we name conferees over here, people to represent the senate, republicans and democrats. the house names republicans and democrats. they come together and discuss, in this case the continuing resolution and the debt limit. that was tabled here. the majority did not want to move to conference so they blocked it. that seems to me to be the wrong approach. let's have a conference. let's have a discussion. by the way, this is on top of a hard-line position that the president himself has taken. i've talked about this over the last month because the president has been saying it for the last month. he has refused to discuss, refused to talk about, refused to negotiation on the debt limit. again, that's coming up in only a couple of weeks. and as important as the government shutdown debate is, in my view, the debt limit discussion is even more important because it puts our country's economy at risk. i don't think that we should be taking a position on anything if

we don't talk, but certainly not on the debt limit discussion. and the irony which has been pointed out by others is here you have a president of the united states that says he will negotiate with president putin of russia, but he won't talk with the speaker of the house, who is in the other party. to me, it's irresponsible. it's a failure of leadership. and i don't think it's sustainable. i hope it's not. by the way, the president has said he refuses to talk about the debt limit because we should just extend the debt limit without any preconditions, without any reduction in spending, without any discussion even of what should go along with a debt limit extension. that, my friends, is just not consistent with the historical precedent either. every president, republican, democrat alike, has engaged in negotiations, discussions about the debt limit in part because,

frankly, the debt limit is a hard vote. the folks i represent back home, they get it. it's, you know, for them, kind of like the credit card. their deal is, okay, congress has once again gone over the limits on the credit card -- got to be careful which credit card i hold up here. not advertising for any particular one. this happens to be a master card. but they're saying before you guys extend the limit on the credit card, let's deal with the underlying problem. it's kind of like if your teenager puts you as a parent in a position of having gone over the line on the credit card -- we have some teenagers among us here today. i'm sure you've never done that. your parents would probably say, after they rip up the credit card, you know, let's get at this underlying problem which is the spending problem. what's wrong? why are we spending more than we're taking in to the point we have to keep extending the limit on this credit card? so the american people get it.

and that's why every president, republican or democrat alike, has had to come up to congress and say okay, how are we going to work together to extend this debt limit while also dealing with the underlying problem, which is the fact that we're spending too much. and this president refuses to do it. i've gone back and looked. for the past three decades the debt limit discussion is the only thing, the only thing that has led to congress doing anything substantial on spending. this is a period at which congress has consistently spent more than it's taken in. congress and the presidents, republican and democrat alike, have led the country into deficits and debts. we're now at historic levels. the debt this year, over $17 trillion. we're in uncharted territory, so this year it's higher than ever. and yet this president is saying that unlike other presidents, he refuses to even talk about it. i tell you what's happened.

over the last 30 years, every substantial deficit reduction has come in the contact of a debt limit debate. you remember gramm-rudman back in the 1980's. it was considered historic legislation at the time and we had much smaller deficits and a much smaller debt, but it provided rescissions, across-the-board spending cuts. it was bipartisan. it came out of a debt limit discussion. in 1990, when president bush, president george h.w. bush, the first president bush, went out to andrews air force base with republicans and democrats alike to negotiate a budget agreement, it was in the context of a debt limit discussion. the paygo rules many democrats now talk about favorably came out of a discussion about the debt limit. the 1997 balanced budget agreement with newt gingrich and bill clinton that ended up leading to the balanced budget that we got a couple of years

later came out of a discussion about the debt limit. most recently, of course, the budget control act came out of a discussion about the debt limit. so this notion that presidents never talk about or negotiate on the debt limit is just not accurate in terms of our history. in fact, just the opposite is true. it's the only time we've been able to reduce spending. i see the distinguished majority leader is on the floor, so i'll be short, madam president. just to say that we need to figure out how to come together. the president needs to engage. it's time to govern. if the president refuses to talk, we won't be able to come to an agreement. if he does engage, as history has shown us, tough decisions can be made. i've gone through a litany of times when we have done it. i have also talked about the fact that this year we have a bigger debt than ever, a bigger

deficit than any of those historical examples i gave. therefore, a greater need than ever for us to come together and find that common ground. a senator: if the senator would yield for a moment, i think the distinguished majority leader is going to make a procedural motion which will take only a moment. and then i have a question for my distinguished friend from ohio. mr. portman: happy to yield. mr. reid: i ask -- madam president, i ask unanimous consent the period of morning business be extended until 5:00 p.m. today, that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: and i appreciate my two friends for yielding for this consent agreement. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: thank you.

and, madam president, as far as i'm concerned, the -- my distinguished friend from ohio can still have the floor. i -- i only wanted to take a moment to congratulate him on his remarks, to observe that when it comes to budget matters, he knows whereof he speaks, with not only a distinguished record in the house of representatives and a leader in -- in being a budget hawk and an opponent of additional debt in the house of representatives and a distinguished career in the office of management and budget. so i thank the distinguished gentleman. it may be that he has already asked for an opinion piece from today's "wall street journal" to be put into the record. mr. portman: i have not. mr. wicker: i would ask, if i might, madam president, for an opinion piece written by kevin

hassette and abby mccloskey, on page a-23 of today's "wall street journal" entitled "obama rewrites debt limit history." i would ask that be placed in the "congressional record" at this point. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wicker: i thank you, madam president, because this article points out in a very detailed and annotated way a number of times when this congress has made policy changes, important, far-reaching policy changes in connection with negotiations on the debt ceiling increase, and so i would just join my friend from ohio in saying that absolutely it is incumbent on this senate, republican, and our friends on the democratic side of the aisle, members of the house of representatives and the president of the united states, our commander in chief, once again to negotiate in good

faith. the president may feel that we are entirely unreasonable in our position, and frankly there have been times during my 19 years in the house and now in the senate when i felt the chief executive was completely wrong in his viewpoint on how we should address our national debt, but at no time in my recollection have the parties been simply unwilling to -- to sit down and talk at all. they have meetings in the white house and those meetings basically say we're not going to make counterproposals, to say publicly why should i offer them anything at all. to me, i think the american people see that that is an unworkable approach, and so i would point out to my colleagues and thank the senator from ohio in pointing out that very important fiscal decisions, very important debt-related decisions have absolutely been made in our

nation's history, and i'm glad they have been made in connection with this -- with this debate on the national debt. so i will yield back to my friend from ohio and thank him for allowing me to intrude on his time. mr. portman: if the gentleman will hold for a moment, first, thank you for raising that op-ed in "the wall street journal." i had not seen it yet. i look forward to reading it myself, but it sounds like it is consistent with what i was pointing out, which is it only makes sense that the american people would want us to reduce spending when you extend the debt limit yet again. again, at historic levels now. the american people get it. they know you can't keep spending more than you take in, so they expect us to do something on the underlying problem. mr. wicker: the senator from ohio mentioned the budget control act of 2011. it wasn't a particularly pretty way to do debt reduction, but it did give us the spending levels

that we're operating under now. the authors of this opinion piece go on to point out that according to the congressional research service, an independent arm of this government, congress voted 53 times from 1978-2013 to change the debt ceiling. this debt ceiling has increased to about $16 trillion, and of these 53 votes, 29 occurred in a congress run by democrats, 17 in split congresses, and seven in republican-controlled congresses. it goes on to point out time and again how policy, important policy changes were made in connection with this debate. so i thank my friend for yielding. mr. portman: i'd like to ask my friend from mississippi a question. he has been a stalwart on the budget debates. he's a guy who has always held the line. he did it in the house, he has done it here. he voted for the budget control act because he believes we need

to get our spending under control. he also wants to make sure we deal with a part of the budget that's not being talked about because the whole continuing resolution debates about 65% of the budget. the other 35% which is the faster growing part, the health care entitles, will grow at over 100% over the next ten years. and i would just ask him if he is hearing what i am hearing back home from our constituents, which is that they want us to do something on the spending before we extend the credit card limit again, and i wonder if he could tell us a little bit about what he is hearing back home. mr. wicker: the distinguished gentleman from ohio is absolutely correct. as a matter of fact, the -- the american people are alarmed, actually, at the level of debt that this government has run up, particularly in the last four and a half to five years. it's just been astounding. we cannot continue to add debt upon debt for the next generation, many of whom are in the sound of our voices, some of whom are employed as our pages,

and the senator has already referred to them today. we owe them a government that grows our debt at a much slower rate, and we've done it before. when the distinguished senator and i were in the house of representatives, we were told we could not balance the budget within ten years. well, actually, with the leadership of my friend from ohio, we passed legislation, we had the cooperation of the president of the united states who negotiated with us, and that government, divided government balanced the budget not within ten years but really within three or four years, and we held that until the terrorist attacks of 2011. so yes, the american people are concerned about this. i think we would be doing a disservice to them simply to go along with a debt increase, without addressing the

underlying problems, and as my friend from ohio knows, the president of the united states himself in this budget has proposed very significant changes in the growth rate of certain of our entitlement programs, which would go a long way toward getting us to a bipartisan resolution on this issue. mr. portman: the gentleman raises an important point, which is that larger part of the budget, the 65% of the budget that is not being debated as part of the continuing resolution, not subject to congressional appropriations and the faster growing part of the budget, that's an issue the president actually did address in his own budget. in fact, he laid out a number of proposals called mandatory spending reforms that would help to reduce some of the debt by reducing some of the cost increases on that 65% of the budget. and by the way, 65% today, ten years from now it will be 76% of the budget. and the departments and agencies that are appropriated here every year is only 35%, soon to be

reduced to 24% of the budget. and so that's a very good point you make. the president himself has pointed out that we need to make changes here and yet he refuse toss negotiate, refuse toss talk, refuses to consider any of these proposals. it doesn't seem to make sense and it's certainly not in the interest of the american people and the people of mississippi and the people of ohio. so i really thank my colleague from mississippi for coming down. i look forward to reading further the new material that he has provided for the record here today, i thank him for his leadership, and, madam chair, i yield back my time. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: madam president, as my colleagues have done on several occasions, i come to the floor also to make remarks on the pending shutdown and the pending effort to find a compromise that we can finally get to the president of the united states. today specifically, to take issue with a remark made by the president on tuesday this week regarding the health care reform bill that he also sometimes calls obamacare. he said, and i quote -- "the affordable care act is a law that passed the house, that passed the senate, the supreme court ruled constitutional, it was a central issue in last year's election, it is settled,

and it's here to stay." end of quote. now, while i understand the president's position on the law that now is referred to by his name, he also misses the point. on monday night, the senate had the opportunity to keep the government running, the senate had a bill that funded the government and did so without delaying or defunding obamacare, and as we all know the senate voted down that bill. so let me repeat, the government could have been kept open without delaying or defunding obamacare. anyone who says anything differently is simply not being accurate. so what did the bill monday night seek to do? the bill sought to delay the implementation of the individual mandate for a year and require

executive branch appointees to go to the exchanges. those, madam president, are changes to obamacare. now, apparently, the president doesn't believe that we're allowed to make any changes whatsoever to obamacare. i would respect that position if the president actually enforced it over the last several years as he had bills presented to him that he signed that actually made some changes in the health care reform. in fact, congress has made numerous changes to obamacare since it was signed into law, so i have got a list here but it's a list that i read in its entirety so people know that the president has accepted changes to his prime piece of

legislation, so that i can refute that the president isn't consistent when i go back now to his quotation when he says the affordable care act is a law that passed the house, passed the senate, the supreme court ruled it unconstitutional, it was a central issue in last year's campaign, it is settled and it is here to stay, end of quote. by that, i think the president is signifying that you can't do anything to touch -- to touch the issue of -- whatsoever, even to the minimal extent we tried to monday night. so this list was conveniently assembled not by this senator but by the congressional research service and it was done on behalf of senator coburn.

