a understanand every dollar of e pay, that's another dollar we don't have pour head start or education or research or for higher education. so this is a real problem. what are redoing? we have people who have said, it doesn't matter. we don't need to pay our debt. we can just decide which bills we're going to pay. and i'm like, every person in america, they know that when they go to check their credit score, if you could -- if you are going to get a car loan, right? get a car loan and you want to go to the bank and get a car loan, they say, you don't have a high enough credit score so we're going to deny you a car loan. they go, but, what's the problem? they say, you missed cried card payments. and you missed your mortgage payment. but you i always paid my car loan. that's not the way it works. that is not the way it works. what they know and what the american people know is if you don't pay all your bills, your credit rating goes down.

your credit rating goes dowfnlt the tragedy of this is that we're not only going to add to the deficit and debt of this country by playing this brinksmanship, we are going to hurt every american, every american who relies on credit, whether it is a mortgage, whether it is car loan, a student loan. we've now linke link student loo this problem. think about the dollars and think about what's happening to the american people when we don't do the things that we need to do. we shut down government but won't let people go to work, serve the public, but then say, oh, don't worry, we're going to pay you. and then we cost by shutting down this government -- we have cost millions and millions a and millions and billions of dollars, adding to the deficit and debt. dollars that we didn't have to spend. and now we're going to play this brinksmanship in our debt limb.

debt limit. we're going to shake up not only the american markets, we're going it add to the interest costs not only of the american people and of this government, we already have in the markets discounting of our treasury bills. we already have seen exactly what's going to happen, and the longer this impasse starks the e more dract the result this is going to be. and yesterday we sent the wrong message to the markets. we need to sent the right message. we need to come together. we need to lead from the senate. because the house, which isn't even in session today addressing this problem, seems to think that there's no problem with the debt limit, that there's no problem with not paying our bills, there's no problem with paying people and not letting them work. and you know what my dad would say? how darned dumb are ya? and what i say is, that makes no

sense. because as passionate as what i know they are about debt and deficit reduction, the reality is, what we're doing is adding to the debt and deficit. what we are doing is -- is justifying, justifying a 5% approval rating for the united states congress. every day we're here that we don't achieve a result, every day we're here that we don't solve this problem, how can you argue the american public's judgment is wrong? madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. madam president, we're in the 13th day of a self-inflicted crisis brought to us by the republicans. and why did this happen? why are we in the 13th day of a shutdown? a 13th day of the american

people not being able to count on their government, which is supposed to be of, by and for the people? why? because speaker boehner over in the house said he doesn't believe the american people want the affordable care act. and even though he believed they didn't want a shutdown, unfortunately that's what he brought to the nation. that is horrible news. horrible news. people are suffering. people are struggling. hundreds of thousands of people are not getting their paycheck. and americans know a lot of us do count on that paycheck. it's not like we have massive amounts of savings behind it.

you don't get that paycheck, you're in trouble. how do you pay the mortgage? how do you pay the rent? that's what's happening. we've got police officers talked to me yesterday trying to use some gallows humor to explain away their fears. they're afraid. they can't pay the bills. they have families. this is a disgrace. a self-inflicted disgrace on our nation. and i haven't even got ton haven't even gotten to the issue that's staring us in the face. perhaps the first time in history that america would not pay its bills, a default. even though the constitution is clear and it says, essentially, the bills -- the debts of the united states shall not be

questioned. that's in the constitution. well, they're being requested -- they're being questioned. we have a situation where not only are these employees of the federal government being laid off and not getting paid and the communities in which they live are going to suffer because they really can't go down to the corner store, but the contractors are not getting pa paid, the small businesses are not getting paid, road projects -- and i know something about, as chairman of the environment and public works committee, many new projects are stopped in their tracks, not because people aren't ready to go but because all the various sign-off as that have to be made before you -- sign-offs that have to be made before you sign a project have to be made.

investigations into chemical explosions that kill people every single year in america -- stopped in their tracks. so we don't know why. investigations into airplane crashes -- stopped in their tracks. little kids kept out of head start. why? because the republicans don't like the affordable care act. what is it that they don't like about the affordable care act? i ask rhetorically. do they not like the fact that 3 million adults in america are now insured through their parents' plan? i'm sure many in your state, madam president. i know in my state, over a million. are they that upset that they want to shut down the government because people are getting insurance? eight million -- no, let me

revise this. 71 million people across the country -- 8 million in my state -- getting free preventive services, including immunization. are they they upset that they would shut down the government and make our people suffer and shut the doors? 17 million kids with preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes can no longer be denied health insurance coverage. madam president, you are a champion for children. i can imagine how you feel about this. they want to repeal a law that finally has protected 17 million kids with preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes. there are no more lifetime limits on policies. there was a magnificent piece written in "the washington post" by one of my constituents, a mom, a freelance writer who talks about her son, who was born with a brain tumor, and over the years they've had to

have operation after operation after operation. and they came an inch away from reaching a lifetime limit on the policy, $500,000. and they learned that the affordable care act passed and this child got his health care. and now, as she says, he's talking and he's walking and he's shooting baskets. i saw that mom and the son on "the lawrence o'donnell show" the other night. and if you haven't seen it on msnbc, i think you ought to take a look at it. so you have to wonder, what it s it that they're trying to do? now, what's interesting, if you listen to my colleagues now, they're off the affordable care act, they kind of gave up on it. because we said to them, this law passed four years ago, it has a steady stream of funding, it's got its kinks and its problems -- we're going to work with on that -- but you can't stop t. it was upheld in the --

you can't stop it. it was upheld in the supreme court. you lost an election about it. get a life. figure it out. it's happening. okay? it's happening. so now they've got a new thing -- deficitsmen deficits. madam president, you're considered a fiscal conservati conservative. and i just want you to -- i want to remind you and everyone listening to the sound of my voice that not only did the democrats lead the way on a balanced budget, we actually got surpluses at the time that bill clinton was president. how did we do it? we worked together with our republican friends but we passed a budget without one republican vote. 4 and we set the stage. and you know what happened? not only did we have a surplus. but at that time, we created 23 million new jobs. what a glorious time. and we didn't do it by

threatening to shut down the government. we didn't do it by threatening to default on the full faith and credit of the united states of america. we did it by sitting down, looking at each other, smiling, shaking hands, and work together. work -- and working together. let's open up the government. let's pay our bills and then let us sit down and really debate how we're going to get to a balanced budget. we have a lot of history to draw from. we do know when you put two woors warson a credit card and t tax breaks to millionaires on a credit card and a prescription drug benefit on a credit card, it's a problem. that's why we saw, under george w. bush, surpluses turn immediately into deficits. now our colleagues suddenly are deficit hawks. where were they when george w. was putting all this on the credit card? and now they don't want to pay the bills. it's unbelievable.

this is not complicated. this is a self-inflicted crisis. you keep the government open. you pay the bills. and through regular order, with my friend, the good senator from alabama and my friend, the great senator also from washington state sitting down, hammering it out, we bring in paul ryan, we bring in the house democrats, and we sit down and through them we get a path forward. everything that is happening now is unnecessary. i want to repeat that. everything that is happening now is unnecessary. 13th take oth day of a shutdown. pain and suffering throughout the country. i've got a community in los angeles. little kids have -- their noses are bleeding, they're sick. they live near some industrial site. e.p.a. said they were getting to. e.p.a. got the message.

you're out. we can't help you. we're closed down. 92% furloughed. and you'll notice in all those little mini bills, madam president, you didn't see anything about that. no watch-dogs anymore. you know? their watch-dogdogs are gone. we can't have government by press release. we can't have government by mini bills. we are the greatest nation on god's earth and we need to open the doors and let the people in. we have elections. elections have consequences. republicans control the house, it is true. but democrats control the senate and the white house. therefore, we need to work together. we don't threaten to shut down. i'd ask for 60 seconds. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: so here's the good news. the good news is we have a bill

over in the house. it's a clean continuing resolution. it would open up the doors government immediately. and it's only -- it's a very short-term c.r., a continuing resolution, and would still preserve every one's right to sit dunn -- everyone's right to sit down and negotiate through regular order. we have a strong budget chairman. we have a strong budget ranking member. america's gotten to know them well. and the same in the house. therefore, i put my faith in those folks under regular order. so we could open up this government in five minutes. we could pass a clean debt in seven minutes. and then we sit down and negotiate. i did speak with leader reid this morning and i feel is he optimistic that we're going to get there. i really do. and it lifts my spirits. mitch mcconnell and harry reid have been here a long time. they've had their ups and downs and sideways, line everybody in

their relationships here. but i think they know the moment of history is calling them and i put my faith in that. and i hope i'm right. and i thank you, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: thank you, madam president. yesterday senate represented rejected a cloture motion on a strictly party-line basis for a simple measure to prevent default for the united states of america. this bears repeating. yesterday we voted whether or not to proceed to a bill to prevent default and not one senate republican voted for it. i think it's fair to say that manufacture the senate republicans -- i think it's fair to say that many of the senate republicans are operating in good faith and have a strong desire to get out of this mess, but they're concerned about embarrassing and undermining the speaker of the house by moving too quickly on this measure. well, madam president, too quickly came and went a couple of months ago. and worrying about undermining

the speaker of the house should not be our primary concern. given the crisis upon us, we should be singularly focused on protecting the dollar as the reserve currency, maintaining our ability to borrow at the lowest possibility rate, and retaining our ability to solve problems as the greatest nation in the world. the time for worrying about the implications for one or the other political party or a faction b within it has long sie passed. it's time to reopen government, to pay our bills, to ensure the full faith and credit of the united states, and to return to the negotiating table on all of the challenges in front of us. in short, it's time to get back to governing in the way that we should. i'd like to emphasize a point that's not made often enough about the current crisis and that is this -- there is simply nothing conservative about the behavior of the house republicans.

conservatives traditionally have been characterized by hold holda respect for institutions, a focus the needs of the private city,, and a desire to not waste money. are these principles being upheld or subverted by the actions of house republicans? first, with respect to our democratic institutions, the procedural violence being done to the united states congress is hard to overstate in this case. the idea that a faction of a party is demanding concessions in exchange for ceasing their infliction of pain on america is unbelievable. why? because we are all americans here. we all want to do right by our country. so the idea that one party is willing to inflict terrible pain on our country or else was so beyond the pale that there's no rule against it. because no one ever contemplated that a major political party would ever behave in such a way. the assumption has always been

that elected leaders would find a better way to stand up for strongly held beliefs than by threatening to bring the american economy to its knees. up until now, that has been a safe assumption. this is the least conservative behavior imaginable because it throws us into permanent crisis, unable to solve major problems for the foreseeable future. second, conservatives traditionally have wanted to protect the free marketplace. some default deniers surmise that maybe the united states government can service its debt while delaying other payments, that we can simply prioritize. the united states of america cannot do that. even if it were operationally possible, which the treasury department assures us it is not, it would cause such severe harm to markets and undermine our credibility so terribly that even talking like that may be doing damage to our economy.

in 2011, congress' delay in raising the debt limit forced the department of the treasury to take extraordinary measures to ensure that our government could pay its bills. g.a.o. estimates that this raised treasury's borrowing costs by about $1.3 billion in fiscal 2011. that's $1.3 billion in added government costs just for coming close defaulting. and this does not include the lingering added costs to borrowing that continue beyonded fiscal 2011 -- continued beyond fiscal 2011. and this also does not include the time that these extraordinary measures meant. it took folk us way from other important cash and debt management responsibilities. the bipartisan policy center projects that the full cost of that crisis to the federal government alone -- not to commit, just to the federal government -- not to the economy, just to the federal government -- will be around $19 billion over the maturity of the debt.

