quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be

vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: further, i ask to be able to speak for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: and i would request that my staffer, ed shelby, be allowed to come to the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: thank you. thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about reopening the government. we're now five days into a government shutdown that should never have happened. minnesotans do not want a government shutdown. they want us to do our jobs. not refight the same old political battles over and over again. with each day of shutdown i hear more and more reports about how it is affecting minnesotans, as i'm sure the presiding officer hears about it affecting the

people of maine. minnesotans seeking basic government services are being turned away, hundreds of people go to the minneapolis social security office each day to get social security cards, from the first day of the shutdown according to "the minneapolis star tribune," those minnesotans, some of whom took time off work and drove long distances arrived to find the card center closed. minnesota's small businesses are also feeling the impacts. small businesses in minnesota receive an average of $1.8 million in loans every day under the small business administration's loan guarantee programs in 2012. with the government shut down, these programs will no longer take new applications and our businesses have to put their plans on hold. and it's not just businesses

that are facing problems getting access to loans. minnesota is the home to a lot of great smaller financial institutions, we have the second most community banks in the country, home to a lot of credit unions and i talk with them regularly. earlier this week i met with folks from some minnesota credit unions and they explained to me as a result of the shutdown they're having problems approving mortgages because the social security administration can't verify social security numbers. that is not just bad for those minnesotans who are trying to buy or sell a home, it's just also bad for the economy. this week my office heard from one of those minnesotans who is in the process of buying a home, jesse is using a usda rural development loan, his banker now has all of the

documentation exiled and ready -- compiled and ready to be submitted for approval, but they're shut down. jesse was originally supposed to close on october 11, next friday, and the sellers were scheduled to close on another property right after closing on the property they're selling to jesse. now, jesse and his family are now living with his in-laws, and they have all their possessions in storage. he just doesn't know whether he's going to be able to close on his new home, all because some people thought it was a good idea to insist on shutting down the government to repeal the health care law. which isn't going to happen, and never was going to happen. jesse is really frustrated and disappointed. he felt compelled to let me know how this is affecting him, how

it's affecting people and he asked me to do whatever possible that i can do to end this shutdown quickly. the shutdown is also affecting other minnesotans who depend on vital federal programs. federal nutrition programs, for example. an estimated 125,000 minnesota mothers and mothers-to-be depend on women, infants and children program, or w.i.c. so they can buy healthy food for their families. with the shutdown, no new federal funds are available to support w.i.c. that puts the program in minnesota and the women and children that it serves at risk. hopefully, we can avoid any terrible consequences by getting the government up and running as quickly as possible, but in some other states such as utah, according to forbes, they have already stopped accepting new participants.

in a shutdown, the administration for community living in the department of health and human services can't fund senior nutrition programs such as meals on wheels. seniors who rely on meals on wheels face uncertainty and if the shutdown goes on, state and local agencies are -- and social security -- state and local agencies are unable to replace the federal funding, outright inability to access the program. and that's why i will be donating my salary during the shutdown to second harvest heartland, a great hunger relief organization that works throughout minnesota to help people who need it to get food. meanwhile, minnesota's farmers can't get the resources that they need. susan magadans a constituent of

mine from eden valley in minnesota works at the usda farm service agency. she wrote me -- and i quote -- "this shutdown has cut off services to thousands of american farmers, they cannot get grain checks released and are missing access to funds they require to carry out their operation"-- unquote. the shutdown is hitting minnesotans in many other ways as well. the shutdown means that the national institutes of health is not awarding any new funds or making payments on recently awarded grants. the mayo clinic receives 40% of its research funding from n.i.h. grants. and, by the way, this is one of the many reasons we're going to have to address the sequester. this sequester has hit vital n.i.h. funding really hard, though this is an agency that some people seem not to have

noticed until the shutdown. speaking of the effects of the shutdown compounding the damage from the sequester, tribal schools are being hit even harder because they get a substantial portion of their funding from the federal government in what is called impact aid. impact aid is federal money that goes to school districts where federal property or federal activity significantly reduce the local tax base, the biggest recipients are schools on military bases and on indian reservations. i have 11 tribes in minnesota, and some of them get about a third of their school funding from the federal government. i'm on the indian affairs committee, and i can tell you that sequestration has been hitting them even harder than