in the 111th congress, to start with the first change that the president accepted, h.r. 4887 clarified that health care providers under tricare, tricare for life, and the nonappropriated fund health benefit program constitutes minimal essential health care coverage. then we had h.r. 5014 clarifying that the health care provided by the department of veterans' affairs constitutes, according to the health care reform bill, minimal essential health care coverage. h.r. 1586 modified the definition of average manufacturer price to include inhalation, infusion, implanted and injectable drugs that are not generally dispensed through a retail community pharmacy. h.r. 4994 offset the cost of the

medicare and medicaid program extensions and the postponement of cuts in the medicare physician payments with a change in the affordable care act. but the president signed it. h.r. 4853 extended the nonrefundable adoption tax credit through tax year 2012. h.r. 6523 extended tricare coverage to dependent adult children up to age 26 to conform with the private health insurance requirements under the affordable care act. the president signed that. in the 112th congress, h.r. 4 repealed the requirement that businesses file an information report whenever they pay a vendor more than $600 for goods in a single year. h.r. 674 modified the calculation of modified adjusted gross income to include social security benefits.

h.r. 3630 reduced the prevention and public health fund annual appropriations over a period -- over a period from 2013 to 2021 by a total of $6.25 billion to help offset the cost of extending the payroll tax cut. that's a monumental change in the bill. the president signed that. h.r. 4348 modified the medicaid disaster recovery f map adjustment by changing the afundamental factor and the effective date. h.r. 8 transferred 10% of the remaining unobligated consumer operated and oriented plan, and we call that the co-op program, funds to the new co-op contingency fund and rescinded the other 90% of those funds and repealed the class act.

h.r. 1473 was another bill that the president signed. it canceled $2.2 billion for the co-op program. h.r. 2025 rescinded $400 millin of the remaining $3.8 billion for the co-op program, rescinded $10 million of the $15 million fiscal year 2012 appropriations for the independent pavement advisory board, instructed the secretary of health and human services to establish a web site with detailed information on the allocation of moneys in the prevention and public health fund and prohibited use of those funds for lobbying publicly or propaganda purposes. that bill was signed by the president. h.r. 933 rescinded $200 million of the $500 million transfer from the medicare party a and part b trust funds for the five-year community-based

community care transition program and rescinded $10 million of the independent payment advisory board's 2013 appropriation. now, these are changes made by congress to the law the president refers to as settled law. when he talks about settled law, he talks to us that the affordable care act cannot be changed now as we're debating things with the continuing resolution. so obviously the act is not so settled that congress cannot and has not amended it in the last several years. but as we all know, the president through his own actions has in addition considered obamacare not to be

settled law either. the president has through administrative action himself made numerous changes to obamacare. in february, the president delayed application of the out-of-pocket allowance. in march the president delayed implementation of the basic health plan option, also in march the president delayed a requirement that the small business exchanges offer a choice of plans, in july the president delayed the exchange applicant eligibility and verification, in july -- and perhaps the most famous example, the president delayed implementation of the employer mandate, and in regard to that, there were even members of the president's party here in the united states senate that the president didn't have the legal authority to do that. so on monday night house

republicans sent the senate a bill that did not defund or delay medicare -- delay obamacare. it continued funding our government, it simply sought to amend obamacare in the same way dozens of times, as i just illustrated, it's been amended. there was not even any debate of the proposals on their merits. it was simply handled in the most simple way you can here, tabled by the democrat leadership, and now we hear about the farcical issue of settled law. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. grassley: could i have two more minutes, please. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. grassley: i noant doapt know where this settled law theory comes from. i know some of my colleagues have ignored this theory during previous health care debates.

in 2003 can congress passed a law, a bipartisan law called the medicare modernization act. this law passed with members of both parties supporting it. it was signed into law by the president and survived any court challenge made against it. it was by the same token settled law. that didn't stop my colleagues from proposing legislation to amend part d called the medicare modernization act. in fact, democrats, including members still in the senate voted to alter the act by striking the nont interference clause. we debated that on its merits like we should have the amendments to the affordable care act recently offered. we didn't dismiss it as offensive because it sought to amend a settled law. so, madam president, the government could be open and fully operating today but for the democrats' unwillingness to engage in legitimate debate over

the proposals to amend obamacare, not defend it or delay it. we are where we are because the majority refuses to give the american people relief from the individual mandate and treat president obama and his political apointees the same as all other americans are by going to the exchange. in the wash of words that we will hear on the floor, i hope that this simple truth can be heard. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. udall: thank you, madam president. recently there was a disturbing poll in "the washington post." it said that most americans fear that the american dream is passing them by. almost 65% worry they cannot make ends meet with their current incomes, and that is up 48% from 1971. and we're not talking about

luxuries here, just basic living expenses, food and clothing for their kids, a roof over their family's head, just getting by day to day. so many of our fellow citizens are working harder than ever, and still feel like they're falling behind, and they wonder where is the country headed. this week they're wondering more than ever watching the spectacle here in washington, watching the government shut down, grinding to a halt. i'm hearing from my constituents and from people in new mexico and they're frustrated and worried. they're concerned about the united states department of agriculture crop payments as we head into the harvest when they need the financing the most. they're concerned about being able to close on mortgages with federal backing, with their loans on hold.

many new mexicans are going to be furloughed, without pay. this hurts their families and all the businesses that rely on them in our economy. restaurants, retailers, car washes, landscapers, any type of business you can imagine. this shutdown did not have to happen. we are not debating the amount of the budget. the fact is, house republicans are demanding concessions just for keeping the lights on at the federal government. i think most americans really have two questions here: how did we get into this mess, and how do we get out of it? we are coming out of the worst recession since the great depression, but recovery is underway. we've seen 42 months of private-sector job growth. that's 7.5 million jobs. that's hope for millions of families. we've had nine consecutive quarters of economic growth,

the longest stretch since the recession hit in 2008. so we're slowly making our way back, not fast enough, with too many folks still struggling and with great challenges for the future. this is a time for leadership, for working together. americans expect their leaders to act like grownups, but they feel like they're watching a schoolyard spat. is it any wonder they hold congress in such contempt or that they worry about the kind of country they will leave to their children? here's what we should be doing. we should have a farm bill by now. we should have comprehensive immigration immigration reform and we should have a serious budget. one that would get rid of sequestration's meat cleaver cuts with targeted deficit

reductions, helping the small businesses, helping seniors and families who are struggling, moving ahead with investments in infrastructure, creating jobs and investing in our future. the senate passed that budget six months ago, but the house went in a completely different direction. their budget put tax cuts for the richest americans above funding for education and ensuring the safety of our roads and bridges. democrats and republicans have differences. that's no surprise. but we still have a job to do. we still need to sit down and work it out. but a minority in the house has blocked our way forward not once, not twice, but time and time again. american families and businesses need a long-term budget. businesses do not hire on a monthly basis. they need certainty. and the confidence that their

government is working to create an environment for growth. we are giving them neither. instead, we lurch from crisis to crisis. the worst thing about it is it doesn't have to be this way. this is a manufactured crisis, a series of self-inflicted wounds to our economy. the american people do not want this. they want a strong economy, they want jobs and a government that can actually get something done. for the middle class, not just for wall street billionaires. the american people want a government that works, not a government shutdown. there's no logic behind this crisis. why are we here? because the other side wants to kill the affordable care act. i respect the diversity of views -- the diversity of views in america and in congress, but

the affordable care act passed congress like every other bill. it passed the house, it passed the senate, and the president signed it. if republicans want to repeal this law, they should make their case to the american people and work to pass their own health care law. what's happening here is unprecedented, disruptive and undemocratic behavior. we've heard a lot of indignation, hour after hour of it. but here's the thing. it doesn't stop the affordable care act. this whole stunt has been a colossal waste of time, and wasting time is something we can't afford. the real problems facing our nation are still waiting. everyone outside of a radical group of obstructionists knows that this is silly, knows this is misguided and dangerous to our economy. the u.s. chamber of commerce,

the business round-terrible, ro- roundtable, business leaders from coast to coast, there is a loud chorous of -- "stop, this is enough," but so far it isn't loud enough. the affordable care act isn't perfect. i'm not going to come to the floor and say the affordable care act is perfect. what law is. but it is the law of the land. it's being implemented. shutting down the government doesn't change that. here's what a shutdown does do. 27,000 federal employees in my state could be furloughed and lose their income. nearly half of the civilian workers for the department of defense will be sent home. in new mexico, that's over 6,500 people who help defend this country and may not be paid. social security applications could be jeopardized. calls to s.s.a. for help could go unanswered. federal loans would be delayed

for tens of thousands of folks trying to buy a home or applying for a small business loan. those doors may be locked. national parks will close. so will museums and monuments. this hurts the tourist economy in my state and hurts small businesses. during the last shutdown, 7 million tourists were turned away. our veterans, who already face too many delays if their claims for benefits -- delays in their claims for benefits, could face even more. during the last shutdown, more than 400,000 veterans saw their disability and pension claims delayed. students will also be hurt. work-study and perkins loans payments would stop. pregnant women and mothers who need nutrition assistance for their children may not get it. so all of this because the other side wants to send a message on obamacare. well, it has a very high price.

costing our nation billions of dollars every day and diverting federal agencies, including our critical national labs, like los alamos and sandia, from their important national security missions. wall treat is on edge. main -- wall street is on edge. main street is on edge. families are worried. communities suffer. and there is another cost -- the paralysis of government sends a terrible message, a terrible message of failure and dysfunction. what's next? the debt ceiling. holding the credit of the united states of america hostage for political gain. instead of serious debate, we have ultimatums. instead of regular order, we have midnight shutdowns. instead of compromise, we have all or nothing, take it or leave it. my friend in new mexico, master

sergeant jesse bacca, summed it up well in an interview with kob-tv back home. he said, "i'm not angry, i'm frustrated because of the way we've always been taught to work to get things done. you work together and that just doesn't seem to happen. settle your differences." jesse's right, we need to start working together. we have not done that and so here we are on the wrong train, on the wrong track going nowhere. it's hurting families, hurting communities. it could derail our economy with a recovery still underway. the hardworking families of this country want a government that works not one that shuts down just to send a message. and meanwhile, those families wait, wait for us to meet the real challenges that face our nation and that make a real difference in their lives and

the lives of their children. madam president, before i finish, i want to just discuss the subcommittee that i chair on appropriations, the financial services and general government subcommittee. because we work with agencies that are critical to keeping the economy running smoothly, i have to speak up and make sure that those who are causing this shutdown know exactly how badly the country needs the government to reopen. this shutdown is jeopardizing consumer safety. it's adding to the uncertainty facing our financial markets. it's doing real damage on our economy. our subcommittee funds the small business administration and small business owners are really going to take a hit in this shutdown. the s.b.a., small business administration, is closed. i don't worry about my colleagues, but the top concern

i hear from small business owners in new mexico is how hard it is to get a loan to expand. the s.b.a. approves an average of $86 million in loans to small businesses each day. but while the government is shut down, our nation's job creators aren't getting those resources. if the shutdown continues, 28 million small businesses will no longer be able to get capital from the s.b.a. to expand. and there are other impacts, t too. each day the government is closed, our economy grinds down a little further. the shutdown is affecting the services that keep our capital markets safe. the cftc, commodity futures trading commission, will have just 4% of its normal staff during the shutdown. that means that markets will be without effective oversight. we're about to hit the debt ceiling, our nation's borrowing

limit. it's a potentially dangerous financial situation and the shutdown has put our watchdogs at the cftc and the s.e.c. to sleep. global markets are open, wall street is open but investor protection agencies are closed. it's an open invitation to financial abuse. the shutdown is also putting the safety of our children at risk. christmas may seem far away, but companies are already working to get ready for the holiday seas season. they're shipping goods in from overseas, including millions of toys. during this shutdown, only 22 employees at the consumer product safety commission will be available nationwide. that's 22 people to inspect millions of imported toys and gifts, gifts that american families will be putting under the christmas tree. these agencies were created by congress to protect american

investors and consumers, to help small businesses. it is a travesty that tea party republicans in the house have been allowed to hold the country hostage. madam president, that's unconscionable. real people are being hurt by this. the people who are going without pay, without veterans' benefits or survivor benefits, without important financial and consumer protections. and you know the one that's the most devastating to me? people who are going without food. and they're we're talking about millions of women and children in this country in poverty. so with that, madam chair, i would -- i would yield the floor. and note the absence of a quorum. thank you. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: madam president, it's

been seven days since we passed a piece of legislation to fund the government. i wonder how many days it will be before the speaker makes the american people wait to open their government. how long is he going to make them wait? before government's opened? it's a real hardship on -- on not only the hundreds of thousands of federal employees but the people who depend on the federal employees for their own jobs. so it's very unfortunate. madam president, we have not had a harder working senator the past nine months than the presiding officer. you have worked so hard doing so many different things,not the least of which presiding over the senate. and you've presided over the senate early-morning hours, late-night hours. i mean, it's remarkable, and i -- i so appreciate your doing this.