there is nothing conservatively virch with us abouconservativelt we out t. will cripple foreign markets. it is russian roulette played with a bullet in every chamber. there's nothing conservative about that. finally, there is the conservative principle about saving taxpayer dollars. two points on this. first, with the likely passage of the house bill to provide retroactive pay to federal employees, let me tell you what is happening. we are paying federal employees to stay home. we are paying our dedicated federal workers who want to do their jobs not to do their jobs. this is not conservative. this is not liberal, for that matter. it is upside-down. we are preventing federal most from doing their important work like assisting small businesses and combating terrorism. let me be clear. federal workers did not cause this shutdown and should not lose pay because of it. that's why i cosponsored senator

cardin's bill to make sure they receive back pay when the government reopens. our nation's furloughed public servants want to work, and many federal civilian employees are being required to work during this shutdown without pay. while it doesn't make sense to punish federal workers for congress' dysfunction, it makes way more sense to simply reopen the federal government. still, the house refuses to vote on a clean continuing resolution that could reopen the government tomorrow, but instead voted to give back pay after the shutdown ends. what is conservative about paying people to stay home? second, this shutdown is costing us money, not saving us money. in just the first week, it cost the economy $1.6 billion in lost economic output, and is estimated to cost an average of $160 million each additional day. this is hurting small businesses

and working families across the country, and it is completely avoidable. madam president, as you know, people are in real pain, and this needs to stop. there is nothing good in this shutdown or in the threat of default. as a progressive, i talked on this floor about how it hurts our economy, the american people and the priorities that i am fighting for, but you don't have to share my priorities to think this is an awful mess. you can be a rock-ribbed conservative, too. this is bad for all of us. there is a simple way to move forward, madam president. open our government, pay our bills and start negotiating on the issues that matter. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you, madam president. i am pleased to join my colleague from hawaii, senator schatz, and share his point, and i think most of the american people share his perspective that this is an awful mess and

it's way past time that we fix it. i am hearing from people in new hampshire every day who are affected by the negative consequences of this shutdown. i heard from some employees at the berlin prison. this is a medium security facility in the northern part of new hampshire. it hasn't even been fully staffed up, doesn't have all of the inmates there, and several of the employees had emailed me talking about what their situation is. one woman says we're expected to work and not get paid for the time being, but it's going to be tough when both working members of the household are government employees who aren't getting paid. i'm expected to make my federal student loan payments on time as well as my private student loans. how is one supposed to do that when the government isn't paying them? they expect payments, well, so

don't we? i also heard from a gentleman whose family is back in new york because he is still getting settled in berlin. he's got a child who is ill and he says that he was told last week that any sick or annual leave could be used but it would be considered as a nonpaid day during this shutdown. he says i have been dealing for the past three months with my youngest child who has been having kidney problems and had surgery recently. my wife also has been having kidney difficulty and had surgery, so now he says i can't respond to my family's aid because i would be concerned about whether or not i'm going to be able to get paid for these sick days, so we are hearing from people across new hampshire. furloughed -- hundreds of federal workers have been

furloughed in the state. new small business administration loans have been stopped. federal housing administration and v.a. loans have been slowed. facilities in the white mountain national forest have been closed. now at a time which is -- this is the peak weekend for foliage in the white mountains of new hampshire, and yet because of the shutdown, facilities, bathrooms in the white mountain national forest are closed, campgrounds are closed, the small businesses that depend on those for the rest of their season are taking a future hit. so many of the manufacturing businesses in new hampshire are being affected. i heard from a company called nanocom, which is a real innovative small new hampshire company that's produced the next generation carbon nanotube technology. they have a number of federal contracts. they have already been hit by sequestration, so this is a

double whammy, and their c.e.o. said to me we would burn through our very thin cash reserves as a result of this shutdown, and when that money is burned, it's not able to be replaced, so our basic financial viability can be irrevokably damaged, even after the crisis passes. for this company, the consequences of this shutdown could be irreversible. i heard from another small business owner with a company called globaphone. he called because he is so frustrated because again his government contracts aren't being paid. he doesn't know what that's going to mean. their cash flow is uncertain. he is not sure if his line of credit with the bank is going to continue. very real consequences from this government shutdown. and then, of course, on s.b.a. loans. according to the granite state development corporation, which

is one of the largest s.b.a. lenders in new hampshire, about 20 loans have been put on hold with the granite state development corporation because of that shutdown, this shutdown. and then we have heard from some of our community banks who provide for s.b.a. loans, that those loans are being held up. there is no doubt that this is having a huge impact on new hampshire, on families, on small businesses, that it's having an impact across this country. and that's affecting economic activity. as the presiding officer said so well in his comments, this is having a huge impact on how the economy of this country's doing, and as we think about the concerns that we've heard expressed about the debt and the deficit. one of the -- one of the real improvements to reducing the deficit and the debt as this

economy recovers is the recovery itself. it's improved economic activity. it's making sure that businesses can do better, they can hire more workers. people get back to work, they can pay their taxes, and yet that very economic recovery is what's being threatened right now by this shutdown. we know that as bad as this shutdown is -- and we're in the 13th day -- that four days from now, we have an even more disastrous potential impact to this country and to our economy looming. economists across the ideological spectrum have warned that if the federal government defaults on paying our bills, if we reach that debt ceiling and so we don't continue to pay our bills, we could see businesses stop hiring, retirement accounts

and families' nest eggs could lose much of their value overnight, interest rates would rise, which means higher costs for consumers, small businesses and the federal government, and consumer confidence which is so important for small businesses would drop sharply. we're seeing that already. in the last few weeks, we have seen the sharpest drop in consumer confidence since the fall of lehman brothers back in 2008. now, we've heard from some people who are debt deniers -- debt ceiling deniers that these are just scare tactics, that these terrible consequences wouldn't happen. but, in fact, we saw that in 2011, when we were having this debate again about whether we should raise the debt ceiling or not, that there were dire

consequences to that debate. in late-july and early ark leading up to the debt deal of 2011, the dow jones industrial average dropped 2,000 points. as a result of that point, average americans with retirement accounts and other investments saw their household wealth plummet by $2.4 trillion. our credit rating was downgraded for the first time in america's history, and the crisis resulted in an additional $1.3 billion in borrowing costs for the federal government. as the presiding officer said so well, if you care about the debt and the deficits facing this country, why would we inflict that kind of burden again on the economy by saying we're not going to raise the debt ceiling? the potential consequences, if we refuse raise the debt ceiling, on november 1 -- we've already heard from treasury

secretary lew that social security and medicare, which have been affected -- not been affected by the shutdown, would clearly be affected by a default, that it could delay or disrupt social security checks, medicare, medicaid, veterans benefits, military salaries, and according to the treasury delayed or disrupted payments would prevent 57.5 million americans from receiving social security benefit benefits in a y manner. this could put the most vulnerable people in america in jeopardy. it could prevent them from receiving the benefit benefits t they've certain, the benefits that they need to live on. -- that they've earned, the benefits that they immediate to live on. my fellow colleague and former senator, judd gregg, and i agree on the negative consequences of our failure to act to increase the ability of this country to

pay its bills. in an p ed published by the "hill" newspaper, senator gregg said that the brinksmanship on default is, "the political equivalent of playing russian roulette with all the chambers of the gun loaded that is the ultimate no-win strategy. a default would lead to some level of chaos in the debt markets, which would lead to a significant contraction in economic activity, which would lead to job losses, which would lead to higher spending by the federal government and lower tax revenues, which would lead to more debt." that sums i it up pretty well. senator gregg, i think, understands, as i think most of us do, in the house and senate that for us to refuse to raise this debt ceiling, to allow the country to pay its bills, to allow the country to default would be shortsighted, it would be irresponsible and reckless

and i hope that we are all going to come together to get this done in the next couple of days and save this country from even more disastrous consequences. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, the vote yesterday was to raise the debt ceiling without altering by one penny the spending and debt path we're on. it was demand by senator reid and the majority leader that we raise the debt ceiling, just give the president another $1 trillion or however many billion dollars it was, and we're not going to -- no commitment to make any changes in how we got here. that was not what we did in august of 2011. we agreed to reduce the growth of spending over ten years by $2.1 trillion, in exchange for

raising the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion. of course we've already spent all that. we've already borrowed now almost $2.1 trillion more, and they're demanding a clean debt ceiling where we raise the debt ceiling but don't bother to ask us to change our spending habits not one penny. that's wrong. you can't negotiate on the debt ceiling. so i just think it's perfectly appropriate. the house is prepared to do this, but they want some changes in how we're spending the taxpayers' money. the american people are tired of it. by a huge majority, they say we should not raise the debt ceiling unless we change our spending habits. actually, almost a quarter of the american people say we should live within our income, we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling at all. and the idea that the president of the united states would not

pay the bondholders of the united states, the debt holders of our country if the debt ceiling were not raised is just unthinkable. of course he will. he has to, really, under the constitution. if we did not raise the debt ceiling, we would be bringing in $240 billion a month, and the interest on our debt is $20 billion a month. and that should be the first thing that's paid, and i'm sure would be, if we -- that were to happen. but i agree. the shutdown needs to end and the debt ceiling impasse needs to be dealt with and get past it. we really do. it's not good for merkel but we cannot just say we're not going to do anything. we're just no not going to makey changes in our habits around here. that's what's at stake. let me take a few minutes to

walk through our situation, how we got here, especially with discretionary spending, and i hope this will be helpful to my colleagues. it is the product of our work on the budget committee, where i'm ranking member. many will remember in the summer of 2011 that congress and the president engaged in a vigorous debate, toughe if you have, tou. we've added $6 trillion to the debt of the united states of america over five years. it was ultimately resolved with the passage o of the budget control act. the b.c.a. had at its heart three agreements: first, it required a vote in each house of congress on a balanced budget and of course the senate voted that down, but a majority i believe voted for t but it didn't get the supermajority for a constitutional amendment. second, it allowed the president

to increase the debt limit by $2.1 trillion, subject to a congressional vote. that occurred. and third, it provided spending controls of at least $2.1 trillion over -- equal to the debt limit increase over ten years. so the debt ceiling has already been reached in two years, and we have still not honored the commitment to reduce the edge grue of spending by $2.1 trillion over ten years sm. it was to rein in government spending and the b.c.a. did two things. it placed statutory caps or limits on discretionary spending. that's the general programs of our government, which totaled $915 billion over ten years. $915g and it was enforced by sequestration, if -- and it equaled for an additional $1.2 trillion of future savings from

any combination of entitlements and revenues agreed to by the so-called supercommittee that the legislation formed. to try to reach some agreement overall long term improvement in our financial condition in this -- and this committee was given the challenge to do that. and if they failed, then additional reductions, the $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending limits would be enforced or the cuts would occur through sequester mechanism. the sequester was very clear, very real. it and maked in the entire legislation $2.1 trillion in reduced spending, but it allowed the committee to look for ways to do it. if the committee didn't form, there would be some automatic cuts. so $1 trillion worth of savings were booked immediately.

the supercommittee went to work but they failed to make recommendations to congress to deal with the other savings required under the act. and so i commend the members of the committee. they tried their best, i do believe, but they didn't reach an agreement. with that failure, the b.c.a. outlined the path forward. $1.2 trillion in spending reductions, including counting interest savings, in both defense and non-defense operations spread out evenly over the nine years left between the fiscal years 2013 and 2021. due to a variety of other laws passed over the years, primarily the 1990 deficit deal and the 2010 so-called pay-as-you-go act, which was passed on a defendandeficit-debt limit incre also. that legislation went through in 2010 on a debt limit increase.