it's been hitting other people. these are some of the most vulnerable kids in the country. their after-school programs are being canceled because of the sequester. and now on top of that, impact aid is at even greater risk because of the shutdown. that is not right, it is just wrong. some veterans' services through the department of veterans affairs are curtailed and if the shutdown goes on much longer v.a. will not be able to process benefits claims claims and payments, aggravating the claims backlog that we've been working so hard to address. these are just some of the effects that the shutdown is having on minnesotans. people are suffering. minnesotans who have written me and called my office want congress to get things done, to

do our work and not shut down the government. more than a week ago, i voted with the presiding officer and a majority of my colleagues in the senate and passed a bill to keep the government open and prevent the damage that a shutdown does to our country and to our economy. the house can take up that bill and pass it in at matter of hours and it would reopen the government immediately. it has been widely reported that enough republicans and democrats support that bill for it to pass in the house if speaker boehner would only put it up for a vote in the house. that's all he needs to do, let the full house vote on the continuing resolution. but the house hasn't done that. instead, a faction of the republicans in the house has

decided that rehashing old political fights and political brinksmanship are more important than getting back to the job that we were sent here to do, which is putting americans back to work, improving our education, strengthening our economic recovery. earlier this week i was asked what i would be working on if there were no shutdown. well, one of the things i would be doing would be working to pass my community college career fund act. this legislation is aimed at closing what is called the skills tbap. what is the skills gap? recent studies in minnesota show that about a third to a half of all manufacturers in our state have jobs that they need filled

but they can't fill because they don't have people with the skills to fill them. there are more than three million of those jobs across the country that are going unfilled because of the lack of workers with the right skills. my bill would help those companies that have open positions, it would help workers find jobs, it would help our country be more competitive globally. it would address ladies and gentlemen affordable -- college affordability. it's the kind of thing we need to be doing. now, i have seen partnerships between businesses and community colleges in minnesota that work. at hennepin technical college in hennepin county, for example, a group of manufacturers worked

with the school, hennepin technical college, created a curriculum where students could get a credentialallized degree, a credential. i went to a roundtable there and they told me that they had put over 300 students through this course and 93% of them had permanent jobs. now, the manufacturers who were in job -- involved in this partnership had skin in the game. they gave them machines. they helped design the curriculum. and now they have people filling the jobs that they -- that need to be filled. i've seen this model work throughout minnesota and i've seen it work throughout our country. but we still have a skills gap, and that's why my bill would create a competitive grant program to incentivize partnerships between businesses

and community colleges. this isn't just manufacturers. it's in health care, it's in i.t. it would incentivize businesses and community colleges to create programs targeted at getting workers the skills that they need to fill these jobs. this is what i want to be working on. this is what the presiding officer wants to be working on for the people of maine. this is the kind of things -- thing americans sent us here to do. americans want us to learn from strategies that are succeeding in our states, in minnesota, in maine and then work together to make our country more prosperous and stronger. what else are we supposed to do?

that's why they sent us here. i recognize that we have political differences that we have to work through, but brinksmanship and crises can't be the rule. they should be the exception. after the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, standard & poor's downgraded our nation's credit rating and they cited the dysfunction in congress as the main reason. after that, people thought, i thought, i believe most people in this country thought, okay, well, we've learned our lesson; we're not going to govern by crisis and brinksmanship. and, in fact, this year in march

the senate passed a budget through the regular process, with regular order, and the house passed a budget. it was a different budget but that's the way it works. and then you get together for a conference. we have sought for months to have a conference with the house to resolve the differences in regular order. but we were stopped by the same senators who thought it was a good idea to shut down the government to defund the affordable care act. and the house has simply refused to go to conference. instead, they waited for the government shutdown and then sought to go to conferences on a -- go to conference on a 2 1/2-month continuing resolution that would delay the health care law for a year.