the entire senate, democrats and republicans, express their appreciation through me to the presiding officer for the good work that you do in making this place work better by doing -- not only doing it presiding but you do a good job. dignified, do it with authority. the people of wisconsin are so fortunate to have the distinguished presiding officer as a senator. i've had the good fortune to serve with a number of other senators from business. russ feingold, who was such a good friend. i miss him so very, very much. herb kohl, unique individual but added a great deal to the senate. and the many things that he did as a longtime member of the appropriations committee and other things de. however, none of the senators who serve -- who i've served

with from wisconsin will outshine the distinguished presiding officer. you've been remarkably good. i -- this has been -- you've only been here just a short period of time but in the short time you've been here, you've had admirable dedication to this institution. you're a native of wisconsin, the first woman ever to represent that great state. and the -- as frequently as you've presided, you've enjoyed a front-row seat on the history that's being made this congressional session. some of the stuff you've watched hasn't been too much fun but it's been good that you've done such a remarkably good job. so i through -- on behalf of all the senators congratulate you for your accomplishment and thank you for your service to the senate. this is the first golden gavel award. and there will be a formal presentation made at our caucus this tuesday to recognize your distinction. this is something that's

traditional, the golden gavel, and it's a beautiful memento that we will make -- that we will present to you on tuesday. i ask unanimous consent the commerce committee be discharged from further action on h.r. 1848. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 1848, an act to ensure that the federal aviation administration advances the safety of small airplanes and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is disarnled and the senate will proceed to the mairchl measure. mr. reid: i further ask that the substitute amendment which is desk and the text of s. 1072 as reported by the commerce committee be agreed to, the bill be ready a third time and

passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to h.r. 3095. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 3095, an act to ensure that any new or revised requirement providing for the screening, testing or treatment of individuals operating commercial motor vehicles for sleep disorders is adopted pursuant to a rule making proceeding and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the senate proceed to calendar number 200. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 200, s. res. 227 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the heroic rescue of danish jews during the second world war by the danish people. the presiding officer: without

objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the senate proceed to calendar number 201. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 201, s. res. 213, expressing support for the free and peaceful exercise of representative democracy in venezuela and condemning violence and intimidation against the country's political opposition. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment to the resolution be agreed to and the resolution as amend be agreed to, the amendment to the preamble be agreed to, the preamble as amend be agreed to, and the committee-reported amendment to the title be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask that we now proceed to s. res. 265. the presiding officer: the

clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 265, expressing support for the individuals impacted by the senseless attack at the washington navy yard and commending and thanking members of the military, law enforcement officers, first responders, and civil servants toker their courage and professionalism. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask consent that the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i'm sorry, i was in some other place for a minute or two. i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. reid: there are two bills at the desk due for a first reading, i'm told. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the bill forbe the first time. the clerk: h.r. 3230, an act making continuing appropriations during a government shutdown to provide pay and allowances to members of the reserve components of the armed forces who perform inactive duty training during such period. h.j. res. 72, making continuing appropriations for veterans' benefits for fiscal year 2014 and for other purposes. mr. reid: i now asker to a second reading but object to my own request to edge bo of these measures. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the bills will be read for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to s. res. 266. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 266, designating the week of october

7-13, 2013, as national chess week. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the release be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous consent that when the senate completeecompletees it's businey it adjourning until noon tomorrow, 12:00 p.m. october 5, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved ar their use later in the day, following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business with debate until 4:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: madam president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

the opening prayer focused on u.s. capitol shooting yesterday in the fiscal stalemate. that is followed by comments from majority leader harry reid, republican reader unchain leader mitch mcconnell, kelley ayotte, jeff sessions and dick durbin among others.

the next majority leader. >> myra marx the senate be a period of morning business for debate only until 2:00 p.m. today. during that time, senators will be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each. mr. president, following -- suggestion and prayer at merle black, i want to take a few minutes to talk about senate decorum, senate procedure. this is constructive criticism for the entire senate and self-criticism for me. mr. president, i think we have all here in the senate kind of the aura of robert byrd, who was such a stickler for senate procedure. i think we have all let things get away from us a little bit. the senate is a very special place with very particular rules.

these rules help to keep debate on centers that will come even discussing matters in which senators completely disagree. one of those rules concerning how we address each other here in the senate. the practice we observe is that when senator speak they address themselves only to presiding officer. mr. president, will you two to senator from missouri or whatever the case might be. when centers refer to other senators, this is something we'll have to to listen to you. whether those centers are in the chamber or not, senators must address and refer to each other in the third person enter the chair. the senator should refer to the senator from vermont. the senator from illinois or the senator from nevada for the chairman of the appropriations committee or the president proton or the manager of the bill. senators should avoid using other senators first names.

the senator should avoid addressing other senators directly as you. these rules are a little unusual, but they have been in place here for a couple of centuries, mr. president. as people were generally talk directly to other people if they were in the same room with each other. that is and how we one another. the senate rules preserve this service, not a lot of distance, but distance. senators are more likely to debate ideas and less likely to talk about personalities. that's what i said, mr. president -- not a president, sorry i didn't see the chair changing. direct in a little self-criticism here. we all have to understand that these rules created little bit of distance so senators are more likely to debate ideas and most likely talk about personalities. if we do that, we maintain a more civil to cordless a result.

i bring this matter to the attention of senators because we have fallen out of this habit and it's gotten worse in the last month or so. i work harder and i hope my senators will work to their best to maintain this habit of civility and decorum going forward. and the parliamentarians, presiding officers have all been directed to make sure that we do a better job of calling basic rules of the senate. mr. president, every day of members of congress come to work at the united states capitol. i said some of these things yesterday afternoon, but because of the malay, the death and destruction outside the capital, the sound system didn't work. i wanted to make sure people understand a few things is how i

feel about the united states capitol police force. members of congress come to work here and we come with 16,000 staff people. we are here with millions of tourists every year. in these good men and women, most of whom are in uniform, but not all of them are, are here to keep those, members of our staff in the public safe from harm. yesterday's events were a sobering reminder of that fact. i spoke yesterday afternoon, shortly after the incident to brian carter, a 23 year veteran of the capitol police force, who was hurt during yesterday's incident. i have talked to police officers

that i come in contact with over the last 16 hours or so. almost everyone knows him and almost everyone said this exact same thing. what a fine man. as they spoke to him yesterday, he is expected to make a recovery, i wish him and his statement the best during this difficult time for him and for all of us. i wish a speedy recovery to the secret service agent who was also injured yesterday. but i thought the most thing we had in our short telephone conversation with teeth that, my job is to keep you safe. he wasn't referring to me, even though he and i were on the phone. he meant his job is to make sure that everyone is safe. that was something i'll always remember. these brave men and women put

their lives on the line every day. capitol police, law-enforcement agencies who work here in the capital. why do they do that? because that is their job. so my thanks go out to every capitol police officer. i want to remind everyone that yesterday and today the capitol remains closed to most business. the federal government remains closed. in the newspaper today, it lists all the layoffs. today it has a graph of those amendments. not the legislative or judicial, but administrative in the administration.

this is just hard to comprehend, mr. president, what is going on because of president obama's signature legislative issue that we were so fortunate to pass to allow all americans to have health care. as is the case in every industrialized nation in the world except our nation.

we have as many as 45 to 50 million people, madam president, with no health insurance. i would hope my republican colleagues would understand the bill's has been declared constitutional by supreme court. it's in effect. millions of people have gone online this week to find out what they can do to have health insurance. >> would the leader yield for a question? >> of course i would. >> madam president, the leader has noted a number of times that the small group in the house of representatives have held up and closed down the government because they want to do away with what they call obamacare, the affordable care act. so madam president, my question to the senator in all these

discussion they've had the 40 times they voted, have they ever once come up with an alternative piece of legislation that would provide for your children if they're in college beyond your health care program, or if you have a member of your family with a preexisting condition like diabetes or having gone through cancer. have they come up with any alternative or is it just we want nothing? >> madam president, my most senior friend in the united states senate. in today's newspaper and the commentary or television and radio. even republicans -- prominent republicans -- former chairs i have in my mind two former chairs on the national republican party said we have is to be for something.

not just against erg. that's the problem we have here. they're against everything. against everything. as the distinguished senator from vermont said, what are they for? we know what they're against but what are they for? >> miami president, i thank the distinguished leader because i know my state of vermont people are happy they have children going college to keep on their health care or that they have a spouse that had breast cancer you still get health care or whatever diabetics and 0 son. and i think the distinguished leader has answered no, they want to do away with all of this and nothing in return.

that is a approach that names no sense. can i be recognized in my own right? >> under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. the senate will be in a period of morning business for debate only until 2:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. >> madam president. >> recognized. >> several people have spoken and i was touched so much by the chaplain's prayer by the word to the leader about our capitol police. the leader in his young days, was a student served as one of the capitol police. i go have a security diet -- detail, long before i had that, i made it a point to 0 go every time i had a police officer on

this campus i would say you keep us all safe. keep yourself safe. we worry about you. i'm wearing this pin for them today. i think we have to know tourists come here, members, staff, everybody are kept saved by these brave men and women. i -- and those who have decided to join me in my office far silent prayer for the safety and recovery of the officer injured but the safety of all of these police officers. they rush in, they rush in when there is trouble. they don't say, gosh, i'm not being paid or gee wiz i'm supposed to go off duty. they rush in. no questions asked. extraordinarily well trained.

one of the best trained in the country. i think we owe them a debt of gratitude. we also heard a few days ago about the costly impacts the needless government shut down -- it is needless. the senate passed a resolution that would reopen the government while we work an meaningful comprise to address the budget and national debt because a small radical group, the tea party activists and the house of representatives they won't even vote on it. it they have the bit by bit funding. they want to pick and choose and popular things and say we're for that. they don't want to stand up and vote yes or no on actual appropriations because they do that they have to take a position. it's easier to vote maybe. or go home and say well, you know, we're for medical rernlgt or for the veteran -- no they're not. they voted to shut it down. we had a member of the house of

representatives on television posturing to a group of veterans that is terrible administration is closing out the veteran's memorial or the -- i said no, it's not the administration closing it. it's you, it's you people. the small group in the house of representatives is closed it down. why don't they bring the senate pass resolution to the house floor for a vote? instead they allow a small handful of extreme -- and we won't do it. bring to a vote! have all 435 members stand up and vote yes. we'll open the veteran's programs the medical research, or no, we won't. they have to be on record. yes nor. senate judiciary committee heard testimony this this week in the