the reductions donlt reductionso all federal spending programs but only to those that are nonexempt from enforcement. many social programs are totally exempt. the food stamp program does not get a dime in reductions, medicaid gets not a dime in reddictions, for example. these cuts were to beginning in january of 2013 but were delayed until march of this year, 2013, inside that fiscal cliff agreement bill we reached. the american people relief act in january. so when the sequester took effect on march 1, it covered both discretionary and some mandatory spending, but less on mandatory. discretionary spending was reduced a total of $68 billion for this fiscal year, $43 billion of that fell on -- will fall on defense. and $26 billion on non-defense

spending. additionally, that -- they each represent about half of the federal government expenditures in the discretionary accounts. additionally, $17 billion in identified mandatory spending was sequestered of which $11 billion came from medicare. so total reductions were t $85 billion. not a whole lot when you're spending $3,500 billion, but $85 billion was at least progress downward in spending a little bit, at least from the growth of spending. looking ahead, colleagues have asked me, what happens under the budget control act next? in 2014, spending will be restrained on both the mandatory and the discretionary side of the ledger at the rates -- approximate rates i just mentioned. for mandatory spending -- this is mainly medicare -- a sequester began on october 1

totaling $18.8 billion. medicare spending will be reduced by a little over $11 billion. and the rest of the mandatory savings will come from reductions in defense mandatory. there are some programs in the defense department that are mandatory also. most of the defense department is discretionary. so even the mandatory spending hit defense. and certain administrative expenses for federal benefit programs and so forth. for discretionary spending, the direction is down. under the b.c.a., total regular discretionary spending is planned to be at $967 billion this upcoming year, split between $498 billion for defense, $469 billion for non-defense, although non-defense got less of a cut than defense. this year's non-defense number is just the same as last year. it's frozen.

so the non-defense discretionary spending does not take another cut this year. it's flat. defense will be taking additional $18 -- or $20 billion reduction this year under the b.c.a. a show of called clean continuing resolution would come in at an annual rate of $986 -- comes over at $986 billion due to the fact that it keeps non-defense spendin spending bee b.c.a. caps while reflecting the current run rate -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: madam president, -- mr. president, i thank the chair and a number of other comments about where we are financially. i would ask consent to have one additional minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: i would just say, colleagues, that the defense cuts do not count war reduction costs. those are entirely separate and

not part of this. so the defense budget is getting hammered, but it can -- you know, if we -- we ought to smooth some of these reductions out in a more fair way. but fundamentally, we must remain committed to these requirements. and i know it would be hard for my democratic colleagues, because the budget they produced would spend $1 trillion over the b.c.a. limits, and the president proposes to spend $1 trillion above just those limits that we agreed to in august of 2011. but as part of this deal, one of the things that's -- that cannot occur is it just would be wrong for us to breach the promise we made to the american people, that if you let us raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, we would reduce spending over ten years by $2.1 trillion. and that reduction is really a reduction in the growth of spending. because we would be growing -- the presiding officer: the

senator's time has expired. mr. sessions: i thank the chair. i would yield the floor. frank mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. franken: mr. president, i rise today to talk about the costs of the federal government shutdown, including costs that we don't usually talk about, the opportunity costs. the fact is we were paying a huge price for what we are not doing here in washington, while so much of our time and energy are spent on this totally unnecessary shutdown. americans are rightly looking at congress and saying what are you guys doing, why are you hurting people, why are you hurting families, why are you impeding our economic recovery? they are also saying why aren't you working on what we sent you

there to do, on creating jobs, on improving our educational system, on addressing our nation's long-term fiscal sustainability? last weekend, i came here to the floor to talk about the effect of this shutdown on individual minnesotans. i receive emails from people who are hurting. let me read from just a few. i'm not going to read them in full because of time. charlotte from duluth writes -- "senator franken, veterans' benefits are important to me, and i want to tell you my story. i have three children, and my spouse who currently attends college. we just got into the h.u.d. bash program. the h.u.d. bash program is a program that provides housing assistance and supportive services for homeless veterans and their families. charlotte continues. we thought it was a miracle not to be homeless. now we are facing the same thing. no check, no schooling.

my family will be homeless without food, without clothes, a vehicle if this government shutdown is not resolved. she goes on i am praying for a miracle in this situation. my son is turning 1-year-old next month. i don't want to remember his first birthday with us losing everything we've worked so hard for. my daughter just started head start. she loves it, but it is the last thing on my mind now. i'm thinking how will i get her to school, how will i provide a home for her to live in? what is she going to eat? this is not a joke. i have never been one to take a handout from anyone. these are things i have earned and are now being taken away from me because someone in washington wants to prove a point. what point is everyone trying to make? that you have the power to do this? timothy from bloomington writes -- "my daughter is a single mother who cannot afford her home.

she has wisely decided to sell the house. she has persevered and now has a sale pending. she is in a financial crisis and needs this sale to go through or she will risk falling into foreclosure. and now the government shutdown is threatening to prevent the sale from going through because a branch of the i.r.s. that prints income tax transcripts is closed. at the very least, the situation will cost my daughter more than a thousand dollars if she has to continue making payments. at worst, she may fall into foreclosure." last weekend, i also talked about the way the shutdown threatens to deprive our seniors of vital nutrition programs such as meals on wheels. here is what millie hernisman from hibbing, minnesota, writes or told to the hibbing daily tribune about meals on wheels. i would hate to see it disappear, she says. it offers a variety of

affordable meals that cover protein fiber. i like it a lot. sandra, head start director in southern minnesota, wrote me about head start. she writes -- "dear senator franken, thank you for your ongoing support for head start. the federal budget is not settled by november 1, the head start programming in olmstead and freeborn counties will have to shut down. our federal grant is from 11/1 to 10/31. as the h.s. director, i know the devastating impact this would have on our families and staff." let me talk a little bit about head start. because of the sequester, we have seen children in minnesota lose slots in head start. if this shutdown continues through the end of october, programs serving about 2,500 children could be affected by the lack of head start funding. you know, kids are only 3 years

old once. they are only 4 years old once. the learning experiences they would be missing at that age because their head start program is shuttered, because of this shutdown or they are missing now because their program has already been shuttered, because of the sequester, that had can never be replaced. and we're just hurting our communities and our nation when those little children lose that opportunity. we know from study after study that a quality early childhood education like head start returns between $7 and $16 for every dollar invested. why? because a child that has had a quality early childhood education is less likely to be referred to special ed, is less likely to be left back a grade, has better health outcomes. quality early childhood programs can help reduce the rates of adolescent pregnancy.

kids who have had a quality early childhood education are more likely to graduate high school, more likely to go to college, more likely to graduate from college, more likely to have a good job and pay taxes, and they are less likely to go to prison. if we really cared about our nation's long-term fiscal sustainability, we would be investing more in head start, not less, and we have been investing less because of the sequester. and are now because of the shutdown. so that is just an example of the entirely counterproductive nature of the shutdown and the tremendous price that we are paying for it, but i rise today also to talk about the price we're paying for what we are not doing here in congress, for the unmet needs which we are not turning our attention to because of the time that we're wasting with this shutdown and the

threat of default on our debt. we have a skills gap in minnesota. what is a skills gap? recent studies have shown that between one-third and one half of manufacturers in my state have at least one job that they cannot fill because they can't find a worker with the right skills to fill them, fill that job. this is a nationwide phenomenon, and it's not just manufacturers. it's information, technology, health care and other businesses that have jobs sitting there waiting for skilled workers to fill them. there are more than three million jobs in this country that could be filled today if there were workers that had the right skills. more than three million jobs today. the thing is we know how to train people for these jobs. we know it because we have done it. we've done it in minnesota and

we've done it elsewhere in this country. i have seen partnerships in my state between businesses and community and technical colleges that have been wildly successful. take, for example, hennepin technical college in hennepin county. a number of manufacturers needed workers skilled in precision machine tooling. they worked with the technical college, they created a curriculum and they donated machines for the students to work on. at a roundtable at h.t.c., i learned that they had graduated over 300 students from the program and 93% of those graduates had permanent jobs. one of the manufacturers at the roundtable was eric ajax, c.e.o. of e.j. ajax and sons. it's a sheet manufacturing company in minnesota that was founded by eric's grandfather in

1945. i love what eric has done with his company and how he has worked with h.t.c. and the university of minnesota to train his work force and provide them with good high-tech jobs and pay them to continue their educations. eric gave me an example of one of his workers that i find so exciting, not because it's extraordinary but because it's something that we can duplicate over and over again in this country. he hired a guy who had completed a certification program at a community and technical college. the guy was really good at his job, so eric sent him back to continue his education and get his associate's degree. the guy continued to work for eric, continued to be a star and a few years later, eric paid him to go to the university of minnesota to get his bachelor's

degree, and he got it. now the guy is head of quality control for e.j. ajax, an incredibly high-skilled job at an advanced manufacturing company. now, understand this guy, this guy graduated from college with no debt, zero debt, with a great job. this brings me to what i want to be working on here. a number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know how enthusiastic i am about incentivizing partnerships between businesses and community and technical colleges to fill the skills gap. as i said, i have seen many successful models in my state. i have seen it at alexandria technical and community college in alexandria, minnesota, which is sometimes referred to as the silicon valley of packaging machines.

i've seen it at south central community and technical college in mancato, minnesota, where about eight or ten manufacturers who had helped fund and had given machines to the school's right skills now program sat with me and told me that between them, they had about 50 job openings that they could fill that instant. in the health, education, labor and pensions committee, of which i am a member, we had a hearing a couple of years ago on work force boards that had successfully responded to the great recession and created jobs in the face of it. we had four work force boards testify from four different states -- virginia, wisconsin, california and washington. every model had been essentially the same. a business, manufacturing, i.t., health care, had worked with a community and technical college to train unemployed workers for jobs that they needed to fill.

so these are public-private partnerships. the businesses have skin in the game. now, where do we come in here in congress? well, i have gone around minnesota to community and technical colleges and talked to businesses, i have talked to national experts in our state and around the country, and the fact is we aren't doing this fast enough. and sometimes these partnerships could do a lot more, train up a lot more people with some extra funding, maybe to buy a very expensive machine or to hire an instructor with very specialized skills. so what i am proposing is a competitive grant program, businesses and community colleges would apply for grants based on how many jobs their partnership would create, what the value of those jobs is, what the value would be to those hiring, to the community. how much skin do the businesses have in the game?

let me tell you why i think we have to do this. just in terms of global competitiveness. manufacturing is moving back to the united states. that's because of a number of factors. manufacturing these days is a lot more capital intensive because of the investments in machine and -- machines and technology. so labor as a piece of the pie has gotten smaller, but skilled labor as a piece of the labor pie has grown. it's a much bigger piece. that's why if we are going to be competitive with the rest of the world, we need skilled labor. filling the skills gap with a national imperative. i go to high schools and junior highs, middle schools with manufacturers all the time. i let the manufacturer describe what the work is like at their factory. it's not dark, dirty and

dangerous as people think it is or as it used to be. it involves advanced technical skills, critical thinking, creativity, team work, and these jobs, good, skilled, well-paying jobs are available with the education that you get at a two-year community and technical college. now, one of the concerns i hear is that people often think of a two-year education as a ceiling, and i understand that. but a two-year education doesn't have to be a ceiling. that's not how they think of it in some european countries. they think of a two-year education as a platform. and if you think about it, with the pace of technological advancement accelerating as it is now and no doubt will continue, the idea that you will have the same job in the

workplace for 40 or 50 years of your working life is kind of ridiculous, especially in any field involving technology. so it makes perfect sense to get go to a two had year technical college. and then as eric ajax does with his employees, the business you work for can send you back to school and pay for it, often while you continue to work and draw a good paycheck. we just came through a big debate here in congress about student debt. think about getting a job after two years, or even after a credential degree, and then having your continuing education paid for by your employer. think about that as a piece of an evolving approach to the issue of college affordable care

aaffordability. jobs, economic growth, global competitiveness, college aaffordability. how we think about education. aren't these the things we should be spending our time on here in the senate? here in congress? that's why i came here, that's what i get excited about, that's what i get excited about working on. let's end the shutdown. let's commit to not defaulting on our debt. then let's discuss how we strengthen our economic recovery. let's talk about which investments that we make that are smart and lead to economic growth and which ones have outlived their usefulness. every day that the government stays shut down, every day we make up under the threat of default, every day we spend focused on something that isn't working together to create jobs

