consideration of calendar number 36, h.r. 1301, that the stabenow-casey-brown amendment at the desk providing for the permanent extension of the children's health insurance program, a five-year extension of the community health centers program and extensions of other expired medicaid, medicare, and health extensions be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. proom is there objection? -- the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: i agree with the gentleman from new jersey. we wanted to fund the chip program which is why we voted to extend it for six years just a couple of days ago. the gentleman voted against it. i agree with him that the states are beginning to run out of money and we need to come up

with a reauthorization soon. but this looks more like a way to atone for a bad vote that was made a couple of days ago on the part of people on the floor today. what we need to do is go back and fund the government. i also care about the veterans that would have been covered by the continuing resolution the gentleman from new jersey voted against. i care about the military and military families who are affected by the c.r. so i think instead of doing these sorts of measure that give some sort of level or comfort for those who voted against these same things a couple of days ago, why don't we get back to funding the government, opening it back up, and making the right decision and resolving our differences, but at the end of the day, not through these half measures. mr. brown: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i heard my colleagues

talk about and take credit for chip. of course i'm glad they are now actually for it. but i worked on chip for a long time, for more than a decade. i'm on the finance committee, i think the only one in this room right now that's in the committee that worked on this. this chip expired september 30. early september we asked chairman hatch to move on chip, october, november, december, in the middle of the tax bill we asked chairman hatch to move on chip. finally he did, it was a bipartisan vote. the other senator from ohio, senator portman, voted for it. only senator toomey voted against it. it expired, as i said, septembe. so we went october, didn't do anything, november, didn't do anything, december, didn't do anything. now january 21st, more than a year after president trump was inaugurated, now they seem to want to do something on chip. i appreciate that they do, don't

get me wrong. i care so much about this. mr. booker: will the senator yield? mr. brown: of course. mr. booker: the republicans control the white house, the senate, and a majority of the house. you and i have had more experience than anybody else. 112 days have lapsed since the program lapsed. states have had to take action. there's been crises, there's been problems. i simply ask you this, your experience, if democrats were in control of this body would the bill have come to the floor before 112 days? mr. brown: i thank the senator from new jersey who has been a real leader on this issue too. the bill would have come to the floor before the clock started because it would have come to the floor in september before it even expired. but think about -- we talk a lot about issue and talk a lot about numbers in this body, but think about this for a moment. you're a parent in the tate of virginia and -- in the state of virginia and you're a parent ten

miles from here and making $9 an hour an your wife is making $11 and you qualify for chip because neither you nor your spouse has insurance, you qualify for chip, 209,000 in my state, 100,000 and some in virginia. you got a letter around christmas time in virginia, you got a letter saying, sorry, your health insurance is about to expire for your children. imagine what that -- you go out to the mailbox, you pick up the mail, you tear the envelope open, and you see this -- you open this letter and you see that you're going to lose your health insurance. why? because the people in this body who get government insurance, insurance paid by taxpayers, the 100 privileged senators, the 435 privileged house members, we have insurance but we done care

enough to do this. again, we had december, october, november, january, and now it is in the bill as a political thing. say a lot of other things on the other side of the aisle but don't try to tell us that they genuinely care about the 90000,000 in my state and another couple,000 in -- 200,000 in new jersey and hawaii and other states. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: here's the state of play. there's a group of 19 to 22 united states senator, a bipartisan group trying to find a pathway forward, senators schumer and mcconnell had a meeting. we don't know exactly how that went. there are some reasons to be encouraged. i think there are not that many reasons to be overly optimistic,

but there is a path way out of this. we can get out of this mess about -- i think a lot of understand who have served at the legislative and county level as well, we understand how insane it is to do this, and we understand how hard it is to get to the united states senate and i look at all of you and how difficult it was to arrive at the world's greatest deliberative body and forgetting for a moment someone's calculus who has a long-term or part-time advantage because of this. shutdowns make this institution weaker, and shutdowns make senators weaker. we don't fight tooth and nail and go through the process -- there are some joyful moments in a campaign, but no one necessarily looks forward to it,