-- member of the committee and distinguished deputy mairnltty leader. we heard about the danger to our country from the threat that increases every day because of all the people who had to be furloughed. it was governed on tuesday with the department of defense released the national guide that need to issue massive furlough even though the national guide is essential in this country. s that was 50 technicians the vermont national guard. and additional vermont guardsmen who were called from active orders, weekend drills canceled. where 3,000 members of vermont come together for joint training so it results in a decrease in the readiness. some of the 450 military technicians seven-day forecast furlough notices on tuesday are home without pay after

forfeiting pay this summer because of sequestration. i know, many of them personally. some are neighbors are mine. in vermont. these are real people. their not getting paid every week like the members of the house of representatives, the tea party group who are holding them hostage. i believe that the number of furloughs in the national guard was a misinterpretation by the department of defense. we have adopted legislation to ensure members of our nation's military receive their pay. and the co-chair of the national guard caucus senator machin and the other asking the secretary of deafen to reinterpret this. but it also affects our veterans. there are nearly 50,000 veterans who call vermont home. i hear from them. but my distinguished colleague

from vermont who is a chairman of the veteran's committee has heard from them. these are real people. they showed up in support of this country when they are asked to. now they say why aren't you supporting us? there you veteran across the country while the benefit payments will continue in the near term, furlough within the va are unfair toward veterans and they have a real question. what is our commitment to them. we need a question to the commitment to the country when they serve. where is our commitment to them? so i stop picking winner and losers. let bring up bills, let's vote on the distinguished chair of the budget committee is here on the floor. she got a budget through this

committee. i remember passing the last vote it was 5:30 on a saturday morning after we had gone all night long. then when we want to go to conference actually work out the differences with the house, o- no. then they might have to vote on something and it's blocked by republican senators working with the tea party in the house, and so oh no, we can't go to conference. same people give speeches saying why don't we have a budget? we pass the budget. now we might actually have to vote on something. we might have to vote yes or no instead of maybe. we're e letted to vote yes or no. not maybe. have the courage to do that. madam president, i yield the floor. this is senate majority leader recognize. >> i want to thank the president as well as the majority leader for the comments this morning. i'm wearing a button as many of

my colleagues are that says thank you to the capitol police. the one i'm wearing is not the one finishing today but one i asked to be commissioned back in 9/11 because i thought about the extraordinary courage these men and women showed on that day when an imminent attack on this building was well known. yet they did everything in their power to protect all of us who work here and those visiting. special thank you to them. yesterday was a tragic day. a young woman -- it's still unclear what motivated her, got involved in an incident at the white house backing in to a police vehicle and then trying to escape followed bay secret service officer. she drove toward the capitol building and, sadly, her life was taken, but it's understandable. we live in an era where this

cam. us. , this u.s. capitol grounds is carefully guarded for obvious reasons. it -- it is a clear visible target to those who hate the united. someone in a car is a threat. car bombs are so common in some parts of the world, and we are weary of vehicles that may be used to harm innocent visitors or people who work in the u.s. capitol building. it will be some time before we sort out all the detail of what lead to this incident yesterday, but there are is something you know very clearly. that is the men and women in the capitol police stepped up to defend this capitol building and all of those who work here and visit here. did this risking their own lives. this morning's "washington post" has a few paragraphs on this, which bear repeating for the record, and i quote, what seems beyond doubt is that secret service personnel, capitol

police, and probably many others rush forward not away from danger as they are trained to do as americans expect them do. inside congress, aids took cover, traded anxious text messages then went on with the work. like hundreds of thousand of other federal employees. these are men and women whose contributions have been demean bid l federal shut down are being asked for the moment without being paid. and doing their jobs than the house of representatives has mustard. quote, we owe the capitol police a debt of grad constitute for every day. the post went ton say that's true. mr. boehner owes them and the rest of the work force more than 140 character message of thanks. he owes them a paycheck. he owes them a budget. he owes them an apology.

madam president, how many times have we listened on the floor of the senate to those from the other side of the aisle critd size federal workers try in some way to demean the contribution they make to this great nation? trying to find some way to lay them off, if not fire them, or restrict their pay overand over again. they are trammed on here. they are political casualties time and again on the floor of the united states senate. each and every one of us, every member of congress and the senate in the house and our staff and our feaments who visit is safe because of these men and women, these federal workers. it's about time that we realize when you shut down the government it's the ultimate disrespect to these men and women who simply want to do their job to make this a safer and better nation. it was very visible right here on the grounds right off the grounds of the capitol building itself yesterday afternoon many

of us were told stay in your offices. don't move for at least a half an hour, these then and women risked their lives during a government shut down when they aren't receiving a paycheck. it was very visible. should have been visible to everyone. the irony of this situation that we shut down a government and yet ask them to risk their lives without promise of a paycheck. let me mention one other thing that may have happened yesterday impacted a government shut down not quite as visible. before the senate foreign relations committee. assistant secretary of state testifying about the fair of iran gopg a nuclear bomb, sanctions impose bid the united states and the civilized world to persuade them not to develop a nuclear bomb. she went ton say the government shut down that has furloughed 72% of the civilian intelligence employees in our government is

not making this a safer country or giving us the eyes and ears around the world we need make thiewr that iran does not develop a nuclear bomb, a nuclear weapon. she added, within the department of the treasury, 90% -- nine out of ten of the people working in the agency which has the responsibility of specifically watching the sageses in iran are enforce have had been furloughed. 90% of them. so isn't just a matter of the visibility and the capitol police risking their lives despite this meaning government shut down. it is also things less visible. 72% of our intelligence workers charged with keeping america safe avoiding another 9/11 have been sent home. 90% of those who are watching carefully so iran does not develop a nuclear weapon sent home because this government shut down. this is the third embarrassing shameful day of the government shut down. people say how could it possibly

end? well, it could end very simply. speaker john boehner has on his desk in the house of representatives a continuing resolution, which is a spending bill, which will reopen the government for at least six weeks. he should call that far vote today. he'll receive bipartisan support. he shouldn't fear that. he should celebrate it. bipartisan support to reopen this government. then i hope he'll accept the invitation of senator reid and others to meet with senator murray, chairman of the budget committee, and sit down, plan the spending, plan the saving, the important policy decisions for six months have tried to bring to the floor in a conference committee. let do it and do it today. today to be the end of the government shut down. >> thank you, madam president. i want to thank the capitol police for their bravery and for the important work they do protecting all of the us and the

capitol and yesterday really showed how important they are. so i want to thank them for everything they did yesterday to make sure that people were protected. madam president, this is day four of the government shut down. a shut down that did not need happen, and i had hoped when i came to the floor a couple of days ago i hoped when i heard that congressional leaders were meeting with the president at his request that they would have emerged from that meeting with a plan to end this impasse to be get the government open again, to come an agreement as to how we can responsibly fund the government an address the challenges we face as a nation. yet coming out of that meeting,

where we got, of course, was a president who said he won't negotiate. we have a strategy that was started from the beginning, i've said it was a ill-conceived strategy by some members of my own party who thought that defunding obamacare; therefore, shutting down the government would -- number one, stop the exchanges from opening. we know that's not true because it already happened. even though we shut down the government. it was ill conceived because, again, we knew that with the president and the white house and the senate democrats in charge they were not going defund their signature piece of legislation. as much as i support repealing that legislation because i've seen the impact already in my own state of new hampshire in term of premiums and less choice

for individuals. and i do believe there's a better way to address health care in this country. where we find ourselves right now is unacceptable for our america. it's unsipble as leaders that have been elected by the people of this country. we owe it to our constituents to resolve this now. because on both sides we need to get together, resolve this, and i would say to my republican colleagues in the house and some in this chamber, time for a realty check. defunding obamacare did not work as a strategy. let find common ground and work together, yes, to address the concerns that are very legitimate that we have with the health care bill also to get

this government funded. i say to my democratic colleagues in the senate and the president yes, don't table and negotiate. let's work this out on behalf of the american people. i will say it again. i think where we are is an ill conceived strategy by many in my party leading to an immature response we won't negotiate and try to work it out on behalf of the american people. we know they are the one suffering the most from the shut down. i've heard it from the federal employees who wonder whether they'll be able to pay their mortgage, furloughed siflt began workersed at new hampshire at one our proudest military installations in the country. the naval shipyard.

small business owners who can't get the help they need from the small business administration, and they deserve better than this. i hope as we head in to this weekend that the president the leaders of the house and senate will get together. we'll get behind them on behalf of the american people get the government open. resolve our differences, find common ground and do the people's business. thank you, madam president. >> madam president, senator from florida. >> let me thank the men and women of the capitol police and the secret service who remind there's a thin blue line that stands between us and danger.

i think it's a moment to extend our thanks to all law enforcement. we're grateful for what you do for us, and how you keep us safe. i want to talk about the week has been an interesting week to say the least. beyond the event of yesterday. you count on the cable news and the features the count down clock leading up to the government slow down. then now in the aftermath of it as well as you see the count down about how many days we've been in to the thing. there's no doubt the impasse we're at is a problem for the country. it's not the best way to run the most important government in the most important country in the world. the people around here who all they do is focus on politics, for them severed election day. their focused on is who is winning and get the blame. who is it going help in the next election? i suppose it has a place in politic and governing process. let me an to you who is going get the blame. we all are. every single one of us. the house, the senate, the

federal government will get the blame. let me tell you why. there are people who woke up this morning that didn't get enough sleep last night. maybe they were up late helping their kids with homework. they forced themselves to work. they didn't want to go to work. they were tired. they're going work today and go through it again. they're just wondering why can't you guys do that? why can't you do your job? i think that's a valid frustration people have with us here today. and, you know, i'm not happy about some of the things we have seen this week over the last couple of weeks. i think it's very unfortunate that some of the rhetoric used around here, both in this chamber, and in the public domain, but each day that goes by i'm more and more worried about what -- what i'm more and more worried about may not be what everybody else is worried about. see, look, i think it's wrong that those of us who stand on principle who believe, for example, that obamacare is going badly damage our economy. i think it's wrong we have a

congressman from my home state that compares us taliban. we have spokesperson for the white house who said we are like people with bombs strapped to our chest. i think it's wrong. i think it's wrong that the president used the megaphone of the president sincerity, not bring the americans together but deepen the divisions. mr. president, you're not the chairman of the democratic party. you are the president of the united states. act like the president of the united! rise above that stuff. your job is to bring this nation together. i know, people are going to say things about you you don't like. it comes with the territory. you have to rise above it. i hope he will. those are not the things that concern me the most. what i'm most worried about this country faces a very serious crisis. we are running out of time to fix it. there's no dpowt the government slow down it is not a good thing. but it's not the crisis i'm referring to. this issue about the debt limit hitting the debt limit. that's a problem. but that's not the most serious crisis we face either.

the single most important crisis we face in this country is that for millions of americans, the promise of the american dream is literally slipping away through their fingers. with all of the focus around here on whatever the crisis of the day may be. i fear we're simply not spending enough time focused on that reality. look, it remind of a story i know. a few years ago a friend of mine in florida was on a 2009 engine airplane they were flying from one part of the state to another. at some point a fire broke out in the cockpit, that fire is the problem. but the bigger problem was that both of the pilots started to put out the fire and no one was flying the plane! within a few seconds, the plane began to plunge and it least hundreds of feet in altitude. luckily they were to be figure it out quickly and put out. they were so focus order the fire in the cockpit they weren't flying the plane. luckily they realized in time if

they didn't flight plane the fire was going to be pretty insignificant in a few seconds for them. so we -- we have a government -- this government slow down. it's a problem, yes. we have the upcoming debt limit, yes. the fire in our cockpit and the one we need to address is the e -- erosion of the american dream. now, you think that the slow down in government is problematic. that's a vote away from being solved. we just have to take a vote in either chamber. let fell you when the slow down is going to be a big problem. when it slows down because the government no longer has enough money to pay the bills. if we keep up what we're doing now it's going happen. you think the debt limit situation is a problem? that's one vote away from being -- solved. let tell me you when it's going to be a real problem. when no one wants to buy our debt anymore because they don't think we can pay them back. you think all of this division

and dysfunction in washington is pad -- bad for our economy? yeah. but you know what is worse? a tax code that kills jobs. regulations on a daily basis are killing jobs. a national debt that is killing jobs. by the way, one of the greatest destroyers of jobs in america today is obamacare. that's why we're passionate ability it. the american dream that people throw around loosely as a term, the american dream is basically the notion no matter where you start in life, no matter how many obstacles you overcome, you have the god-given right through hard work and perseverance achieve a better life for yourself and leave your children with a better life. it's being eroded on a daily bay sectors and not nearly enough attention it being paid. i don't see any count down on cable television about the american dream. the most dangerous thing in

washington is there doesn't seem to be enough focus. we are on the verballing of losing the american dream. i say that because to one extent or another we are guilty of facing facing that focus. my speech is a reminder to me why i wanted to serve to begin with. the reason why i wanted to serve. i know, i don't think i know that america is special. i know, this partially because i was raised by and around people that know what life was like that places other than america. places owner america you can only go as far as your parents went. you are trapped. whatever your family did, that's the only thing you're allowed to by the societies. but we have been different. i've seen it with my own eyes. both in my neighborhood and in my family i have seen people who came here with little education and no connections through hard work and perseverance achieve a better life. achieve a meaningful life and

leave their kids better off than themselves. i also see how every sing the day there are millions of people out there now trying to achieve the same thing. and finding it harder and harder to do it. we are on the verge of losing that. every day it's eroded so too is the exceptionalism of this country. people love to use that term. it's exceptional primary because of the american dream many countries in the world have powerful militaries. every country has powerful people and rich people. if we lose that we lose what makes us special and different. automatic the other issues the only reason they matter they relate to the american dream. the reason why why it matters because undermines the american dream.