and rebuild the middle class is in my piend mind a tragedy. it is an insult to all the people who are struggling. and it is a huge missed opportunity for our country. this nonsense would be ugly enough, even if we didn't have work to do. but we do. we have so much work to do. it's time for congress to stop creating problems and start solving them again. thank you, mr. president. mr. franken: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. schatz mr. begich: mr. president, if we could -- the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. mr. begich: i ask for a vacation of the quorum call, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. begich: i would like to enter into a colloquy with sell of my colleagues here, the senator from montana, the senator from oregon here. we would like unanimous consent until we completed with our colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. begich: mr. president, you know we come down here -- it's sunday afternoon and ip a sure all of us, as well as a lot of furloughed employees, would rather be preparing for monday's coming back to work, even though it was a holiday. they probably are thinking about it and maybe on tuesday getting

ready. but here we are down on the senate floor thinking bolt issues that the shutdown, the default, the threat of the default is on us right now, as we creep closer and closer to this deadline, which when you tbhi ithink about it is unbelie, that we are at the risk of potentially defaulting on debt of this country. i know i heard from u one of my colleagues earlier, mr. president, he talked about the default potential that really maybe it is not bad as people think, that we'll get through this and the fact is, if we go into a default, there's no question we've already seen, by the chamber of commerce, the business community, many people that we all talk to in our home communities, the impact this will have on everything from the stock market, interest rates, the ability for small businesses to borrow money at a reasonable rate, at a time when it's amazing the number that came out last week was seven-year high in

the sense of the least foreclosures in the last seven years for individuals. yet as families are finally getting back on their feet, less defaults for them, here is the biggest default sitting in front of us -- this country. and we have tried to do everything possible to avoid this effort that we're in in this next few days, one, by trying to get the government back open so we can have negotiations and discussions about what's necessary, get the -- e sur ensure that we don't ha default that could jeopardize the economy. i know in my home state we see the impacts. we is h. a hearing on friday -- we had a hearing on friday. we had a captain of one of the crab vessels, which is a big industry for us. i know my colleague from oregon deals with seafood issues also. thoaf have ththey have to have s and quota laid out so they can

start the season. crabs don't sit around waiting for the shutdown to finish. they have another process to go through. so in order tbheat done, if we are unable to get the permits and get it done, this industry in alaska, which sells a lot of crab in the holiday season, especially to japan, japan will go elsewhere. they will go to russia and buy the crab. once they start buying from another customer or another seller, the odds of us recapturing that decreases. so in other words, as my colleagues on the other side like to say, you know, just trying to find a solution. every day we wait is another day we're shipping jobs overseas. sheer one clear example. or we have several federal lands that are permitted for bear hunting and huntsdzing in general, fishing, sports fishing by federal regulators. but we do not have those agencies open. so now those sports hunters that come up to our sphrait all

across the country and the world aren't able to bein access those places. end result: thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars lost to these guides. and the thing about this is, we don't get this business back. once that season ends, it's gone. it's over. this idea that the house had -- and i know my colleagues and i have talked about this. i know my friend from montana talked about this a few days ago. they passed on the house side a bill to pay all the furloughed employees. 435-0 was the vote over there. i know, mr. president, you talked about it in your speech on the floor, that we all support that. we want to get our employees back to work and pay them because the furlough wasn't their -- the shutdown wasn't their problem. but they want to pay for them, but they only send us a few etion as to open up. -- a few agencies to open up.

you are a fiscal conservative. i would say from the states we represent, we have pockets as well as full components of individuals that are concerned about the tamb taxes of this coy and the spending. why would you pay for everyone to go back to work and then not put them to work? it makes no sense. i mean, the presiding officer was the lieutenant governor of a state. i can't imagine if you and then the governor said toed to say, well, we're not going to put anyone to work. but we're going to pay them all, pay them all for the negs month or whatever. you'd be drummed out of office before you could blink an ievment i know aeye.i know as ai couldn't done that. yet that's how ka chaotic it is over on the house side. we are read ready to solve these problems and get t government open and ensure that the default that -- that we do not default on our debt. i know some claim this is new spending. it is not new spending. these are bills -- as a matter

of fact, for all of us on the floor right now -- that came before our time. when you buy a house, you don't get the luxury after you buy the house and you have a banker you're paying each month, gee, he'd like to stop today and think about paying you part of it. maybe i'll pay you all of it and still live in the house. that's not the way it works. and that's -- they like to cross the numbers all around and make it sound like it's a more spending. no, it is paying for what has already occurred. we have actually cut the deficit since a lot of us came into this office -- i know when i came in 2009 january, the deficit was $1.4 trillion per year. today it's about $630 billion. we have cut that deficit over 60% in a combination of efforts, and that's where we need to keep going. but this is not helping, this effort here. i don't want to -- i'll lean to my colleagues that are out on the floor. i know they have example after

example, as i do in my own home staivment i mentioned sports fishermen who can't go fishing and the fees in the commercial fishing industry, my military folks. here's what's amazing. i would venture to guess every single one of the folks on the floor here have the same situation. even if we pay our furloughed employees the federal government all their pay back, the contractors who did the work, who work on behalf of the federal government, what happens to them? you know, they have bills to pay. he they don't get that money back but they're told to go comeback to work. and i guarantee it is going to cost the federal government more money. in my state, there are multiple examples. and i know, again to my clerks i'll lean to them and let me just pause for aempt mo. but i just know when the american people are wapping, when alaskans are watching this, watching this for the last week, they think it is ridiculous. and it is. it is a self-created crisis by a few who believe that the only

way they can get stwhair crash the economy -- they can get their way is crash the economy and at the same time crash the government. are there problems with the government? sure. are there things we could to improve it? yes. every day we should be working on it. but it start-and-stop doesn't work so well. let me turn to my friend from or oregon montana if they want to add to it. and the idea here -- it is going to be kind after free-flow conversation wa because i think that's what the people want to see, how it is affecting news our own home state and how we can get to a solution here. mr. merkley: mr. president, i'm pleased to be here with my colleagues from montana and alaska to talk about some of the impacts in our various states and i thought i'd share six or seven different aspects of the impact of the government shutdown and the potential of a default and then turn this over to my colleague from montana and then i think we're going to endpaij in a little bit of back and forth. before i list specific examples

of the challenges that are faced, i thought i would give just a framework, an analogy, if you will, of how we can think about thsm the legislative process is very much like a baseball game. various folks come together. there are some that are for a bill, some are against a bill. they have a legislative competition and ultimately one side wins. and normally the side that loses, if they believe they're still right, they say, we'll be back again, later in the serks we'll be back next year, just like a baseball team will say we'll be back later in the season to compete again or back next year with an improved team. but in this case, after the team that supported health care won, the team that lost said, well, you know, we're going to appeal the ruling to the empire. -- to the umpire. we're going to ask the umpire to rule that the losing team

actually won. if the umpire doesn't come to our rescue, we're going to hold the crowd hostage and threaten to burn down the stadium. those are the type of actions that are outside the sphere of the normal legislative process. and they should be. because we have to be able to have a dialogue and a democracy where you consider a bill and you decide, yes or no, and you implement it and come back and you have an argument over improvements to that framework or whether you should throw it out completely. and the american people have the opportunity to weigh in and say, keep those folks, they did good legislation, or throw the bums out. but all that is broken if instead of completing that cycle you have the losing team say they're going to shoaled the crowd hostage -- going to hold the crowd hostage and threaten to burn down the stadium.

that's where we are now. holding the crowd hostage, that's the government shutdown. threatening to burn down the stadium, that's the threat to default on payments on bills due. so let's look at how just the government shutdown piece is reverberating in some unexpected ways. let's take home mortgages. home mortgages are insured by fannie and freddie, the great majority across the nation. that doesn't happen if fannie and freddie are shut down. or let's take work that's necessary to improve our courts, whether that work is on a jury. that has to stop because you can't pay the contractor to haul the contractor to haul the rock out. or let's talk about a company in oregon that exports abroad and they need for those exports an

export license. they can't get the export license because congress is shut down and can't issue that license. so they have inventory that's waiting to get shipped out. they have cash flow problems because they can't ship the inventory or receive the payments for shipping. let's let's talk a little bit about the trickle down just for folks that are unemployed. let me think of it with an employee who is staying home. one employee wrote to me, though. he said think about this. think about the fact that i owe child support that isn't going to get paid because i'm not getting paid. then he said think about the housing market because i'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage and what impact that's going to have on the u.s. economy. or let's take a look at the backlog of veterans' benefits. all over my state, i have veterans who are applying for benefits and they want an answer, and the veterans department is trying to process those applications. they have a high, intense effort

to catch up on that backlog. well, suddenly the backlog's getting bigger instead of getting smaller because of the work that is being done to get rid of that backlog grinds to a halt. therefore, individual veterans are disadvantaged by not having their benefits applications processed. or let's think about head start. jessica wasune wrote to me. she says i work in an early head start in grants pass. we are facing a shutdown do you to the government shutdown. we have children who need stability and a caring place where they can get their basic needs met. so many families struggle to feed their children and sometimes the food we serve is all those children get for the day. and then she goes on. she says we provide more than just what some consider daycare. we teach. we nurture. we give hope to the next generation. shutting down our centers would mean a higher rate of poverty and dangerous homes for families

and children. we need, she says, we need our voices to be heard. we need someone to stand up for us. well, there are so many different ways in addition that this shutdown is reverberating in oregon, one that affects every rural community is the impact on timber planting. we have the shutdown going on of actual logging that's taking place on federal forests so folks who are logging are being told to stop cutting new trees, to pull their logs, skid them out, if you will, haul them out and shut down. and what about the planning for the cuts for next year? what about the supply of logs to the sawmills that's going to keep that sawmill operating through the winter and into the spring? the reverberations are substantial. what about the economy in those small towns that depend on those log mills when folks don't have

the money because they can't log to buy food at the grocery store? i know that these issues are not unique to oregon. i'm sure many of them reverberate in alaska and montana. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor to my colleague from montana. mr. tester: i thank the senator from oregon, mr. president, and the senator from alaska. for many, many years, my republican colleagues have rallied -- have railed against government. we find ourselves in an interesting time right now where government is shut down. we are on the verge of not expanding our debt limit, putting the full faith and credit of the united states at risk. some of the folks out there on the other side of the aisle ran their campaign last year was about shutting down the government. well, they got their wish. they have steered us into an unnecessary and very costly shutdown. yet during this shutdown, we

found and we have learned every day often underappreciated functions of the government. beyond the headline, there are countless stories of the functioning of government that isn't doing their job because of the shutdown that's hurting american families. there's a number of them in montana. we read about children with cancer in the news. we have a rocky mountain lab that is closed, one of eight vital labs in the united states with critical research on the diseases. 90% of the national institutes of health is shuttered. no new scientific research grants for the five nobel prize-winning scientists who work for the government are furloughed. national parks are closed, disappointing tourists, impacting struggling communities around those parks. fishing access sites that support local businesses, fly

stores, river guides, fly fishing instructors and just improved quality of life don't allow access to many of the best fishing spots in this country. head start programs are struggling, depending on when you got your grant in the small town of box elder ten miles from my hometown. they are on the cusp of laying off 20% of their teachers. why? because they can't get their indian impact aid. since that office is mostly furloughed at this point in time, it's very difficult to get them any help. we have heard about the devastateing floods in colorado, the blizzards of south dakota. well, we don't have a farm bill, but these folks are doubly impacted because the farm service agencies are shuttered. there is no help for livestock producers who have literally lost thousands of head of cattle. when it comes to getting a co-signature on an f.s.a. loan