that is irresponsible. minnesotans and americans, they want us to govern responsibly. brenda gorrich from duluth wrote me on once about her husband, a disabled veteran whose disability benefit is now further delayed due to the shutdown. she says -- and i quote -- "we would rather do without than have you give in to delaying the affordable care act. please stand strong and do not let anyone change or delay this. we will sit tight without income while you work towards this." and overwhelmingly, americans do not want us to shut down the government to stop the implementation of the affordable care act. and earlier this week, minnesota's health care exchange opened, and according to minnesota public radio, received

approximately 100,000 web hits on its first days, the second highest numbers of any of -- of hits in any state. and believe me, we are not the second largest state. so the shutdown is not actually stopping implementation of the health care law. instead, the shutdown is threatening to do serious damage to our economy. today, jobless claims are close to a five-year low. the second quarter of 2013 marked nine consecutive quarters of economic growth. the private sector has created 7.5 million jobs over the last 42 months. there are more people on private, non-farm payrolls than at any time since sech septembef 2008. but the shutdown is putting our still fragile economic recovery in jeopardy. moody's chief economist, mark zandi, testified before the senate a few weeks ago that a shutdown lasting just a few days

would cost the economy approximately .2% of g.d.p. and a longer shutdown could cost as much as 1.4%. the u.s. chamber of commerce has called on gressio congress to ke government opening, stating -- and i quote -- "it is not in the best interest of the american community or the u.s. people to risk even a disruptive shutdown that mike trigger disruptive consequences or uncertainties washing over the u.s. economy." this shutdown is painful for our constituents and it is damaging the economy. and everyone should understand, this is costing -- costing the government money. some people may think, well, at least is the government is shut down, we're saving money.

but actually, the very opposite is the case. recently in "the new york times," a -- they had an editorial that detailed some of the reasons that shutdowns end up being very expensive. a shutdown government can't collect fines and fees, contractors building and the cost of the shutdown and the added probability to further shutdowns to how much they add to charge the federal government. lost economic output means lower tax revenue for federal, state and local governments. this shutdown is unnecessary and it is ir is rationarrational. please, let's reopen the government and get back to the work that the people elected us to do. thank you, mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president, today marks the fifth day of the government shutdown. with each passing day, the consequences grow more severe, more people are affected, and the implications grow far more serious. federal civilian employees working to support our national guard, overhaul our nuclear submarines and analyze the latest terrorist threat are being furloughed, leaving us less safe as a county. now, i understand that this afternoon, secretary hagel, in a response to the letter that the presiding officer and i signed, along with many of our colleagues, is recalling some of

those civilian workers. but there are still other implications. disabled veterans who have sacrificed so much for this country are facing delays in the handling of their claims. pregnant women and little children who depend on foods provided by the w.i.c. program are at risk. and vital biomedical research is being disrupted such that even the sickest children cannot enroll in clinical trials at the national institutes of health. and the impact goes beyond these services provided by essential federal programs. jobs in the private sector are affected as well. in maine, our gem of a national

park, acadia national park, is shuddered during the peak of the foliage season. this -- shuttered during the peak of the foliage season. this not only hurts tourists, it hurts bed and breakfast organizations, servers at restaurants and small gift shop entrepreneurs who depend on these tourists during this time of year. the list of harm goes on and on and on and worsens it each passing day. it is time, mr. president, for this shutdown to end. mr. president, from the start of this debate, i've urged our house colleagues not to adopt a policy that linked obamacare with the funding of government. i've been outspoken in my own

opposition to obamacare and have cast many a vote consistent with that position. i've cosponsored and introduced bills to reform the law so that we can better rein in health care costs and truly help the uninsured without jeopardizing their jobs and without imposing billions of dollars of new taxes, fees and penalties that discourage job creation and drive up costs. but the fact is, mr. president, the democratic senate is never going to pass nor is president obama ever going to sign a bill that repeals his signature accomplishment. so now that we have all made crystal clear where we stand on

obamacare, it is past time that we reason together on how to bring this impasse to an end. in that regard, i must express my own disappointment at the lack of results from the president's meeting with congressional leaders and what i understand to be the president's refusal to enter into negotiations with congress. so let me present to my colleagues and to the president for their consideration a proposal to bring an end to the shutdown. the proposal is based on concepts that have been discussed by senator pat toomey and congressman charlie dent and they also reflect by own personal discussions with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

mr. president, even the staunchest advocates of obamacare, including the president himself, recognize that the law is not perfect. what 2,000-plus-page law dealing with extremely complex issues could be? the president himself has delayed implementation of the employer mandate and certain consumer protections. i have, therefore, searched for common ground on reforming obamacare, seeking a proposal that has widespread bipartisan support in order to attract the necessary votes of our house colleagues on both sides of the aisle. and that is the repeal of the 2.3% tax on the sales of medical equipment.