the ability to achieve the american dream. if the country, the reason i ran for office as a country we are heading in the wrong direction because we're losing the american dream. we still have time to fix this. but we continue have all century. we don't even have all decade. we have got to begin to take these issues seriously. we will be known as the first generation of americans who lost the american dream and left the children worse off than ourselves. i hope we can use the challenges before us as a catalyst to begin to focus on the issues on why they matter. they matter because they are hurting people and hurting people we're trying to achieve a better life.

if we do that and focus on that. if we solve the problems before us i think we have a real opportunity to do what every generation of americans before us has done. to leave our children better off than ourselves, and to leave them what our parents left for us. the single great est nation in the history of the world. >> madam president, i yield the floor. >> mr. president, i intended to give remarks then promulgate of a series of consent requests. however the majority leader requested for purposes of scheduling that i begin with the unanimous consent request which i'm happy to to so accommodate his schedule. but i would ask that at the conclusion of these unanimous consent requests i would ask unanimous consent i be given twenty minutes to speak at the conclusion to lay out the reasons why i believe the majority should -- >> is there objection?

>> without objection, so ordered. >> the first unanimous consent request i would promulgate, mr. president, i immediate to the consideration of hj of jrez72 mg which was received from the house. i ask further consent it be read three times and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. >> is there objection? >> mr. president. >> senator from washington. >> reserving the right to object. the junior senator from texas has offered an unanimous consent. we take care of veterans in this shut down of government. mr. president, i would note there's no senator or member of congress here who didn't care deeply about making sure our cell veterans are taken care of. including the senator from the state of washington. as the presiding officer knows

and the colleagues known. i have spoken often of my father who is a world war ii veteran who spent most of his life in the wheelchair. earned a purple heart. i know, the sacrifices our veterans make. as chair of the veteran's affair committee. i fought hard to make sure that every veteran had what they needed. we said more than thank you we provided them with what they need. i know our veterans well. what i know about our veterans, prosecute, is that they, above everyone else, are selfless. they went to serve our country and said we'll take care of the rest of you. they would be the last to come before us and say take care of me before everyone else. they would say to us take care of our fellow men and leave no one behind. so, mr. president, am going to ask that the senator modify his request and do what our military

asked and leave no one behind. it a request that will assure that everyone who fight for our country takes care of our country, works for our country, in emergencies depends on our country to make sure they have the opportunity everyone of us had here is able to have that opportunity and not held hostage to a government shut down so we can get back to work and solve our country's problems. we need to end this tea party shut down and can do it with the request that i will ask right now. i have a modification to i ask consent the request be modified. ab amendment at the desk be agreed to that the joint resolution amended be read a third time in passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no interaction. it's the text that cast the senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government and something already

over in the house and reportedly has now the support of the majority of the member of the house of representatives. >> to the senator of texas so modify the ask? >> reserving the right to be ject. i thank my friend from washington state. i would note that the continuing resolution that the house has passed to fully fund the veteran's administration treats our veterans the same way the house and senate have treated active duty military. just a few days ago they passed a bill that said the men and women of the military would be paid. unfortunately, it seems to be the position of the majority in this body that veterans should be treated not as as well as our active duty military. in particular the full funding of the va should held hostage to every other priority that the democrats in this chamber must have. i understand the democrats in this chamber are committed to

obamacare with all of their heart, might, and soul. they should not be held hostage to that commitment. it is likely given negotiate refusal to comprise even to talk to find a middle ground it's likely the shut down instigated by the democratic majority will continue for some time. during the time we ought to be to be find common ground that at the very minimum our veterans shouldn't pay the price. if moments from now my friend from washington does not object. by the end of the day the va will be fully funded. if, as we all expect, she objects and repeat the objection that our mawrnlgty leader and party has made throws the course of the week. much of the va will be shut down because of the objection. she has asked if we can reopen

the entire federal government and if she doesn't get -- if the request is not granted to give ever single priority in the federal government that the majority party wants, that the va will remain without sufficient funds. i find that highly objectionable. i objection. oob jex to the original ask? >> i object on behalf of all americans who should not be left behind. i would prom all gait i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of hr3230 making continue appropriation during a government shut down to provide pay and allowances for member of the reserve component of the armed forces, which was received from the house. i ask further consent that the measure be read three times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

>> is there objection? >> reserving the right to object. >> mr. president, the junior senator from texas launched this government shut down with a 21-hour presentation here on the floor of the united senate. it is clear from the actions of the house and his actions today he is starting to try to reconcile in his mind all the damage which this government shut down which he inspired is causing across the united states. this particular unanimous consent ask relates to the national guard reserve. a group we hold in highest teem. it the gentleman from texas is focused on veterans and those who served our country, take in to consideration the 560,000 federal employees who are currently facing furlough or on furlough who are veterans. a fourth of whom are disabled veterans. so what the junior senator from texas is doing is picking and

choosing those he will allow in the lifeboat. at this moment, it's national guard and reserve. leave 560,000 veteran federal employees out in the water thrashing fors helps. -- themselves. that's not the way we should manage the government in this country. i can understand the anxiety you feel about the problems so you created. but trying to solve them one piece at the time is not the american way. i object. and i ask unanimous consent that your request be modified. the amendment the desk be agreed to, that the bill be eamentded, then be read a third time and passed. motions to reconsider made laid upon the table. the amendment is the text that passed the senate is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government, national guard, reserve, va, nih, all of them. it's something already over in the house of representatives and reportedly has the support of

the majority of democrats and republicans and could pass today. i ask for that modification. >> will the senator so modify his request? >> mr. president, reserving the right to object. no one watching these proceedings should be confused. we are in a shut down because president obama and the majority leader of this body apt shut town. because they believe it is in the partisan interest of their party to have a shut down. four times the house of representatives comprised. four times the house of representatives has endeavored to middle ground and four times the majority leader and every democrat in the body has no, we will not talk or comprise. we will not have a middle ground 100% of the priority of the democrat in the body must be funded or they will insist on a cut down. i thank my friend from illinois

for making clear that the members of the reserve component of our armed forces, in his judgment, are not worthy of being paid during this shut down that the democrats have forced. i could not disagree with that judgment more strongly. let us be clear this bill that passed the house doesn't mention obamacare. it has nothing do with obamacare. it simply says the exact same thing that my friend from illinois already agreed to, which is that the active duty men and women of the military would not be held hostage and would be paid if it so happened that the democrats forced a shut down. apparently the position of the majority of this body is that we've got a double standard that reserve members are not treated as well as active duty members. they will not get their paycheck. let be clear that this bill could be on the president's desk for signature today if my friend

from illinois would simply withdraw his objection. unfortunately in a move that i think reflects a level of cynicism not the fitting of the responsibility of all of us have, my friend is prepared to object and to say not just veterans but reserve members shall be held hostage in order to force obamacare on the american people. that's the objective. i guess the democratic party has become the party for obamacare, by obamacare, and for bureaucracy all of the time. every other priority received so veterans are told your concerns do not matter unless you can use to force obamacare on the american people your concerns cannot matter until we can use you as a hostage. that's cynical. we ought to take the individuals off the table. i would note my friend from

illinois noted the great many federal employees who have, furloughed. i would be happy to work in a bipartisan manner to cooperate with my friend from illinois to bring a great many of federal employees back to the responsibilities. unfortunately the position the democratic party has made is not a one of them will be allowed to come back until this body agrees to force obamacare on the american people despite the jobs lost. despite the people forced in to part time work. despite the skyrocketing hurricane premium and the million of people or at risk of losing their health insurance. mr. president, i find that highly objectionable. and i object. >> objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? >> mr. president, i would say to my colleague from texas some of the language she used in the debate relative to the motive of other members may have crossed the line.

.. and that the motion to be reconsidered even a laid upon the table. >> is there objection? >> reserving the right to object. >> senator from new york. >> mr. president, and i will

object. let me say a couple of things here first. in reference to the colloquy he had with the senator from texas had with my good friend from washington state, he said that he knows that the senator from washington to that leaving no man or no women behind. she does indeed. and that is one of the reasons so many of us oppose this piecemeal approach. if we did lots of people behind. bottom line is the senator -- junior senator from texas is advocating shutting down the government. and now he comes before us and says, well why don't you pass the price of the government that i want to open? no one would want to do that. it makes no sense. let's shut down the government and then i will come to the floor of the mac and msn offer a few places where the government openings.

i note that the collect phase around it around the floor with us. i would note that at least according to press reports, most of the many conservative colleagues in his body rejected. and i would note that it would make no sense to shut down the government and take a few. who wants to shut the government down? in my view, mr. president, it is the tea party. they have said all along. they have advocated for it. there are countless instances, where even in 2010, tea party folks at those shut the government down. and then it is sad is the government shutdown that president obama with a side or the senator from illinois caused it. when we had a bipartisan resolution with the majority on

this side, there is an opportunity, i believe the junior senator from texas urges collectivity to that resolution. the 25 of them did not. and that kept the government open here in the senate. there were many, everyone on this side, the other side of the aisle opposes obamacare. the majority didn't want to use to bludgeon and say, you reject obamacare, we are going to shut the government doubt or for that matter, not raise the debt ceiling. we are not, mr. president, in an alice in wonderland world, where those who advocate shutting the government down then accuse others of shutting the government out. that is that watching what the american people and it won't wash in this body but the vast majority of members of both the aisle. and so i would say to my colleagues, if you wish to have

a debate on what parts of the government would be funded and at what level, it is wrong in my opinion to say shut the government down and then we will decide piece by piece to helping. that is alice in wonderland in my judgment. i would rather -- it makes much more sense to have the government open and then have a debate in the proper place, a conference can be with anonymous appropriations bill what level of funding if any each part of the government should get. so to deprive our national parks by advocating shutting the government down and then accuse others who don't want to leave 98% of the government behind and that the people who work there behind him that the american people who depend on so many other programs, whether it's student loans are feeding the

hungry is wrong. and so i would ask consent that the request be modified as follows in the amendment, which is at the desk be agreed to, but the joint resolution be amended and then read a third time in the motion to be reconsidered be made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. this amendment is taxed that passed the senate and as they claim continuing resolution for the entire government, actually leaving no man or woman behind him is something that is already over in the house and has the support reportedly the majority of members of the house, including members of both parties. some of the senator agreed to modify his request? >> does the senator agreed to so modify his request? >> mr. president, reserving the right to object, i think the senator from new york for his heartfelt concern for the republican party. i note that the senator from new york stated that i quote, have

advocated shutting down the government. that statement, unfortunately, is a flat-out falsehood and i know the senator from new york would not do so knowing my come is a must of been a mistaken statement because throughout the course of this debate, i have said repeatedly in every context number we should not shut the government down. a shutdown is a mistake and i very much hope that the majority leader would not force a shutdown on this country. we are in a shutdown because the democrats in this body have refused to negotiate, refused to compromise. i would note as well, i am quite grateful for the majority leader's admonition this morning traceability on the floor and the senator from illinois admonition towards real name team. that is an admonition while heard. it is quite striking. you know, it has been several days and said unto the floor floor of the senate and yet i feel i've been here in absentia because so many democrats have been up to my name as the root