check, impossible to do because the f.s.a. office is closed. the military members are getting paid but the rotc students all over america that rely on the government to help pay for their rent, well, that's not happening right now. the senator from oregon talked about v.a., disability claims put on hold. the backlog's growing. it was shrinking. the i.t. system for a smooth transition between the d.o.d. to v.a., their electronical medical records, that's on hold. by the way, that's critically important to get our backlog to a reasonable number. home loans, education assistance, transportation office, work force training, all put on hold. domestic abuse shelters, meals on wheels, blue monitors at the c.d.c., the safety and health administration, the national transportation safety board, all furloughed except for the essential staff that is working

without pay. along that line, mr. president -- mr. president, i want to say thank you to the folks at the rostrum who put in three pretty tough weeks. in the last week and a half-plus, almost two weeks haven't been paid. they are here on a sunday afternoon. much like the police officers who responded to a tragic and scary situation last week, we're all running towards the problem, we're all on duty, but we're all not getting a paycheck. the house's political appeasement approach has been an attempt to reopen most of the popular and noticed agencies, picking winners and losers in a system built to work together. but then we have the debt ceiling, a situation where this is a republican-driven government shutdown to bring us close -- too close for comfort for defaulting on our national debt. some folks out there will say

it's no big deal. well, i can tell you that if you're in business, you know it's a big deal. some folks say you can prioritize your payments, but the fact is that without -- without increasing that debt limit, prioritizing the payments won't fix the problem. we have got folks all across this country, business people, working families that are losing confidence in the united states. i just met a group of world war ii vets that got off the plane about two hours ago in washington, d.c., and a number of them talked to me about how we need to get our act together here. they fought for this country, but we're not fighting for them, and we need to. the montana chamber of commerce, bankers across this country, macy's, business leaders, all have said don't be playing with this fire. in fact, a friend of mine by the name of tony james who is

president of bascom group wrote using the debt ceiling to settle domestic squabbles is playing russian roulette with a loaded gun. worse, by continuing on the present course, we are playing a deadly game with a gun held by some of this nation's biggest rivals. i couldn't agree more. we need to reopen this government. we need to pay this nation's bills, and we need to put this country back in a leadership goal in this world. senator begich, or the senator from alaska, we talked a little bit about park shutdowns. i was curious to know with denali national park, which is a big deal, i would assume that you're in the same boat as we are with glacier and yellowstone, that it's -- it's closed for business? mr. begich: it's not only closed for business, one of the other things that goes on right now, as you know, the f.a.a. also is shut down, and there is elements of the f.a.a. that's still operational, but the fact is in

order for visitors to my state and i'm sure to your state and to oregon, there is a lot of general aviation that move around, moving tourists, moving businesses, moving folks from place to place. fur in need of parts -- a lot of people may not realize this. if you need parts for those planes, you have to register them with the f.a.a., but if the f.a.a. is closed, you can't register the parts, you can't get the parts for your plane and they are not making the parts then because they know they can't get them registered. so it's just like a ripple effect. the worst part of this is those businesses that are on the outskirts of all these national treasures we have in this country. i know oregon has them, montana has them. and the net result of that is those businesses don't have customers, customers that don't show up mean those businesses who had prepared, built their inventories in anticipation, got

material ready, got guides ready, got their buses all ready to go for those tours can't do them because there are no customers because they have no place to take them. so the reality is the net result is these individuals -- and i think my friend from oregon, i think he says it so clearly in discussions i have had with him. it's almost like -- and you can correct me, my friend from oregon, if i say this wrong, but it's almost like a tax for these businesses because they don't get that money back. they have invested. it's gone. it's over. the season's -- they don't get to repeat the seasons. it's not like the movie "ground-hog day." you don't get to go over and over and over again. it's gone. i know all of us have it with these parks and national treasures. i know you have talked to me about this. before i turn it back to you, i want to mention one thing that's very important, because we have heard it on the floor and i have heard it in the media accounts. they say well, we can't extend

and pay the debt of this country, making sure we don't go into default unless we have more spending cuts. no, we did that. we did that. the continuing resolution cuts $70 billion on an annualized basis out of the budget this year, this coming year. we cut $70 billion. we actually talked about it, tried to find common ground. and the common ground was we agreed with their number. the house number. we brought it all the way down to their number. $70 billion we're taking additional cuts on an annualized basis to our budget. and now you have to pay the bill. so when you hear this, we didn't give one extra penny to make sure we don't default. well, first the default should not be part of the debate here. we should never default on our debts, period. but if you want cuts, we've done it, $70 billion. now we're going to -- because of

the work they are doing or the lack they are doing, the government shutdown is causing an indirect tax on these business people, which is unbelievable. mr. merkley: thank you. my colleague from alaska is correct in pointing out that essentially right now we have a shutdown tax being imposed on families and businesses across our country, and indeed we're facing just a few days from now a default tax. now, a lot of folks from across the aisle come here and say they took a pledge to block any form of tax, but this is the worst kind of tax of all. there is absolutely no value, there is no revenue rates that can be applied to the important aspects of running a government or reducing our deficit. indeed, this is a burden on

american businesses and american families that does no benefit in any other way. in fact, you mention the ripple effect, and that ripple effect means what damages a family -- and i gave the example of a simple situation where an employee doesn't get their wages, they can't pay their child support and they can't pay their mortgage, and then what stems on from there. let's take, for example, the cut in food stamps. if food stamps are an issue, then it's not just the family that is directly hurt, then i might mention our most vulnerable families, but it's also the grocery stores are hurt, so they may have to lay off additional employees and additional ripples. so this is a huge inflick section of -- huge infliction of a burden. if we want to think about the examples of what happens with a default, we can think of many, so let's think of the default tax by threatening not to pay our bills, that reduces confidence in treasury bills, so therefore the interest rates go

up on those treasury bills, and interest rates therefore on mortgages goes up and the interest on home loans go up. so we have all these -- mr. begich: if i can interrupt, car loans, credit cards, student loans, any type of credit that you want to get to grow your business, expand your educational opportunities, maybe you're doing holiday shopping this year, all that is impacted in a negative way. mr. merkley: and indeed your home equity loan -- maybe you were planning to take out a home equity loan to pay for improvements to your house or repair your roof. you are going to pay a higher price on that. this is a default thas tax on af america. this infliction of pain and agony on our businesses and families is something that hasn't parntsly resonated for some of my colleagues who want to threaten a default. now, some of them v have come to

the floor and have said, well, we think there's enough revenue coming in that we can pay our t-bills, our treasury bills, and we can just gawlt default on other obligations and won't have much damage. but we had a whole group of experts come in and testify in the banking committee. envision the situation that you're applying for a mortgage. and you've always made your house payments. you just weren't able to make some of other other payments, you weren't able to pay your student loan, your car loan. l with, the bank is going to charge you more for your house payment because there's things you've been defaulting on. and the same situation applies in america. in other words, if we pay our treasury bonds or bills, but we don't pay other obligations, that in itself will lower our credit rating and increasing interest rates. so there's no way to avoid -- a default is a default. you can choose, i suppose, among

who you're going to default to. but no matter who you default on, it is going to have a default tax on american families and american businesses and do great damage to this country. and that is why president reagan said simply, do not mess with the good faith and credit of the united states of america. mr. begich: it makes no sense that we would be here. i know earlier this week senator testifier, yotester, you and wee floor. my son asked me -- he is 11 years -- how do you not pay your bills? we can have all the fancy economists, all the fancy folks coming, but when you have an 11-year-old ask you the question, it should tell you something. in this country what we should be as our priorities. and when you don't pay your bills, you're in default. when you're in default, you destroy jury credit rating. when you destroy your credit rating, the cost of doing

business of anything do you goes up. it is very simple. now, they can put all the fancy words, all the ways they want to splice it and dice it by saying we can pay some, we can pay a little. no, that's not how it wonchts can you imagine every household sitting around today watching us and say, i think i'll pay part of my bills today. next week maybe i'll pay another bill. but i won't pay them all, because i guess congress does that, so i guess that's the new norm. i mean, if my 11-year-old son can pick this up, you can surely guess what's happening around this country watching us. and i say "us" in a collective way. not us three sitting here. we sucked it up and said we're going to do that, because it is right for this country. even though we may not have agreed on the number in the final, but we agreed to make sure we did this because we

wanted to make sure we did not default and would get this government working and we'll continue to fight on the issues we care about. it is amazing to me, but sometimes you have to look to our young folks in this country and community and they probably know better than us how to solve this problem. i'm just guessing. mr. merkley: and i do think the children across this country know that responsible individuals pay their bills and responsible governments pay their bills and i'm sure this concept is common sense in the great land of montana. mr. tester: absolutely. and, you know, this -- you there's so many folks out there that claim to be pro-business folks and they know what's going on in the business community. this whole debate that evolves around this debt ceil something about as antibusiness as we could have. if we don't increase the debt ceiling -- you guys have already pointed it out -- interest rates not only go up for our national debt, this go up for everybody.

the economy decreases, shrinks, and you have less revenue coming in and everybody knows that if we're going to address our national debt, you've got to have a vibrant economy to address it. look, we came through at a period of time when we had a vice president that said debt doesn't matter. we got into two wars, two major tax cuts, a medicare part-d plan and the worst recession -- some would call a depression -- since the 1930's where tax revenue dropped like a rock and the safety net programs that keep folks afloat, that cost money, were increased. now we have a situation sw the - now we have a situation with the debt. the worst thing we can do is play around with the debt ceiling so our economy tanks again and you see not only the interest rates go up on the debt but the debt go through the roof one more time. this doesn't make any sense from all different perspectives.

when people lose confidence, whether it is people within this country or outside this country that buy our debt, that means the rate we pay is going up. mr. begich: is it fair to say that we've -- moving this annual deficit down every year, it's been on the right glide path down, but if we now have a change in our t-bill right rates, our cost of the government's debt, this effort to keep moving this deficit down will reverse fairly quickly because we pay interest? mr. tester: absolutely. it could have such negative impacts on our g.d.p. that we could have a negative fourth quarter if this crazy talk keeps going on. mr. begich: and to real estate min-- and to remind folks, the gross domestic product is basically the business of the country. if it goes the wrong direction, it means direct impact to people working, meaning less people working. because if there's less business, there's less need to hire people, which means higher

unemployment, more foreclosures -- i mean, it is just a domino effect. mr. tester: exactly correct. that's why, look, i think everybody on the floor right now for sure -- and there are a whole bunch of other folks -- would love to sit down and figure out ways to get our debt and deficit under control. but as tony james said, you don't do it by holding a loaded gunning. mr. merkley: if i could just make -- emphasize the point you just made, which is there are those who say they want to engage in a default strategy because they think that somehow that will control, do something positive in controlling our deficit and controlling our debt what you have just pointed out, is when you engage in using default as a weapon, you reduce revenues, you decrease -- you increase costs, which increases deficits and increases the debt. so i think we can summarize, not

only is this default strategy severely damaging to families and businesses across the country, but it's damage to the effort to reduce our deficits and reduce our debt. mr. tester: and i might add, mr. president, the senator from oregon, it could happen at a worse time, where we've seen the economy rebound and start to head in the right direction and we have an opportunity to have more growth, we have an opportunity to get some manufacturing back in this country, we have an opportunity to really help rebuild this economy ands. and because of the actions of congress, particularly folks over in the house, what we've seen is the stock market -- god help us today -- i think it opens up right now, i think -- mr. begich: the asian markets open up right about now. mr. tester: you can't help but think these folks are shaking their heads. we have no confidence in what congress is doing.

mr. begich: think about for the first 15 davis debate, the market slid about 700 points, slowly but gradually. last week when there was a sliver of opportunity, when people were feeling like maybe there was that moment of time we'd get the default out of the table, that market shot up 300-plus points because the business community wants us to establish some certainty here so they can take their resources, invest in this economy, continue to move it forward. we know the resources are there. they tell us, they h tell us in our home communities. i had a business that just laid off another 400 people because of the shutdown. they are ready to continue to grow their business interests around the globe because they're a global economy out of anchorage. but here's their challenge: they're not sure what we're going to do. and the market showed within a couple days when they saw a glimmer of hope, it shot right up, which tells me again that the market is ready, but today