it's tough. you don't go through that to diminish the body in which you serve and we are diminished by this process. general mattis may have put it best when he said that no enemy has done more harm to the military than the combined impact of spending caps and nine of the last 10 years of operating under c.r.'s. we can't do c.r.'s forever, but right now we need 1 to keep everyone at the table -- we need one to keep everyone at the table and that is the purpose of the brown u.c. and the murphy u.c. is to say whatever our disagreements are, we have an opportunity by unanimous consent to make sure that we don't punish the american people for our inability to agree with each other. why not keep the government open for 24, 48, or 72 hours? from my standpoint looking at my constituents in the state of hawaii, we have noaa workers, we

have the department of defense, civilian d.o.d. employees as well as service members, we have national park service people who do extraordinary work . with we have lots of government employees and it's not their fault. it is not their fault. and so i have a very many unanimous consent -- i have a very simple unanimous consent request. it is different from the others. the others were to avoid this cataclysm, but should we be able to avoid this cataclysm, i think we should keep ow government workers whole because they didn't did do -- didn't do this to us. we did this to them. my u.c. makes sure whatever happens over the next six hours or six days or six weeks that they are held harmless. so i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 290, s. 2274, to

provide for compensation of federal employees affected by lapses in appropriations, that the bill be considered a read -- considered read ad third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. tillis: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: reserving the right to object. first and foremost, i want to thank the federal employees an anybody -- and i want to thank anybody who works for the federal government. some people in this body voted not to fund the government a couple of days ago. i hope we can fund the government and move on and resolve important issues, the daca that is very personally important to me. as a practical matter, i think that we will take care of the federal employees because they work hard and they deserve that. what i will tell you is the effect of these c.r.'s and

something that i will say is one of the reasons why i hate these continuing resolutions, here's what happens every time a c.r. is threatened to occur or a shutdown is threatened to occur. one of the reasons why the short-term c.r.'s make no sense to me because tomorrow if you did a one-day c.r., then the good news is everybody would come to work tomorrow and tomorrow afternoon, you would say you're probably not going to come back on tuesday. or a three-day c.r., you go to work on -- work but then you don't know if you work on thursday many we need to fund the government and fund the chip program, based on the proposal that was voted down by my colleague who is offering this particular motion. that's not the way to do it. i want our leaders to get together. i want our members to get together and solve these problems. these are half-measures that do in the address the root problem.

the root problem is getting people together, getting them in a room to fund the government. for that reason i object joint commission on taxation. the presiding officer: objection is -- i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. schatz: i agree that it would be a half measure to open the governmentor 24 hours. it would be a half measure to pass just chip. it would be a half measure to open the government for 72 hours. but the alternative is that we're doing nothing. sure, it's a little goofy to keep the government for 24 hours as we negotiate. it's absolutely goofy. it's embarrassing. it's less embarrassing than shutting the government down while we negotiate. opening the government for 72 hours, a little strange. not our highest watermark in terms of our legislative prowess, pretty embarrassing. what's more embarrassing? shutting the government down.

passing chip after it's expired by consent, awful. you know, not the world's deliberative body's greatest moment. what's worse? objecting to doing that. we want to make sure that our federal employees are made whole and i agree with the senator from north carolina. this is a half measure. but you know what? if i'm a federal employee, i'll take a half measure because right now we're giving them nothing. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: i want to reiterate to the federal employees, i fully believe, just like these dramas in the past, that we will fund the government, they will be paid and i apologize for those who voted against the c.r. a few days ago that they are being taken through this process. i, for one, have been here three years. i have never voted against a debt-ceiling increase because i believe we need to pay the bills that we obligated ourselves to.

i never voted for a government shutdown because i believe we should do the work that we're paid here to do. i will say, in closing, that i also agree that senator heller has a great idea. when we get into this mode and we cannot actually fund the government, then why on earth should we be paid for what we're doing? i don't think any u.s. senator should be paid a dime or get health care every single day that we fail to do our job. that's something we hopefully can get unanimous consent tonight to put forth that until we solve this problem maybe we shouldn't get paid, maybe not get health care and put our money where our mouth is and then maybe we can get some things done. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate the senator from north carolina offering an apology for other members on this side of the body so let me

return the favor. let me offer an apology for the republican majority for the governance disaster that has occurred in the united states congress over the last year. why are we here today? we are here today because last year republicans spent all of their time and energy trying to steal health insurance from 30 million americans, trying to rescind protections for people with preexisting conditions. they spent the first half of the year trying to take insurance away from 30 million people. they were not successful because the american people rose up and told this congress that was a terrible idea. they spent the second half of the year trying to push through successfully this time a massive tax cut for the wealthy, 80% of that tax cut going to the richest 1% of americans, equally as unpopular as the health care repeal, that one was successful. meanwhile during 2017, three