of all evil in the world and indeed the same majority leader they gave an ode to civility just a few days ago was describing me and anyone who might agree that we should stop the harms of obamacare, describe and assess quote anarchists. the encouragement traceability is an encouragement that should be heard across the board. and i would note also that my friends on the democratic side of the aisle have described what they claim to be the piecemeal approach as following my priorities. several democrats have used that language publicly. i must note, mr. president, i find it quite ironic because if i were to stand up here and say, it is my priority and not the prayer did the democrats are fun veterans. is my parody another priority to fund the national guard. it is my priority and not do prior to the democrat to fund research for health care, they

would quite rightly be able to rise and claim under rule 19 that i was impugning their motives. i cannot imagine a greater insult than to claim it is not the priority of members of this body to treat fairly our veterans. and yet what i find so striking is so many democrats go out publicly and embrace that. they say funding the veterans is cruz's priority, not ours. and yet, i will note even on that front, the funding proposals that the house of representatives has passed i'm not even houses priorities, although under the constitution they have a legitimate laying out priorities for funding. they are president obama's priorities. just a few days ago the president gave a speech to this country, a speech that all of us watched closely in which the president said, but if a

shutdown occurred, quote, veterans or sacrifice for their country will find the support centers unstaffed era the president also with regards to parks as we are discussing no memorials, quote, tourists will find every one of america's national parks and monuments from yosemite to the smithsonian to the statue of liberty immediately closed. into the credit credit of the house of representatives, they listen to the president's speech. they listen to president obama's priorities and house of representatives acted with bipartisan cooperation. they said mr. president, would perjure priorities. let's fund them. let's work together. i would know by phone from maryland a moment ago gave a speech about how it is, he thinks, that we should unscrewed inspectors and the department of agriculture and also our intelligence community. i fully agree with him and indeed would be happy to work arm in arm and fund the intelligence community, fully fund them today.

the only impediment that happening is the democrats in this body or object. and that is what should be abundantly clear. when it comes to parks, when it comes to the moral scum we've all read about world war ii veterans being turned away from the world war ii memorial. we have all read about mount vernon, which is privately owned, the federal government blocking the parking lot. >> mr. president. can i ask permission -- [inaudible] >> does the senator yield for a question? >> i'm happy to yield for a question to the majority leader. >> mr. president, my question was i was under the assumption that my friend would offer consent agreements would brief responses into competing consent agreements and the senator would speak for 20 minutes. my only concern is this, one, two, three. i have five or six senators waiting to speak.

my question is this. do you wish to take 20 minutes following this into addition to time your sticking out? >> senate from texas. >> i think the majority leader for his question. at his request, i began with these unanimous consent request. it was my intention to keep my remarks at the end, but i would note that in each of the objections my friends on the democratic side of the out have chosen to stand up and give their remarks. if the remarks are to be given by the democrats, then it is certainly a perp or at the same response be given. so with the courtesy of the majority leader was asking that none of the remarks that his friends and colleagues have any response, that was not a courtesy was prepared to give. i am prepared to work and cooperate on timing, but not to allow moment one side of the discussion presented. >> further mr. president, i ask unanimous consent request, when a senator from texas finishes

his consent that he's asking, there's one more more as i understand it. then i ask permission the next senator be recognized so mikulski for her. senator mikulski for 10 minutes, senator from florida -- so it's not bad. only a couple to speak. senator mikulski be recognized for up to 15 minutes. i apologize for the interruption. the floor as the senators from texas. >> without objection. >> the senator from texas, is there objection to the modification? >> the modification -- >> is there objection to the modification of your consent request? by the senator from new york. >> reserving the right to object.

the modification the senator from new york has suggested is that he is unwilling to open our national parks, to open our memorials unless every other aspect of the government is open immediately and obamacare is forced upon the american people. that is quite simply and directly saying that the senate will not respond to president obama's priorities. president obama gave a speech saying we should open our parks, open our memorials. the house of representatives said mr. president, we work with you to do that and today the democrats and senator objecting and say no, we won every park closed, every memorial close. all of that will be held hostage until obamacare is forced on every american. i find that highly objectionable and i object. >> objection is heard. is there objection to the original request? >> reserving the right to object to not be brief. >> senator from new york. >> i want to make this point. the junior senator from texas

has had its president obama and the democrats shutting the government down. my modification that he objects to would open up the entire government. we put it on the floor. we are all for it. he objected to it, therefore i will object to the junior senator from texas is proposal. >> the objection is heard. senator from texas. >> mr. president, the unanimous consent request that i promulgate. i asking as consent to senate proceed to a href 73 making appropriations for the national institutes of health for fiscal year 2014. i have further consent the measure be read three times in passing that the motion to reconsider be considered nader might upon the table. >> is there objection? >> mr. president. >> majority leader. >> prior to responding to my friend, i would use a few minutes later time for -- here's what i'm going to say.

mr. president, we've heard this back in four sets. but let's also come into addition to what the senator from washington said, let me read one paragraph from the record of yesterday. i also note that i believe the resolution the senator is offering the past by partial running for the va. there is no fun in here to operate the national cemeteries. there's no funding for the board of veterans appeals. there's no funding for constructing hospitals and clinics. there's no funding to operate the i.t. system to continue going forward. mr. president, i reserve the right to object to my friend from texas request. i object as do most americans. there is the reason for us to have to choose between important government functions as has been said by my three colleagues so brilliantly this morning.

i guess my objection is best paraphrased by reading it home from the "washington post" by dana milbank. here's what he said. i can continue to decide which functions are receiving. i'm veterans, poor children, pregnant women and other government function that regulates business. market regulation, chemical spill in those traditions worksite immigration checks, workplace safety inspections, and environmental protection agency, communications, trade regulations, trish and her mind and koon alien pregnant women and other functions the centers for disease control prevention and housing assistance for the poor. mr. president, i spent a month

ago today at the national institute of health. i remember so clearly one institute i went to, where this young girl, about 12 years old, had come back for a second visit. she had a disease that you really didn't know for sure what it is. but they were trying to figure out what she had. they felt that they were on the cusp of being able to figure that out in the parents of course were very, very happy. mr. president, we know how important it is that the little children, babies, adults be taking care of, especially toward a time when they have no hope. that is at the nih is about, hope. so mr. president, i really believe that we should open the government, all the government. this is a trip down a road that

is so foolish we need not be fair. if people have a problem with obamacare, and i know my friend, junior senator from texas doesn't care for obamacare. let's do it in a context that's reasonable and fair, not have all the people in america, who are so troubled with this. i heard an interview with the governor of maryland this morning. they are losing $15 million or $20 million a day because of the government being closed in maryland. so mr. president, i would ask my friend to accept a modification. it is a modification that is so well-intentioned. but it would do is open the government. it would take care of the national institutes of health. it would take care of the veterans, including all the stuff that's left out of the consent we have here before, which i read into the record a minute ago and would take care of the national parks, which in nevada we are desperate to have those.

seven, eight minutes out of las vegas, a million people a year visit. we have one about 12 miles outside of las vegas. 600,000 people that use lake mead. the other is bedrock and we have a great national park. mr. president, that would solve this problem like that. so i ask consent that my friend from texas can simply modify the amendment reached to the desk, that the joint resolution be read at the time pass a motion to be reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. this amendment is the text i passed the senate in a six and continuing for the entire government and set in already over the house and reporting us the support of the majority members of the house of representatives. finally, mr. president, the statement i made of the little girl, she came back there now for her clinical trial. likely she would be on to have any help, just as we learned earlier this week at the 200

people who were turned away from clinical trials, 30 of which were babies and children. >> ascender grisons modifies his original request. >> mr. president, reserving the right to object. i would know the majority leader made a plea for compromise. i think most americans want to see a compromise. the house of representatives has repeatedly compromised already. the house began. it is the view of every republican in this body and into the republican in the house that obamacare should be entirely and completely repealed. nonetheless, the house started with a compromise is seen not obamacare. they simply that it should be defended. they defended the entire federal government and defended obamacare. it came to the senate, but the majority leader and 54 democrats voted in lockstep to say no, absolutely not, we'll talk, we'll compromise. the house just came up a second compromise.

they said fine, if the senate will not agree to fully defund obamacare, but let's all agree to a reasonable one-year delay. president obama has articulate obamacare for big business. let's treat hard-working american families at least as well as big business. let's have a one-year delay because we see how badly this thing is working. that is a big compromised into funding. he came to the senate and the majority leader and 54 democrats said no, we will not talk, we will not compromise. shut the government down. the house came back a third time is that okay, how about we simply delay the individual mandate, what small portion of obamacare and revoke the congressional recess should obama illegally gave members to exempt us from the burdens of obamacare for the millions of americans. mr. president, that represented

an enormous compromise to the view of republicans that obamacare should be repealed in its entirety. and what did the senate say? to the semifamous and work something out? to the senate say let's find a middle ground? no. the majority leader of the 51st senate democrat said absolutely not, we will not talk, we will not compromise. shut the government down. satisfy the government to shut down right now. just a moment ago the majority leader gave his latest offer. it is given us everything we demand of 100%, no compromise, no middle ground. that is the position. other democrats in this body. that's not a reasonable position. that's not the way people work together to find a middle ground. and the support of the majority leader urged the president not even to talk to congressional leaders. now the president apparently had a change of heart and sat down with congressional leaders and nottingham ballot counts an extraordinary conversation where president obama said i called

you over here to say i'm not going to talk to you. i am not going to negotiate. i must admit that it's a remarkable conversation to call someone over to say good to see you, we're not going to talk. mr. president, this matter is resolved, we need to see good faith among members on both sides. republicans have repeatedly been offering compromises to resolve the shut down and unfortunately, the behavior of the majority party in this body has been my way or the highway and one can only assume that their stated public believes is actually a senior administration official from the obama administration said, we think we are winning politically. i am paraphrasing, but we don't care when the shutdown ends. that is a paraphrase. it's not exact, but that was certainly the thrust of the statement from what was described as a senior

administration official. i think that's cynical, partisan. i don't think that's what we should be doing. so i wish the majority leader and democrats would see what should be shared by partisan priorities, but it appears that they are not, that their position is give us everything, fully fund obamacare and force it on the american people. that i cannot consent to win so i object. >> the objection is heard. is there objection to the recount request? >> majority leader. >> mr. president, my friend from texas and i have developed a relationship with him. tax the batting meeting that he didn't attend, the senator from texas did not attend. i was there. i was one of five people. president, speaker boehner, leader mcconnell, leader pelosi and me. and i do -- yes, i'm sorry. now mr. president, i attended that meeting.

the president didn't say come on man, i'm not going to cost you. i have nothing to say. the meeting lasted an hour and 20 minutes. there was a lot of things that are one thing that wasn't said alice wonderland -- [inaudible] talks about the meeting that wasn't there. mr. president, let's talk about compromise. my friend pratap compromise. we have before us a continuing resolution. my friend, the speaker of the house of representatives, john boehner called me and said we've got to work this out. we've got to get this done quickly. and i thought, so how are we going to get it done? this is on september 9th, after our recess and date.

he said we've got to have 788 number, the number for this year. 988, i am sorry. thank you. 988. i said i can't do that. i can't do that. chairman murray's number $70 billion above that. it would pass here in the senate. we passed it. i can't agree to 988. he said you've got to do it. i don't want a big fight. i want to get this done. so i talked to chairman murray, chairman mikulski and others and even now it was desperately hard to do because we don't like the number of 988. they don't like it. it is not our number. we agree to do it. that was a compromise. mr. president, i've been in congress 31 years and that is the biggest compromise i've ever made.

my caucus didn't like it. but we did it. in an effort to have a clean cr. you talk about compromise, that was big-time. the speaker boehner, i'm sure well-intentioned, he couldn't get it done. he couldn't get it done. it was his idea how to get it done. then, mr. president, talk about further compromise, one of the last things we had from the house is go to conference. some i thought, i have some thing that is so good he can't refuse it. what did i do? with the cooperation of all 53 democratic senators, here's what we agree to do. all of the government and what we will do is go to conference, not on little select areas.