-- or yesterday -- and i know some people said yesterday that was just a partisan vote. no, that was -- we -- we ought to actually not default, so we supported not defaulting on our debt. i will have debate after debate on where we need to cut. we've again -- again the continuing resolution cuts $70 billion on an annualized basis so we have met their number, met that cut, we're willing to keep to that agreement, but let's not throw the economy over the edge or crash it into the wall, as some want to do, it seems. mr. merkley: do you know if of any business group in alaska that is arguing that the default strategy is good for business? mr. begich: i don't hear. i come from the small business world u i don't hear from the business community in my state them calling me up and saying, crash the economy, oh, please keep it shut down because it

really has no impact. actually, alaska, when you look at the concentration of federal workers, it is maryland, hawaii, alaska in that order. when you think of the state budget, 25% of the state budget, 25% of the state operating budget is from federal resources, 50% is capital money, comes from federal resources, the military is pretty strong, over $1 billion in social security payments -- i can go through the list. it has huge impact. no business is calling me saying, can you just keep the government shut down some more because i don't really need that permit to drill on the national petroleum reserve. i don't need to fish for the crab. i don't need to fly my plane to move the cargo out to a rural community. i don't hear that. what i do hear is people calling me up and saying, i won't use the words they use because they're here on the senate floor, but you can fill in the blanks. they're very upset that they can't conduct their basic

business of operations because of some of the connectivity that they have to the federal government through permits or land use where denali park is a perfect eafnlingperfect example. mr. merkley: i think it is the same in or omplet i don't think i've heard from a single business group that is arguing in favor of the shutdown or the default strategy. and i know that many businesses, they need that export license, they need that permission to tank the subcontract or the contract on the jetty or a number of other areas. i know that our tourist industry, that we have a national park, the tourist industry that depends on people coming into the area, i know our timber companies that need to have permission to complete their logging contracts, and in

every single day they know that they are a partner with the government groups that enable this work to go forward, and they want those doors open. they want this government open. i suspect maybe -- what's the story in montana? mr. tester: it is the same thing. it is the same thing, mr. president -- madam president. the senator from oregon and alaska, it is the same thing in montana, particularly start-up businesses, entrepreneurs who have a great idea are holing back because they don't want to get into a situation where they start investings money and then interest rates go through the roof and they're not going to be able to fulfill the dream that they have to create jobs, by the way, and create more economy. what i will say is this: the longer -- and we're getting very close chough the 17th of october. and the longer we play with th this, there will be a point in time where the damage that will be done will take a very long time to rebuild. so i think now is the time.

hopefully tomorrow, in fact we can get an agreement here on the senate floor, a commonsense agreement, to open the government and deal with the debt limit in a way that makes sense for this country and makes sense for the world, because it is going to have impacts not only here but around the world. we're seeing businesses in our state, they're not investing right now, they're holding off, and they were starting to invest, which is very, very unfortunate. so i -- this is -- we're playing with fire and we should not be doing thacht we should be working to build the economy, not to try to contract it. mr. begich: i think all of us don't here i think agree that we have hope that an arrangement, a deal would be made. we want to reopen the government, pay our bills, not get in default, and recognize that we still have more work to do, because we do need to bring the deficit down. we need to bring it down and ensure that at the end of the day we're paying off our debt long-term. but we got to get through this process. we can't just keep doing these

short-term stop-and-goes. i think we're all down here to make sure that happens. from my perspective, i'm not happy that i am hay here on sunday, but i'm glad i'm here on sunday trying to solve -- work with folks to solve this problem. i'd rather be back home talking with alaskans about what we can do on education, making sure we move our oil and gas development, our mining and timber. but we're here now. and we got to resolve these issues and they're going to be tough. and they are real estate going to be -- and there's going to have to be a little give-and-take. but at the end of the day, i believe we can get there. but we can't get there if people are hardened into their views and try to reclaim that we haven't done enough already. we have done $70 billion worth of cuts already on an annualized basis for this next year. i thank my colleagues for coming down here, spending their time on a sunday talking about an important issue. hopefully the next time we're down here we're talking about a great rugs that moves this country forward and keeps our

economy going. to my friend from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you. i appreciate my colleague from alaska helping to organize this conversation, and i must say i think if you get ten commonsense people in a room, they would say do that short-term continuing resolution. the democrats have agreed to the republican number, it's a win for republicans. democrats are asking for negotiation. that's a win for our country. and we're asking for the -- the default strategy to be set aside sprewell because it's completely temporary to any, any responsible organization to use a strategy of not paying your bills. and on that foundation, we could get back to the normal process of considering the legislation we should be considering, of considering how we restore the regular budget appropriation process. i know that that would be very welcome across this nation. this senate has to be able to get a budget process that isn't

cut off right out of the blocks, if you will, as it has been this year. it was six months ago that we passed a budget and we tried to start a budget conference committee and colleagues filibustered, a small group of colleagues filibustered starting the budget conference committee. somehow we have to have a process where we can get into a conference room and have that conversation and not have a small group just basically sabotage the entire budget appropriation process that's so important for our nation. mr. begich: the last thing i will say for this afternoon and i will say as an appropriator, that is what we should do, get past this stop and go, sit down, go the long term, get the budget resolved, not spend over 20 different times trying to get people to the table. that's all we're trying to do, get a budget resolved and get on with the appropriation bills so people know over an annualized basis what their budgets will be. i totally agree. hopefully in the next 24-48 hours, we'll get down that road and get this short-term stuff out of the way and then get on with the longer term.

again, i want to thank the president for the time and allowing us to speak today. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri is recognized. mrs. mccaskill: madam president, i want to thank my colleagues. in a very vivid way, they laid out the severe damage that is occurring because of the shutdown and the potential idea that the -- one of the most important economic powers, if not the most important economic power in the world, is fooling around with the notion that we wouldn't pay our bills on time. i want to compliment also the various newspapers around the country that are doing their best to point out to people that this isn't some kind of exercise that's just about all of us here in washington. this isn't about the politics or

the posturing. this is about real people and the pain that they are feeling. this morning in the "st. louis post dispatch," the headline was "shutdown is casting a wide net of grief." and in that article, it went through a number of different people's lives and how they were hurting because of this shutdown, like nancy jones who retired from the army four months ago and she was in a food pantry this weekend because her retirement check had not processed through yet and now it's not clear when she is going to get her retirement check. she moved back to st. louis to help with her four grandchildren, and now she is putting her head on her pillow tonight, not knowing when her pension that she has earned will actually come through because of

the shutdown and going to a food pantry at a local church to get two bags of groceries. and then there is rashida whitfield. she went to the social security office in st. louis to do something very simple, and that was to replace her lost social security card. well, she knocked and no one was home. the social security administration has furloughed people that do things like getting you a replacement for your lost social security card. now, why is that so important? well, because miss whitfield needs her social security card in order to fill out her section 8 application, and time is running short for her to find housing for herself and her small child. she is unsure what she is going to do if she can't get that replacement card. and then there is the people who have been furloughed that clean one of the federal office

buildings in st. louis. they worked for $11 an hour. cleaning the goodfellow federal center in north st. louis. 11-dollar an hour jobs. these people aren't sitting on a big cushion. these people are trying to figure out now without that 11-dollar an hour job if they can either pay the rent or make the car payment but probably not both. and then there is jill ketcham who works and is fortunate that her own child, her 5-year-old daughter goes to the head start school. she is not sure what she is going to do because she has been told by the gracehill settlement house that that head start program cannot last through the month if the shutdown continues. and that mother who is working and uses that important head

start program to make it work for her family will have no place to take her daughter. what does she do? does she have to quit her job? and what about all the other mothers, single mothers out there with young children that have the rug pulled out from under them because head start can no longer operate. jill and rashida and nancy, they don't deserve this. they're playing by the rules. they're doing everything they should be doing in this great country. they're not asking us to do them a favor. they're just asking us to do our

jobs. now, here's what i am so frustrated about. this pain that is being inflicted on millions of americans and this pain grows every day. somebody likened it the other day to when the power goes out in your home. in the first couple of hours, you're getting candles out and getting out the board games, and you think oh, this is, you know, kind of fun. and i had the feel around here the first couple of hours that people didn't understand the gravity of what this meant to so many people throughout this country. so many people in my state. but after the electricity has been off a few hours, all of a sudden it's not fun anymore. you start to lose the food in the refrigerator and you wonder how you're going to replace it. you wonder about what happens with your job. you wonder about keeping warm. and that's what we're getting to now. we're getting to the point that these families across america,

they cannot believe that this is ongoing day after day. now, here's the weird part. what are we doing? now it's not even clear to me what the other side wants. it started out with a goal that was not only irrational but unreasonable. that somehow the election last november didn't matter, that somehow a faction of one party in one house, in one branch of this great government could say if you don't give us our way, we're going to turn out the lights, we're going to cut the power? so it was about blowing up obamacare. well, now it's not about that anymore. i listened with interest this morning. as the republicans in the house of representatives spoke about what this is about.

and it's not clear to me at this point what it's about. what is it that is the problem? because it's not obamacare anymore. well, is it entitlement reform? is it a grand bargain? speaker boehner walked away from one of those not too long ago. is it about how much we're spending? we have been asking for a conference on our budget for years. we were getting political criticism over the fact that the senate had not passed a budget, so we stayed up all night, took dozens and dozens and dozens of votes and cast a budget and then did what we do in this government. we asked to go to conference. for month after month after month. the junior senator from texas and others blocked our ability to go to conference and talk about the budget. so i don't even understand at this moment what this is about.

it's not about obamacare anymore. is it about reforming medicare and social security? that's not clear. is it about how much money we're spending? that's not even clear. it feels like we're boxing shadows. i really am hopeful that my colleagues across the aisle in the senate, many of whom i have worked with on many different things, a lot of whom i have worked with bringing down spending. my colleague from alaska spoke, we have cut our deficit in half this year. it is a good thing we are spending less money, and most of us here think this should continue in a thoughtful way to

spend less money. it is my hope that my colleagues that rejected the majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected the junior senator from texas' effort to say us, too, to the goal that was irrational and unreasonable of shutting down obamacare. those senators that knew this was not a game that should be played, i'm hopeful that they will help us reach a resolution on this that will not only allow the government to reopen, that we will quit playing the very dangerous game of saying to the rest of the world that we're not the united states of america anymore, we're not the grandest and most glorious democracy ever created. we are dysfunctional deadbeats. because if it gets to be thursday and we have not gotten

this wrapped up, the rest of the country is going to see us, see this democracy as dysfunctional, the democracy that so many other countries have tried to copy and emulate because we've always managed to work it out. to me, that is the saddest part of this whole thing, is that we're actually playing around with the essence of what makes our country great, and that is our democracy, our ability to compromise, our ability to negotiate, our ability to not throw tantrums and say we either get our way or we shut the place down. and the phoniest argument that's being made of all, the most disingenuous misdirection problem that i've got is this notion that somehow this is all about if we would just stop the

congressional exemption under obamacare. members of congress and their staffs are the only people in america that are required to shop on the exchange. let me say it again. members of congress and their staffs are the only people in america that are required to shop on the exchange. the only issue here is whether or not we get an employer contribution. that's the only issue. now, every republican in my state that works for the state government gets an employer contribution. every republican that serves congress from my state gets an employer contribution. they do it right now. they get that employer contribution. if it is so immoral, if it is so bad to get an employer contribution, give it up, step up, set the example. set the example, say no more

employer contribution. it is evil. and until you step up and give up your employer contribution, i think it is beyond offensive that you would threaten the young lady that answers my phone, her employer contribution. the young man just out of school with a heavy debt load who thought he was going to get an employer contribution when he came to work for the senate, who lives in columbia, missouri, doesn't make a huge amount of money. you don't come to work for the government to get rich. you come to work for the government if you want to serve es notion that for political purposes we are threatening the employer contribution of the people that work in our offices is, frankly, about as low as it gets. so i don't want to hear anymore unless somebody is giving up their employer contribution.