when such an amendment repealing this tax was considered by the senate during the budget resolution, it passed by a resounding vote of 79-20. clearly , it has strong bipartisan support. this $30 billion tax on medical devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators will cause the loss of as many as 43,000 domestic jobs, according to industry estimates. it will reduce investment in research to produce new medical devices, and, ironically, it will increase health care costs because the manufacturers will simply pass on the cost to sciewrls. -- to consumers. now, the administration has

protested the idea of repealing this tax because it would lose $30 billion in revenue over the next ten years. fair enough. let's make up for the lost revenue by providing an offset. it's a complicated one, but it works. it's called "pension smoothing." it would smooth out the amount of payments that businesses make into pension plans. this is not an unusual concept. new york state has adopted it to allow local school systems to reduce their annual pension contributions somewhat next year in exchange for higher payments in future years. the result of allowing private businesses to smooth out their pension contributions would produce tal tax revenue bylog tr

deductions, and that could be used to offset the cost of repealing the tax on medical equipment. second, i would propose that the continuing resolution funding government include a bipartisan bill that senator mark udall and i introduced earlier this year to give agencies flexibility to deal with sequestration. it makes no sense at all for federal marker managers not to e to set their priorities and then submit their plans to the appropriations committees, as they do now, with reprogramming requests. sequestration is a flawed poli policy. it does not discriminate between absolutely essential programs and those that are duplicative, wasteful, or simply less

important. now, it is congress that should be making these decisions, but if across-the-board meat-ax cuts of sequestration stay in effect, the least we can do is let federal managers set priorities and manage their budgets subject to congressional oversight. mr. president, it is my hope that if repeal of the medical equipment tax offset fully by the pension-smoothing proposal, plus the collins-udall flexibility bill, were combined with a continuing resolution to fund government, we might well have the combination necessary to secure the votes and reopen government. surely, it is worth a try. so on this late saturday afternoon, i offer this

petroleum and i urge my house colleagues to send us such i offer this proposal, and i ucialg my house colleagues to send us such a bill, which i would urge the majority leader to schedule for a vote. we have a lot to do to restore the public's confidence in our ability to govern. we can start by offering and voting on specific proposals, such as this one. it is time that both sides come out from their partisan corners, stop fighting, and start legislating in good faith. the shutdown represents a failure to govern and must be brought to an end. thank you, mr. president. ms. landrieu: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i am not happy to be here, but

it is an honor and a privilege to be on the senate floor representing the people of louisiana and speaking for constituents around the country on this important subject. and it is unfortunate that we're here today because of the irresponsible behavior of one group of members from one party in basically one chamber. and while i most certainly respect my colleague from maine and think that the proposal that she's generally outlined has a lot of merit -- and, i would add, there would probably be 15, 20, or 25 other senators from both parties who have worked together to find common ground on many, many issues that could come up with equally meritorious proposals -- it misses a very important point. and the point is simply that the

house republicans and a handful of senate republicans have forced the government into a shutdown, hurting their own constituents -- hundreds of thousands of their own constituents -- and small businesses in their district who don't deserve, in any way, to be dragged into this fight or to be used as bait in these negotiations. that point cannot be understated, and it cannot be ignored. this whole issue is not caused because neither side can compromise or we can't find common ground. we've proven that over and over and over again on hundreds of issues. i, myself, along with the senator from maine, and you, who are new here, the presiding officer -- but not new to

government -- have been part of dozens of extraordinary efforts when there didn't seem to be any way forward to find a way. so we know how to do that. we can do it. the problem is that there is a rump group of republicans and the republican house leadership that has made a terrible mistake in shutting the government down and putting government workers and our private-sector partners -- and i want to underscore "our private-sector partners"; this government does not work with just federal employees alone; they do the bulk and wonderful work, many of them do, that we rely on every day -: our neighbors, our relatives, our aunts, uncles, et cetera. but the real power is not just

with them. it is with the private sector that helps this government and our nonprofit -- not-for-profit sector that joins with us in fulfilling the missions, the important missions of government, that have been put at risk. what that ruch rump group did, though, is basically take all of this hostage until they get something. and what they want to date is not clear. they want many things, all sorts of different things. one of them is to repeal the affordable care act or to dismantle it in such a way that it can't work to provide for the first time in the history of america affordable access to health insurance. there are other reasons that have been stated. they don't like the spending levels. they don't like the debt. they don't like democrats generally. they don't like president obama. i mean, there have been many things i've read about p what