we'll go to conference. i listed everything. not everything, but everything i could think of. for this adapter culture. resisted discretionary spending and yes, we listed health care. but i gave the letter to the speaker. i talked to him 45 minutes later and said i can't do it. wow. so mr. president, i know what legislation is all about. it is the art of compromise. i understand that. and we have compromised in big time fashion. the problem is the speaker and some other republican members of congress are in a real bind because the only thing they want to talk about is a lot the past four years ago. the supreme court declared constitutional, which is a little unusual leverett bank.

so we, mr. president are where we are because we not only have the government shutdown, but we have the full faith and credit of our nation before as in a week or 10 days. so mr. president, i suggest i don't want anyone to say that i have a compromise. all one needs to do is talk to any member of my caucus and they will talk about how difficult it has been for us to accept that number and agree to go to conference. so i object. >> objection is heard. >> mr. president. >> senator from texas. >> if my friend would yield. >> majority leader. >> yes, thank you. following his statement 20 minutes, i asked the following senators recognized.

here we go. mikulski already has 15 minutes. murray i ask consent that she follow mikulski for 10 minutes. heinrich for how much time? 10 minutes. schumer 15 minutes. so i ask consent that be the case. >> is there objection? >> the next time there is an order on the democratic side. >> well, mr. president, some republicans want to come and talk. i'd be happy to yield for many of them. we have added large number of people this morning. >> without objection. >> senator from texas. >> mr. president, bismarck famously talked about legislation as making sausages and the aspects of both that are not pretty. i wish we saw elected leaders in both parties working together to listen to the american people.

you know, the majority leader talked about the meeting at the white house and i will note, he noted that i was not at that meeting. that is certainly true. but the statement that the president said he would not negotiate came directly from speaker boehner who was at that meeting they came and gave a press conference immediately thereafter. i know the majority leader is not impugning the integrity of the speaker of the house or disputing that that is except they were president obama said and what the position of the democrats have said. her position as it is 100% of what we want the government stays shut down. mr. president, that quite simply is not reasonable. i would like to address for a moment a few of the arguments that have been raised against these very reasonable bipartisan proposals to fund essential priorities in our government because they think the argument still withstand scrutiny. some on the democratic side of seattle have said we are not

going to pick and choose. indeed, the majority leader said there's no reason to have to choose between government priorities. mr. president, let me suggest that the essence of legislation. we have $72 debt because far too many people cite as the as majority leader just said, no reason to choose between priorities we should spend on everything. i would note also that what the democrats in this chamber derives a piecemeal strategy as a traditional means of appropriate in legislation. the only reason i have a phone of this continuing resolution is this because congress has failed to do its job to appropriate unspecific matters. so we should be considering the va on its own merits. and i would know, the majority leader is right that the house bill funded the most critical component of the va, pension and home loan and g.i. bill and disability payments. but i would readily assay to the majority leader if he would like a constraint must chemin of the

entirety, including elements he laid out, we could reach unanimous agreement on that within hours. the traditional means of legislating is one subject at a time. it is not typical when considering funding for the va that the argument you about unrelated matters. whether it is the department of agriculture or obamacare, the way this body has always operated as a considered one subject matter and time, except when congress has failed to appropriate and everything has gotten lumped together in a giant omnibus bill, but there is a reason for that. secondly, mr. president, every bit as critically, we have done it already. this is not theoretical. at the beginning of this proceeding, the house of representatives unanimously passed a bill saying let's find the men and women of our

military. now when it came to the senate, a great many people expected the majority leader to do with the majority leader just said, object to funding the men and women of our military. some senators came onto the floor prepared to make the argument we shouldn't hold the men and women of the military hostage. and yet much to our very presence surprise, the majority leader reconsidered. he decided one must assume not defensible to hold hostage the paychecks of the men and women of the military. so the majority of the day concluded, great in this by the unanimously passed funding for the men and women of the military. regardless of what happens with a government shutdown, our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines should not be held hostage. they should get their paychecks. and indeed i rose on the senate floor. i commended the majority leader for doing the right thing for acting in a bipartisan manner. and yet sadly that was the last

of that behavior we were to see. i hope that majority leader returns. i hope the majority leader who said we are going to fund the men and women of our military returns to see this thing into our veterans. i hope the majority leader returns to say the same things during national guard. i hope the majority leader returns to say the same into our parks and war memorials. i hope that majority leader returns to say the same thing to the national institutes for health, to say the same thing to children facing life-threatening diseases like cancer. you know, we may not be able to resolve 100% of this impasse today. there are differences and to resolve those differences is going to take sitting down, talking, working through the matters of disagreement. one side of this chamber is prepared to do this. the democrats are not. in the meantime, a not to be a

bipartisan priority to fund our veterans. you know, a second possible objection, i can see some watching this debate who think okay, but if you find the va, doesn't that mean the democrats have given in on obamacare quite somehow it has to be connected to obamacare, right? mr. president, as every member of this body knows, the va is totally disconnected. the va bill that passed the house does implicate obamacare, doesn't mention obamacare. but, we have a disagreement on obamacare. part of this body thinks it's a terrific though. part of this body thinks it's a train wreck, and disaster. that is an important debate. but whether or not veterans get disability payment shouldn't be made hostage to resolving that today. it is exactly like the bill to my friends on the democratic side of the aisle are devoted for two fundamental women of the military. exactly the same. they have done it once.

and yet for whatever reason, they have made a decision that he appears to the public to be cynical and partisan. there should be no confusion. the house of representatives have overwhelmingly voted to protect our veterans and funds the va. 35 democrats joined republicans in the house to do that. 35. it was bipartisan legislation. they came over here. every senate republican agrees we should fund the va. we should pass this bill. there is unanimity and indeed the president, when he addressed the nation said his priority was to fund the va. so we've got republicans and democrats in the house agreed we should fund the va. we have republicans in the senate and a democratic president of the united states agreed we should fund the va.

i'm sad that we have democrats in the senate and the majority leader in the senate objective of stopping the va from being fun. if my friends on the democratic side of the aisle simply sit up right now and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day, the va would receive its funding. if my friends on the democratic side of the aisle simply sit up and withdrew their objection, by the end of the day our friends in the reserve would receive their paychecks or what have the paychecks and planning return. and my friends on the democratic side of the aisle withdrew their objection at the end of the day, our national parks and immoral about their funding and we would open the statue of liberty, open our war memorials. a bevy of the day, we could restore funding to the national institutes of health. there are many other priorities. my friend from maryland when he was talking about other

priorities, there's a great many aspects of government. for example, earlier this week the director of national intelligence and head of the nsa testified the senate judiciary committee. the head of national intelligence said that some 70% of civilian employed in the intelligence community have been furloughed and that presents a real threat to our national security. mr. president if that's right, where is the commander-in-chief? why is the president of the united states not done you right now saying regardless of what you all do in the budget, don't expose this to national security threats. with fully fund the department of defense. that's fully fund our intelligence agency. and indeed i would note the junior senator from arizona asked the head of national intelligence, have you advised the president that congress should pass a continuing resolution funding the intelligence community, just like we did for the members of the armed forces?

the answer from the head of the national intelligence appointed by president obama lysias, congress should do it. and yes i will advise the president. mr. president, right now we have senate democrat who were not listening to the testimony and device of the members of our intelligence community who say that there is a grave national security threat that we are not adequately prepared to defend ourselves against. surely partisan politics should end at that point. surely we should come together and say we can keep fighting on obamacare. eventually it will work it out. surely we should next those are national security riots from terrorists for attacks on our homeland in the meantime you got out to be 100 to zero,

mr. president. but at the end of the day, there's only one explanation that makes sense for why you saw one democrat after another standing up and objecting, no, don't fund the va. don't fund the reserve members of our military. now don't fund the parks. another from the national institutes of health. the only explanation is at all possible is that many members of this body agree with some of the pond it's that this shutdown benefits the political fortunes of democrats. i sure hope people are focused on things other than political fortune and partisan politics because every one of us take serious the obligations we have fewer constituents back home. i sure hope that's not going on, but it's hard for the american people not to be cynical when

they read about mount vernon, which is privately owned and operated doesn't get its money from the federal government, be in effect delay forced to shut down because the federal government wants the parking lots and put up barricades to prevent people from going to mount vernon. it's hard not to be cynical when you read about what my friend, senator john thune told me about mount rushmore. the federal government directed their kids on the roads leading mount rushmore. spent some money to do it mind you. they spent the money to erect the barricades. those are state roads in the governor said take them down. the only conclusion that's possible they are is that you are seeing cynical partisan gamesmanship, a decision by president obama and unfortunately democrats in this body that inflicting the maximum pain on the american people will yield political benefits. we are to be able to agree our

veterans are politics. we have to agree our war memorials are about politics. we have to be able to come together and agreed to spending national security defending against terrorist threats is about politics. and everyone in congress is prepared to do so except for the majority leader in the senate democrats who were insisting everything be shut down. so mr. president, if a federal workers at home today for about, you should know the reason is in large part because the senate democrats refused to let you come back to work. because we could agree for a significant portion of the federal government to come back to work monday morning. isn't that the democrats would stop object gained, stop insisting they get everything on obamacare. and let me know, the issue when obamacare is very simple. is there a double standard? president obama has extended big

business and exempted members of congress. and yet coming years for is a government shutdown to deny the same exemption to hard-working americans. millions of americans who are losing their jobs, the forced into part-time work, facing skyrocketing health-insurance premiums by losing their health insurance. let me remind this body of the words of james hoffer, president of the teamsters, who said that obamacare is destroying the health care coverage used the word destroyed, destroying health care of millions of working men and women in this country. if you don't believe me, perhaps james hoffa who put it in writing that it is right now destroying the health care of millions of working men and women who -underscore but this fight is about. all the seniors, all to do with disabilities, all the people right now getting notices that they are losing their health insurance, this is what the fight is about. and at a minimum, we ought to

agree on common priorities. we ought to come together today, right now and fund the va. we have to come together right now and fund our reservists and national guard. we have to come together today right now and fund our national parks, open our memorial, stop irritating and seven police officers to prevent world war ii veterans from coming to the world war ii memorial. we had to come together right not to fund the national institutes of health because everyone agrees on that. and the decision to hold those priorities hostage because the democrats want to force upon the care on everyone, it's not related to them. it has nothing to do with them. it's all about political leverage. mr. president, that's not the way we should be doing our jobs. we should be listening to the people. we should make d.c. listen.

thank you, mr. chairman. >> a look at the u.s. capitol where this weekend both the house and senate will be in session. they'll be working on agreement to fund the federal government. "the associated press" reports the houston is expected to approve a measure that ensures the furloughed federal workers will be paid once the shutdown ends. lawmakers are then expected to take two days off. house republicans appear to be shifting their demands. they are deemphasizing assistance on the founding of the health care lot and focusing on federal benefit programs and future deficits. vatican from "the associated press." at a press conference today, senate majority leader harry reid called a four-day long shutdown an embarrassment, especially in the world stage. president obama had to cancel a planned trip to asia for the apex summit this weekend. the majority leader and other leaders in the senate once again caught an house speaker john

boehner to bring the president spending bill to the floor for a vote to end the shutdown. here is a news conference earlier today. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> last night, the president announced he wasn't taking the trip to asia for the two summits that he had. the shutdown was obviously unfair to the american people, embarrassing to the american people. especially on the world stage is a very important international event the president had been planning to attend for a very long time. he's been hamstring in his efforts to keep america competitive and secure because republicans simply are unwilling to open the government. this kind of basic function of what we do. while the government can move forward. the shutdown is hurting our economy. i have long telephonic conversation today with elected officials in nevada, state and local officials. they are really concerned.

the state of nevada is losing revenue because of the shutdown as all states are losing revenue. this bill is just not an economic issue. it's also an issue about national security. the government shutdown is hurting our ability to enforce the sanctions on iran, to gather intelligence, operate armed forces, just to name a few. the treasury department has furloughed 90% of the employees in the office of terrorism financing and intelligence. that's their charge. and they're not able to fill that. of the 100 employees in the united states government sanctions, monitoring agency, there's only 11 out of 175 working today. undersecretary of state, wendy sherman said and i quote, the staff sanction invaders being hampered significantly by the shutdown, close quote.