they all can. and the minute i hear that the republicans that are advocating this position have given up their employer contribution right now, then we can have a discussion that has misled the american people into thinking somehow -- somehow this is some special deal for congress. real people are getting hurt. we're not even sure what the other side wants. we're threatening the essence of what america -- makes america great, which is our democracy. and we're misleading the american people in ways that are tremendous unfair to the great people who work for all of us across this city and, importantly, across all of our home states. so, i will continue to talk to my friends across the aisle, and even today on sunday all of us

are having these conversations. i think -- it is my understanding that our friends down the hall in the house of representatives went home. we're having conversations. a week ago i don't think the speaker could utter a sentence without saying the word "conversation." we're having conversations today a i hope they will continue into the night and that tomorrow will be a better day for this democracy that we all like to brag about about we're thrintsinthreatening to blow up. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be terpted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a myria period of morning bus with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes eachment. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: i have been told that h.j. res. 76 is due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the leader is correct. the clerk will read the title of the bill. of the joint resolution. a second time. the clerk: house joint resolution 76, making continuing appropriations for the national nuclear security administration for fiscal year 2014 and for other purse purposes. mr. reid: madam president?

i would object, though, to any further proceedings of this matter at this time. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: madam president, i have had a productive conversation with republican leader this afternoon. our discussions were substantive and we'll continue those discussions. i'm optimistic about the prospects for a positive conclusion to the issues before this country today. i now ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 2:00 p.m. monday, october 14. following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. at 5:00 p.m., the senate proceed to a vote on the wood and hikela district judge nominations.

the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: under the previous order, at 5:00 p.m., tomorrow there be 30 minutes prior to a debate for a series of roll call votes for wood to be united states judge for the northern district of illinois and madeleine hikkela for the northern district of alabama. 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

>> i thought wow, that's the answer. the more women in politics, the workmen across public life, things would change. i called my editor and she basically said okay. >> all of us in the working class are subjected to punitive taxes, being that guard by the elite media, not getting any special interest health in washington like the fat cats get.

that's the real problem. >> as a young child, i tasted racial segregation and racial discrimination and i didn't like it. as my mother and my father, grandparents, great grandparents, why segregation? by racial discrimination? they would say that's the way it is. don't get in trouble. don't get in the way. but in 1955 when i was in the 10th grade, 15 years old, i heard of rosa parks. i heard the voice of martin luther king junior on the radio.

in the words of dr. king inspired me to find a way to get in the way. in 1956 were my brothers and sisters in some of my first cousins. we went down to the public library and the town of troy, alabama, trying to get library cards, trying to check some. we were told by the librarian at the libraries were for whites only and not for colored. on july 5 kameny 298, i went back to the corporate library in alabama for a book signing at that book and hundreds approximately citizenship and gave me a library card. [applause] working but the wind is a book of faith, hope and and courage. it's not just my story. it's the story of hundreds and thousands in countless men and women, blacks and whites, who put their body on the line

during a very difficult. in the history of our country to end segregation and to end racial discrimination. >> author charles weill, who has written this book, the centrist manifesto. here's the cover. is this a call for a third party? the mechanistic called for a third party or third party movement, something that and

charles unshaved empowers people to center. they couldn't be talking about this at a better time given what happened in congress come the looming showdown than one would argue that details have captured the process of the folks in the middle have been disempowered. this is a strategy to recapture some political strengths for the middle, which is where most americans are in more going. >> a lot of people herger answered a lot of people are saying been there done that. but we've been there, done that from the extreme. ralph nader messed it up. ralph nader was not in the middle. if they are history buffs, they think the bull moose party. we have third-party movements that tend to do things, both of which are mistake. one is they tend to come outside the mainstream. they think of voters at the bell curve because that was a book about statistics. if you've got a third-party movement coming from the tail, that is a completely different

dynamic. second, people focus on the presidency, which is a fool's error. with the electoral college, there is no way a third-party movement is going to win presidency. the strategy in the book is all built around the u.s. senate, which is if you can master some center string and a handful of strength, but have a senator from one party and a senator from the other for governor from one and senator from the other. if you could run a century stand open seat in a note the two parties will do. they will go to the primary sentara crazy talk. democrats say things republicans will say things that want back and they will expect that they can do the etch-a-sketch. this is what mitt romney has given us. i didn't mean that, but instead a centrist candidate in the middle and all that person has to do is hold 34% of the vote,

not 50% and you've got a centrist senator. that's not nearly as hard as trying to win the presidency. >> in your view, mr. wheelan, has the system always been broken? they are bar priding working groups. you still see it to this day. a lot of really good legislation came out of those working groups. i do think there is appeared in the late 90s when you have a mass series of retirements. bill bradley, nancy kestenbaum, other relatively moderate senators from both sides. when we lost those those who only started seeing more partisanship writ large, the senate lost its ability to do that. one is working while companies see the best of the u.s. government coming out of the senate and the bipartisan working groups. i want to inject my centrist voices of the game of six becomes a gang of 12.

>> host: charles wheelan is the author. "the centrist manifesto" is the book you will put phone lines. conversations on booktv. (202)585-3890 for those in eastern and central time zone. if you live in the mountain pacific time zone, you can make a comment on our facebook page or on their twitter page twitter.com/booktv. facebook/booktv. what is your background, mr. wheelan thatcher writing the book? >> this is a book i almost wrote by accident, getting matter, make you more notes. one is my very first job out of college writing speeches for recurrent, better known as olympia snowe's husband is the governor of may, a democrat. he was one of the last three. he was a new england republican,

moderate republican, pro-choice, balkan k-12 education. on paper naïveté democrat. but fiscally conservative, perhaps the hunting of extinction. after that i went to became a policy person. i wrote for the economist, so i've been involved in politics. now i was watching it as an outsider in study and a come as a about everything through the lens of how you fix social security and so on. the last as i was a candidate. i was in chicago for almost 20 years, happily teaching. president obama gets elect them are relevant appoints rahm emanuel as his chief of staff. rob was my congressman. there is nobody queued up to replace him. everyone thought he would be there for a lifetime. b-bravo koi fish had been indicted, which was relevant because the usual chicago politicians frozen in place. no machine in the last pieces

are just elected president, a guy at the university of chicago. i said wait a minute, i teach at the university of chicago. if i was going to care about this, i ought to be one to get in the ring. so i ran as a fiscally conservative democrat. really my politics have moved very far from the speechwriting, but i'm now in the other party and i realized there were incidents where i can't get out of the democratic primary. i go into the endorsement sessions with the teacher young anthony say how do you feel about performance-based pay? i have a wife who ran a software company and then became a math teacher in an inner-city school. i said i didn't performance-based pay and other things are important based on what we've got to do. and then there's just the silence. right now if i said something so offensive we have 15 minutes we don't have to use it. you're not going to endorse me. i can't win this primary and i

realized i was a person without a party and i was not crazy. there was a lot of people out medicare. the experiences drove me to this. >> host: charles wheelan is our guest. how do you define the centrist? walk us through an issue. >> guest: there does have to be a certain pragmatism involved. but it is the best of each party. there's a lot of good parties. the hardest in the right place. the richest country and civilization should have a meaningful safety net, but it should be targeted for poor people, not corporations. so take welfare spending and channel it to people who need it most. the democrats are right on the environment. i don't think they're terribly effective in what they proposed, that they are relative to republicans. i think the republicans are right on the fiscal issue. i don't think they're going

about every right way. george w. bush was not exactly fiscally conservative when you look at the map. there's a lot of republicans who care a lot about this. if you take a couple simple concepts, fiscal responsibility we've got to get the launcher and imbalance. environmental responsibility, just with those bumper stickers have eliminated both parties. neither party at his face is fiscally and environmentally responsible. they are both about not living better today at the expense of tomorrow. i would throw and social tolerance and i think that means both being pro-gay marriage because it doesn't affect people not in the marriage. but if you want a gun in your home, have a gun in your home. that also doesn't affect anyone outside it as soon as you take the gun outside, we need to talk. i was a genuine commitment to economic opportunity. both parties talk that game. neither party has delivered.

we need to get back to a place of income a quality in a precarious in a class where we offer an opportunity for everybody in the country. that's it. >> host: property in jackson, tennessee. they're the first collar up with charles wheelan. >> caller: i tuned in just in the last 10 minutes via the bit in west tennessee area in the south as many small cities, i think we're more conservative. what we have a movement of west tennessee, but no constitutional party in a moderate senator, lamar alexander. a lot of us feel like a small minority are making decisions for the entire country even if both parties. we feel like nobody listens to

us. >> guest: you've got a primary process that empowers a minority in each party. so who shows up in primary elections. those are the folks who are on the ballot. they are also the folks who are waiting in the wings to knock off any incumbent who has the atrocity. as long as the folks who give the money, the base if you will are the ones who determine who we get to pick from. we get a system polarized as a result. i would argue that it's awful, which is why did people show up in the primaries have so much power? they show up in the primaries. if we are not willing to pay attention, if we are not willing

to engage, what kind of get what we deserve. what i've offer comes which i would hope is a place for that metal can actually get energized and show up. >> host: have we had a centrist president? >> guest: we've got a president who centrist tendencies has worked reasonably well. clinton was willing to compromise with the republicans to do welfare reform. nafta and other things too. from a policy standpoint, some things are specific. if you look on the tax policy side, the most significant tax overall we've ever had, which we need to do again was for tax reform of 86. reagan conceptually was wedded to a lower rate. ideologically that made perfect sense. and rostenkowski who was the chair ways and means, bob packwood who's chaired the senate finance committee was a purely bipartisan effort. reagan was going to compromise with those folks and they're

willing to compromise with the president. we have suicide presidents who centrist tendencies of legislative leaders willing to meet them. we're not seeing enough of that right now. >> host: where d.c. harry reid, mitch mcconnell and john boehner? >> guest: let me answer a different question, which is what happens if we manage to elect three or four or five centrist senators? we didn't get to talk about the last piece of the strategy. the number of states could elect centrist senators. now you have to hold up one step further, which is imagine a senate that is 47 democrats, 647 republicans. they are the swing votes. your question earlier, they are not crazy. is there not the smallest coalition and israeli parliamentary coalition. they are in the middle and near the arbiters, the bridge. nobody is an enemy. uganda got six votes. so you can turn to the republicans and say if you're

serious about tax reform, here's six votes. if you're serious about putting a price on carbon, here's six votes. that's your question about harry reid and mitch mcconnell, i don't think you see them. the reason is the first decision mishima has to make us use choose the majority leader. so at the centrist determined if the majority leader, republicans are not going to put a mitch mcconnell. the democrats will not appear to be. they say who is the most conservative person we can put up. it's almost like baseball arbitration. he still be at the house, so john boehner. the house is a difficult chamber. part of what's going on as you would the dynamic in terms of who actually leave the chamber. >> host: charles wheelan website, economics.com. up next to spill from new york state. hi, phil. >> caller: hi. i really enjoyed listening to your cast. i just have a question because i

am a moderate republican, which is maybe like i'm getting insane. my question is, has to come down to who do i dislike more comity partiers are teachers unions to decide who i can support now? i also agree -- as a moderate republican, i think the middle, whatever you want to call a centrist, what get we deserve. if we don't show up for primaries coming to deserve you deserve what you get. so maybe with whistling in the dark on a train to centrist people to take action. >> host: you describe yourself as moderately republican. you touched on teachers union. could you name two or three issues and where you stand on those. >> guest: >> caller: i am a deficit

hawk. we have to do both. cut spending and raise taxes. republicans are raising taxes. the other side to cut spending. i guess i'm a minority they are. anyway, i am talking too much. i appreciate listening to your guests. i'll get your book. thank you. >> guest: if we can make him a centrist, this isn't going to work. i would give him a party is excited about. most of america goes to the general election and they say they're going to hold their nose and they are going to say this with the other guys they bother me more? so if i'm a republican, i am going to pretend -- i can't do worse than us now. i'll ignore the view on gay marriage is the budget deficit

matters the most. if you're a democrat come you say care a lot about social issues and i'll ignore the teachers unions. everybody is ignoring something. the idea of a centrist candidate is where he talked about the fiscal situation. we will surface and symbols. we field a candidate would go to washington and the idea is to compromise and get a deal done seek an come back and you wouldn't have to apologize. you wouldn't say i know i promised never to raise taxes but i did and you are done. instead you say i promised to be on a budget that i thought was good for the country and i did that. you may not like all of it, but you like what we've done. most americans are willing to break this. we want to get somebody to be excited about. >> host: you are watching live coverage on coverage of the 13th annual national book festival. we are here at the mall in washington d.c. covering events in the history and biography tents currently. we are talking that charles wheelan, "the centrist

manifesto." the next call comes from john in manistee, michigan. >> caller: i don't know if you think the number of independents who would be reluctant to be representing a significant number. usually this exclusive ballad whether you are voting for one party or the other. >> guest: this is an important point here want to not make the centrist party and exclusive movement. we're also talking about writing a second worse, supporting a small fee sensors mimic, which is other folks playing in the middle ground. that includes organizations like no labels to work with two existing parties. we want to support anybody in this mental space, including moderate republicans, moderate democrats and so on.