they've said, but no matter what they've said, their actions are irresponsible, reckless, and neither the president nor the democrats should enter into negotiation with a gun to our constituents' heads. it's -- that's as simple as it is. it is -- there is a difference, but it is an important, important difference. house republicans cannot get democrats to any negotiating table unless they put the weapons down. these weapons are being used against their own constituents and their own businesses in their own districts, and it is not fair. i want to read from one of my constituents who says it better than i could. it is one of the menls that came into our office. we've been closed but

functioning with a small staff. this missive message is from vickie cusimano, whose wife mark is a 13-year military veteran who works on a plane as a technician in bell chase, louisiana, which by the way would be on high alert today because there is a storm out in the gulf of mexico. thank goodness it is not a hurricane, but it is a tropical storm karen, that has put the whole gulf coast, you know, a little bit on edge. it is not a huge and powerful storm. but these storms are unpredictable, as you know being from a coastal state yourself, how these things can happen. anyway, bell chase is right there. vickie is there with her husband mark, a 13-year veteran. they just pushed us away and said, hey, we're going to fight and you're going to pay for it. well, they're still getting paychecks, we're not, and now

we're trying to figure out ow we're going to fend for our families. that's what mark said. vickie say, "we have bills to pay and you can't tell wells fargo, sorry, i can't pay my house note today because the federal government has furloughed my husband." so, i want to clarify, because i've been one of the ones saying, you know, we do need to negotiate, but we need to negotiate without a gun to our head. we need to negotiate when the house decides and the house recognizes that their reckless behavior cannot be encouraged, that it's wrong. i know it's a hard when you make a mistake to admit that you're wrong. it's very hard to dovment but this would be a time to do it and then move on to negotiations that we can have over everything, whether it's the affordable care act, whether it's the budget, whether it's the appropriations -- i'm chair

of the homeland security appropriations bills. i most certainly know how to negotiate a major bill, $42 billion. dan scoatsdan coats is my rankir from indiana. we have been in negotiations for years on the homeland security bill. but when we asked the democrats and the president -- but the democrats asked to go to the budget conference to work out the differences between the budget in the house, the ryan budget, and the budget in the senate, the murray budget, which unusually was passed on -- during the same week -- people won't even remember this because it was so long ago. it was sometime in april -- sometime in april, the house passed their budget, after an open, raucous debate. we passed our gaivment i think

we stayed on the floor until 5:00 in the morning, i recall. i remember being very tired and everybody was pretty agray vatted. but we stayed heard and we got our work done. so when people call for negotiation, the time for negotiation was then, and we can still have this six-month delayed negotiation. but the house republicans, the tea party republicans and house republicans have to put their weapons down. you cannot negotiate with a gun to your head, and it's not fair. it's not just to ours, but it's to our constituents and our businesses, on their behalf, i'm saying to my delegation and to the house republicans, don't use these reckless and irresponsible tactics. and, in addition, don't even threaten -- don't even use the threat of not living up to the full faith and credit of the united states of america. you are really playing with fire then.

and that's what i believe the president is saying. that's what democrats are saying. now, we have proven -- it's not a matter of conjecture or a matter of guessing or a matter of, well, they say they negotiate, but they really won't. this is the record. i mean, here is the record. this is evidence. this is not something anybody made up, and it's in the "congressional record." i'm not going to read the whole sheet here, but i'm going to say that this -- what this says is, on 19 separate occasions, senator reid or senator murray or senator wyden or one of the democrats came to the floor -- here are the dat dates -- april, may 6, may 7, may 8, may 9, may 14, may 15, may 16, may 21, may 22, et cetera, et cetera -- june 19, 26, july, august, and then the latest was september of --

i'm sorry, october 2. those are the facts. and on every single occasion there were five senators that stood up on behalf of the others here and blocked it and said, no, we cannot, we will not go to budget conference. those senators were senator mcconnell on may 8, senator mcconnell on may 9, et cetera, et cetera. senator paul on may 2. senator toomey on june 19. senator cruz, who's been the leader of this irresponsible and reckless strategy, which is getting, i don't think, his party or his future anywhere, but we'll have to see about that. mike lee on july 17. and then senator rubio on