72% of the intelligence community has been idled by the government shutdown. listen to this, everyone. for now showing figures this morning, it was really incredible what has happened. 900 phd's, 4000 computer scientists and 1000 mathematicians not working. even proud of the shutdown, the director of the fbi warned that his agency would have to implement furlough days just to make the painful sequester. now it's worse than that. there's workers still going to work at the fbi, but without pay. chief of staff retired, rate zero dear no has said the shutdown affects day-to-day operations of the army. i said retired. he's there now.

sorry. the longer it goes on, the worse it gets. everyday that goes by we are losing manpower. we are losing capability. so every day, these courageous brave men and women coming to work, but in their lives on the line and are doing so without pay. yesterday we witnessed an event here on capitol hill for 16 bucks. weapons were being deemed as charged. seven teen to 20 bullets. a number of those people are working without pay. says speaker boehner could end this republican shutdown today if he chose. he is sitting on the one vote that can and the shutdown commercial use in the house to vote. again, let's remind everyone why. for a while the republicans try to cover why they were the government and threatening to not extended to.

obamacare. so i say to my friend, john boehner, this is not about you and it's not about erie v. as better country, our national security. do the right thing and end the shutdown now. >> thank you, senator reid. 24 hours ago we faced a potential threat to our own personal security on capitol hill. the men and women of the capitol police met forward to protect us. sadly, a woman lost her life in the process, but they were doing their duty. they were doing their duty and we should respect them for it. to respect them, we should pay them. it's what they choose through the speakers and a twitter message to the capitol police acknowledging their bravery. it's another thing or have to acknowledge and respect what they are doing for us by paying them. here they go without pay to work every day.

part of the tea party shutdown of this government as fat or read has said earlier, that isn't the whole story by a longshot. there's a lot more involved in this. to think that we have laid off 72% of our civilian intelligence employees, at this moment in time in our history is unthinkable. to think 90% of those responsible for enforcing the iran sanctions to stop the development of nuclear weapons as being furloughed is unthinkable. speaker boehner might think he can declare a timeout on the war and terrorism, but he can't. this threat to america continues in this notion that we are going to furlough, layoffs and maybe not pay others who are protecting us, both here and overseas is not in the best interest of america's national security. let me tell you, it reaches beyond the federal payroll.

i talked to senator chris murphy of connecticut yesterday and they are facing a situation that he's publicly announced here at through the circuit is the helicopter in their decision to lay off 1500 salaried workers and up to 4000 total workers because of the lack of department of defense inspectors on the production lines. here are 4000 people out of work. not federal employees, because the decision of the tea party republicans to shut down the government. so now we've learned every time i go to the floor and tell the stories, the tea party republicans say will make an exception for that one. they wish to come to the floor of the senator and house house agreed to direct to revolve the federal agencies. would they open the government then? the point is these men and women do important work to keep the country safe in moving forward. it is an embarrassment to the united states that we've reached

this point and tea party republicans persist to this comment the wire for the federal employees and services. it will damage our economy. we are going to find ourselves moving backwards instead of forward at the expense of good jobs in america. >> well, thank you to harry and. at three points i want to make. the first relates to what happened yesterday. i spoke this morning to officer carter. he is the police officer who was injured. he is a 24 year veteran of the capitol hill police force and it looks like, think that, he'll be back on the job in two days. but here's the point. these people were not furloughed because obviously they are involved with their safety. the fact that they weren't getting paid and they are not going to get paid didn't for one little shot interfere with their professionalism and religion than they did a great job. and the belittling of the federal government belittles all

federal employees, and officer carter of the people who did the job. second point i want to make is related to security. some americans are saying it didn't affect me. it affects every american because our national security has decreased because of the tea party shutdown. harry mentioned the intelligence agencies that senator feinstein has talked about those, where 72% of the people are not working. they are very vital people. these are not slackers are people not doing their job, quote, the federal government. they are diligent, hard-working people protecting us in the area chosen to focus on here is a man in its sanctions. we have finally seen some innovate change in at least the way iran talks. we don't know if it that will lead to some good, but it is certainly an opening and that occurred because of the sanctions. the legislation a person that

passed both chambers, but the diligence of the men and women enforcing the sanctions. while kind of rude to want to get around the sanctions. they look for every which way to do it. but our federal government employees and the treasury department had done a great job. i want to reiterate kerry's numbers to show you how bear, hot those offices are. the office of intelligence and analysis, the office of financial crimes enforcement together have 30 of their 345 employees. the office of terrorist financing intelligence has 10%, one employee left. they have 10. in the treasury department's office of foreign assets control, the primary office for enforcing the sanctions in punishing those who violate the sanctions is operating with a skeletal staff.

so just at the time and sanctions are biting and maybe your brand is giving up the ghost of nuclear weapons, the tea party shut down late in the sanctions far more than any negotiation could do. it lightens the sanctions and the rogue people who want to sell oil to iran, who want to trade the two men are back in business. so, this is another. there's so many bad aspects to the tea party shut down. i think i know what senator cruz will do tomorrow because you mentioned iran sanctions today, he will put a bill on the floor that says profundities offices and maybe if we talk about middle-class families getting help for student loans being hampered by the tea party shut down, he'll put a bill on the floor to do that. it's getting ridiculous. and so, we have something to say to our republican colleagues.

today they're talking point when they spread it around is, let's talk. well, we are happy to talk, but talking is not going to undo damage to our economy and to so many american citizen but the tea party shut down. they're talking point leaves out what should be said first, just vote. once they vote, bring back the government workers and all the people who are vital to our security and our health and well-being. then let's talk. so we want to modify the republican talking point today. we don't want to change it. we want to say jerry talking point is missing a vital, vital piece. just vote, then let's talk.

>> over the past week, i've been in constant touch be on the impacts of the shut down. one thing i've been following fairly closely as former chairman of the veterans affairs committee and daughter of a world war ii veteran is the impact a shutdown could happen our nation's heroes. so today, i wanted to share with all of the son of the information on just how many veterans will be impact did if this continues into the weeks ahead. on november 1st, the next data checks will go from the va and am, up to 5 million veterans may not receive the benefits they've earned and rely on to make ends meet. over 700,000 young veterans, many of them who works on multiple tours in iraq and afghanistan will get the benefits come in the g.i. benefits they are using now to transition back to civilian careers. there are also 725,000 veterans with benefit claims made at the

va will they see their wait time increase. this is absolutely unacceptable. our nation's veterans are waiting in the leave me they are watching. now i know that my republican friends in the house and senator cruz think that they have a silver bullet solution to every problem that's been created by the shut down they created. and i know the house is going to spend the weekend giving out objections like oprah winfrey gives out cars. but here's the truth. anyone who has worked on veteran issues will tell you, it is not one program or one agency that provides the services and benefits that all of our veterans rely on. it is the variety of programs all across our government. homeless grants come from ahead. veterans jobs programs for dll. with hundreds of thousands of veterans that are federal workers, who are at home today on furlough. would also have rarely 500

capitol police officers senator reid talked about who are current or former military working without pay. so it is not as simple as house republicans are senator cruz think it is. veterans, by the way, understand that. the story in the "huffington post" included some interviews with our veterans who are visiting war ii memorial. unsurprisingly today, many said the veteran specific measures were not enough. wilber tate, an 87-year-old army veteran from kansas that an ipo, i think it should all be be opened. frank lutz, and world war ii veteran said in the navy in that quote, i think the whole works should be reopened. we are here to tell frank and all of our veterans that can be. it's up to speaker boehner. the senate has passed a short-term bill to open up the government and end this manufactured crisis.

we know there is a bipartisan majority in the house that now supports that approach. all speaker boehner has to do is let them know. this isn't the time to talk about opening up the government. it is the time to actually do it. the work of minix, no more games. stop scrambling to make it look like they care about families and communities impacted. do something to help them. once the house passes are built, one stands this crisis and stop threatening the country with another, then of course we would sit down with the republicans and work towards what we've been trying to work towards for more than six months come i want budget deal. in fact, it's been years to been trying to get there. i've been trying to start a budget conference. as you well know, it has been bought every time. so yes, let's talk, but first let's act. but then this crisis.

>> on the media had at the white house, have you walked 100 yards or so to speaker boehner's office once this week to talk for possible solutions, or has he come to your office? >> i have said and i was taught you again, i'm not sure it underwent comprehensive vendor murray and mikulski how difficult it was to negotiate the number speaker boehner said we would have to agree to to get a clean cr. it was an ac. it didn't happen in two or three minutes. it took several days to convince murray and mikulski and the rest of the democratic senators that we would ask except $70 billion less than what we pass on the senate floor budget. i did that in the good faith,

compromise the negotiations i made the speaker boehner would bear fruit. i lived up to my end of the bargain. he didn't. now, we know that he tried to send us over a clean cr. we all know that he tried to have attached to that the funding of obama. so we are where we are. everyone understands the fact that the only thing they want to deal with this obamacare. sorry to give you such a long answer, but let's say there were a republican president and a democratic majority here in the senate. and we say will be happy to raise the debt ceiling. we will open the government, but there's 85% of the american people support background checks. people that have mental illness and are criminals.

we are not going to let them buy guns that will allow the government to be open if you accept this bill that the vast majority of the american people accept. the only difference in this and what they are trying to do is that it is a different subject matter. so the president can't do this. he explained very clearly. just better than i did of course in the white house the other night. the first thing that came up when we saw the exchange at senator mcconnell and brand thing we poll tested this. we think this is a great idea for us. we have negotiated our hearts out. we even went one step further one day this week we said ok, we will give you a deal you can't refuse. that is you want to talk, you want to negotiate coming want to have a conference on anything you want to talk about. but talk about agriculture. but talk about discretionary

spending and we'll talk about health care. it is a deal with that he couldn't refuse, but he did. so we have negotiated a lot. once the senator murray has said, once the government reopened to make it the debt ceiling resettled, we'll be happy to talk to them about anything they want to talk about. if there were things i didn't include my letter, i told them will talk about it. [inaudible] >> airwaves in washington who was reported saying we been told to make life is difficult for people as we can. it's disgusting. hundreds of parks that are privately funded are being closed and they don't seem to understand why. >> privately funded quick >> s., nonprofit. they want to know why they are being closed. is that far out of spite than anything else?

>> we believe that all government -- i don't know anything about nonprofits, so we'll check it out. but we believe that all government should be opened. you know, one of the things in the unanimous consent request that they compounded our national parks is to say of nevada is 85% owned by the federal government. the vast majority is prl management. they didn't include that, which includes conservation areas have been on the state. it doesn't work. i don't know about this lady. you have to talk to her yourself. the fact is we are doing the very best we can. every federal agency is doing the best they can to follow guidelines they been given by the office of management and budget. that includes senator durbin,

who is chair of the appropriations subcommittee on defense. he has talked endlessly about the many hundreds of thousands of federal employees that work with the defense department. i don't buy the exact percentage. half of them are veterans. 25% are disabled. they are not being paid now. so i don't know what some park ranger said, but i too know this is a tremendous surge of people throughout america because the speaker boehner and this track because of obamacare, by the way, a law that is four years old. >> the funding level decision would it be for the shutdown, usually when they are is the one size, two sides, one side has the advantage offered, some say saving measures of the other can actually save space. >> this is not a face-saving deal. this isn't a day to the prom. this is our country.

we work very hard to get this caucus to accept that lower number. and it is a lower number. $70 billion less. so let's not give this face-saving business here. let's talk about our country. what is more important? i said in an interview yesterday, what is more important? our country or a position of leadership? i sat there i hope i would have the courage when i came to that that i would choose a country, not over my job as leader. [inaudible] >> the first is whether you plan to bring up -- [inaudible] >> the problem we have with what's going on in the house of representatives, it changes by the hour.