a lot of independents just don't like the political parties. but they are likely when it comes to elections, they are likely to like the centrist better than the other two. they don't have to become centrist. if we can get ballot access, that is an attractive candidate for those in independents, even if they're averse to political parties. anybody who's been around this business knows they really have a a two-party oligopoly and a leg to keep competition now. he's very hard to get on the ballot in a lot of states. one of the reasons they want to create a national movement is to provide money and goods on the ground when you need to get a candidate on the ballot. you have to get signatures in a short period of time. if there's people committed to the centrist party in california and there may not be a candidate to go somewhere else.

we can to end up 10 minutes to vote. >> host: 99 streets and i'll davos organization inspired a viable third party. he says the gerrymandering opposes the entitlement. >> guest: that's why we're staying out of the house and not the presidency. you do have to put your institutional classes i'm here and think deeply about the system that we've built. as i said earlier, the presidency they are and gerrymandering is difficult. there may be some swing districts are a candidate might. i don't think a good enough to make a difference and that's a lot of work. a great organization, but as long as folks are still committed to one party or the other, the compromise is still

something they were sent to do, at least by the extreme. it's all well and good if people come together and do things. i do want a situation where they go back and apologize. i want them to come back to the center and say i did what i told you i would do. that is a big difference between having an institutional home and keeping folks in the two parties and get them together. under the current total in favor of what labels are trying to do. but if you're only focusing on the sense, you're still going to have the issue with the house being on one side, presidency been on the other. >> host: there's no magic wand there. a few of the president is not committed to do anything, it's tough to muster two thirds of the centrist probably are going to get you there. we have a system designed, with the talks regular cola and cola and the constitutional status. it is not to be king george the third period to pull that off.

this is where it's easy to do nothing. the one thing i would say is if you can get legislation out of the senate because you've got the centrist building on the gang of whatever bipartisan working group. then there is a bill passed in a tester in the heat up a little on both the house and presidency. it's now sitting on your plays. that's probably shame in doing the bill would be the two tools we can send over to the other chambers. that's probably the best we can do. >> host: did in san francisco. hi, dave. >> caller: that may run through this quickly because there's a lot to go through. the problem that i pay cut it out is really the two-party system itself. it's because as mathematically generated, there's nothing in the constitution that says we have to have a two-party system.

the people who formed the constitution did my parties at all. single member districts for legislatures first pass post voting mathematically generates a two-party divide. not only that, but neither party actually represents anybody in particular. both parties are rotten blocks afforded together by mutual hatred of the other side. so you have people in the republican party who would have nothing to do with each other, but they hate the democrats and people of the democratic party had nothing to do with each other, but they hate republicans. would it be better to have a proportional representation system like most modern democracies have where you have multimember legislative districts, where people who say the green party gets 10% in the tea party gets 10% in the centrist party get 30% and

whatever. each party gets that percentage of representation in the legislature. wouldn't that get rid of the gerrymandering problem? they would get rid of the rot block problem where everybody is forced to be in the same party with people they have nothing in common with said mutual hatred of the other side? and when it then make a more honest legislative process, where people from the factual political parties that represent real political views would have to get together and negotiate policies because nobody would have an absolute majority. >> host: we got the point. >> guest: dave gave us a better have the most comparative politics. these are really good points and i don't think people think about the system and the processes that generate come even when you hold voter presidents constant. they have proportional representation, where you have parties among those lines.

it's not a miracle. we're not going to tear up the constitution to go there. i'm trying to do something within the constraints of the opportunities we have. we are creating a parliamentary system in the senate. you also have to remember in most parliamentary systems, you get a different problem, which is if you don't get an absolute majority, uk's strange coalitions. you get exactly what you describe in our current parties. i'm about to take students in india. they want congress party had a coalition that included the communist. so you have mono hot thing, an economist trying to reform the economy with market reforms and a coalition that includes the communists. a look at israel and coalitions for a small party might hold a couple seats and they care passionately about settlements in the west bank on which make the peace process more

difficult. what you do in any system is trade one set of problems for another. the fundamental takeaways this government is hard. it's all getting us to agree and that is not easy here or anywhere at anytime. >> host: economics and make an specifics are mr. wheelan's other books. teaches at dartmouth currently. here's the cover of "the centrist manifesto." jim and martinez, california. we have a minute left. >> caller: can you hear me? >> host: we are listening. >> caller: the person before me said to be much but i was leading two. i was saying in my mind, people who are 50,000 to perhaps 200,000, 300,000 have warned common with each other as opposed to just being a democrat or republican. it's like whether you like the 40 niners are readers than one

side or the other. but in reality, if you take away -- in fact, further than the parliamentary say no party system. this people are elect did for their ideas and then the chambers, congress and senate are set up with different way for these 500, 600, whatever people come up with a different order, how they go about, you know, making roles are deciding things. that's my idea. thank you. >> guest: that's a tough thing to do. george washington did not parties. i would say they have some benefit and provide a lot of information and a lot of organizational power. this gets back to your call in the one before that the current parties are just a compilation of interest. what i try to do with the centrist party is to outline coherent governing philosophy. the fiscal responsibility, environmental responsibility

that people can organize around and believe in and get excited about as opposed to just throwing the coalition of folks with whom they have nothing in common other than a desire to win seats. >> host: here it is again, wheelan, "the centrist manifesto." here's the cover published by norton. professor wheelan committing an act for joining us. >> guest: thank you.

>> here are some of the books published in 2004, of tvs seventh and c-span 2.

the abcs of adulthood if you will. when i taught a friend of mine about the high plains county that was so enamored of president rusch, she was perplexed and she asked vegas, how can anyone who's ever worked

for someone else but republican? how could so many people get it so wrong? i think her question is asked. in fact, it is in some ways the preeminent question of our times. people getting their fundamental interests wrong is that american political life is all about. >> the book is called if you knew me you would care. as you said, when it comes to women and work him over one thinks of them as victims. i really did not actually, none of us want to come the way of the story. because though there is but to put in the story, their story is far more than just the victim story. they are not defined by the actual story. they are defined by what they make out of the story.

claudine, for example, is a woman who wanted to be a doctor when she was a kid. she had an aspiration and everything is good until her father died when she was 13 years old and she had to the school so she can work and help her mother support her. i will tell you what claudine went through, but i was can also tell you when she was 16, she fell in love with a young man. she saw him on her way to the church and they would glance at each other and they had a crush on each other in gecko and until the day she giggled when she talks about how she fell in love. they got married when they were 18, for those of you got in here. they got married that iran and had a happy marriage and they had kids and a house and is a happy marriage. until the war when they broke up. when the war broke up, took everything apart from that and

he started drinking and he started being an alcoholic. when he started drinking he started beating her. one day he beat her up so badly that the hospital refused to treat her unless she tells who did this to her. that is how code needs new journey started. they took him to prison and when he left from prison, he divorced his wife. the thing is i want it to you claudine was two years ago by a soldier she did not know, who is in congo. but that's not only claudine. codeine made up her hair in this style. he how cool it is. claudine who is a woman who is in love. claudine is a woman who was beaten, who survived, it is his story, never a simple story of those others in other parts of the world and in this case in congo. i started the journey thinking i am embarking on a journey to save the world.

i learned that the world is saving me and then at the very woman i end up thinking i'm helping end up helping me. when i asked her, i ask every woman, what does she mean? part of women for women's goal is to understand war and peace from a woman's face. when i asked them, what did she mean by peace? quick she said pieces inside my heart. no one can take it away for me. no one can give it to me. now i go to yoga every single day, at least i try. i spent so much money on yoga studios in and meditation in a pensive things just so i can understand the peace cloudiness talking about. pieces inside my heart. no one can take it away from me. no one can give it to me. if i tell you was actually locked in a river three months and raised to date and day out by one ministry commander in the day she was supposed to be cody

said i cannot seem to be killed, so he gives her his military uniform and pretends it's a machine gun. thirty dollars he still someone's motorcycle so you can give a ride to her home village. she said it is my profit. she teaches me how to love. that is if you knew me you would care. you would care and understanding at that story, not only the horrible stories. this woman said do not look at me as a poor woman. i was a rich woman once. she had her talents in a chicken and goat and the war came and they stole it away from her. we have to connect with other and in the journey that it's not only with the victim story. this woman was not smiling because she has a gap in her teeth. unlike many of us appreciate beauty and want to be beautiful and was embarrassed to show the gap in between her teeth.

you see, if we connect on a beautiful story and if we can act on the love story and if we can act on the marriage story, this woman's husband cheated on her best result got to hiv. but there are stories that have the same here could go through and they are not all the best stories. it is stories i learned from this woman who was a beautician and afghanistan. unattached to pay attention to my upper legs and eyebrows. she actually helped me clean up afterwards because in afghanistan, there is a beauty that every woman appreciated. the woman behind the burqa has a beauty parlor. they actually make sure this is all the wedding she was talking about makeup and all that. some woman also was married to a man who is four years older than her. her parents did not want her to

marry this man, but they were so worried that they gave out. there were so worried he would kidnap her anyway. she is struggling day in, day out, just so he can send her daughters to school. she has been the demise. the she is not defined by herbert story. and if we cannot see her beyond the victim story, then it's a shame on us. the dalai lama said if you cannot respect those user, then better not serve them because they would feel if you do not respect them. >> niagara is a reconstruction of the ship that was built here in 1812, 1813 for the battle of lake erie. it was built to contest control

of the lake with british with the rest of the squadron and ship still here. we should incorporates timber for the rich. they're not structural, they're not load bearing here they are embedded in the frame between the pieces and there's embolic presence of the original ship. its original about the ship is the way of sales. there began, the work the crew has to do is very much what we had to do in 1813. [inaudible] >> we teach history. we teach appreciation of the war of 1812 in the americana history of the great lakes. i really, most of the learning that takes place on board is about function as members of the team of the ship's company. they are learning it is i think of real value now because it's a

place where we can continue certain traditions and certain attitudes and abilities for centuries. we perpetuate them and keep that going.

>> here i am in chicago. i married. it's made team 77. i have my bachelors degree. and latino. you'd think they'd be looking for ursula k. people like me to come and work for your firm or your company. no one. one application after another. i thought to myself, i did this in college. i drove a cab. but i have to tell you, it was hard because i was driving a cab, had so many plans in so many -- i remember when i went back to my dad for christmas and he said after all the effort in all the expense, for you to wind up doing exactly what i did. i kept telling and dad, i have to work. i have to keep my self respect in my dignity. i have to work and this i