disasters hit the united states in text, it, florida, -- in texas, florida, and puerto rico, and they did not pass the assistance package that is it anotherly automatic after a disaster hits. meanwhile republicans let the children's health insurance program expire and millions of frightened parents got notifications that their toddler's health care would cease to exist. meanwhile health centers in this country which provide some of the most important care to the indigent had their funding expire and all of a sudden had to make budgets -- budget plans for 2018 with half as much money as they thought they were going to get. meanwhile, republicans didn't pass a budget, forgot to pass a single appropriations bill and c.r. after c.r. after c.r. were

required. i'm sorry, on behalf of my republican friends, that they didn't do their job in 2017. i'm sorry that the american people gave control of the house and the senate and the presidency to the republican party, and they didn't pass a budget, they didn't pass disaster assistance, they didn't reauthorize the children's health care insurance program, they didn't provide assistance to health centers. we're trying to be the adults here and say that it's time to do our job. it's time to get assistance to these disaster areas. it's time to pass children's health care reauthorization for the long term, get those health centers the money that they need to keep their doors open. the department of defense needs a budget, not just for four months but for a full year. we're not asking for much.

we're just asking for congress to do its job. at some point somebody here has to be the grownup. somebody has to be the adult. and so we're saying let's keep the government open for a day, three days, as long as it takes for us to do our job but to pass another month-long continuing resolution with no hope in site for the department of defense that needs their money, the disaster areas, the kids, the health centers, it's just not what we got elected to do. this has been a governance disaster over the last year. this place has not been doing its job. and we ought to start right now. i love the suggestion of staying all night. the senator from north carolina is right, you're not going to get an agreement on all of these complicated issues this evening, but, boy, we could try. and had we made the decision to at least keep the government

open and operating for a day, three days, the pain at least would not be felt by the americans who depend on these services because of the governance disaster that has been visited upon this place over the past year. thank you. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: i have one last unanimous consent request. i appreciate the participation from the senator from north carolina. 9 last request is very simple. it's the same one with a small modification that senator mack r mccaskill made on saturday night. every time we've done a shutdown -- i've been involved in one. it was the green eggs and ham affordable care act shutdown. it was the worst period of time i ever spent in the senate. sherrod brown always says no whining on the yacht. don't feel sorry for yourself for serving in the united states

senate. it is a bridge. it is -- it is a privilege. it is a great job but shutdowns are miserable. but during that shutdown and during every other shutdown that i'm aware of, we always took care of our service members. and so senator mccaskill on friday night made sure that we just put that u.c. in so that we made sure that everyone who is serving in harm's way or prepared to serve in harm's way supports our military, gets paid. and frankly, i understand in the heat of the moment on friday night when there's still a lot of -- there's a lack of claritity whether we're going to get through it without a shutdown, i understand nobody wanted to allow a u.c. request of any sort to go through. but then friday comes and it's not at all clear that we're going to move on this thing. and now we're into sunday and i

don't know where we are with this but i'm getting increasingly worried. and so it's really hard for me to understand why we wouldn't unanimously consent to pay our service members. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 36, h.r. 1301, that the amendment at the desk providing for the continuing appropriations for pay and death benefits for members of the armed services be considered agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and that motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president, reserving the right to object.

i want to go back and talk about the concept of doing our jobs. so loud, i could hear myself. we've done a lot of stuff over the last 12 months. for people to say we haven't done anything, then let's go back and talk about the 12 circuit judges, neil gorsuch on the supreme court, extraordinary regulatory reform, a number of very positive things. i know that your perspective is different based on what side of the aisle you're on, but i'm actually very proud of what we as a congress have accomplished and what this president has accomplished. now -- reserving the right to object. i do object. mr. president, i would like to ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to immediate consideration of calendar 31, h.r. 1301, that the amendment at the desk which provides for the full funding for authorized

activities in the national again taition authorization act be considered agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, the motion to consider be considered -- reconsider be considered and made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. mr. schatz: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator -- the objection has been heard to the request from the senator from hawaii. is there objection to the request from the senator from north carolina? mr. schatz: mr. president, reserving the right to object. i'm a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee on the appropriations committee. and the way as the senator from north carolina knows, that we do defense appropriations is with great care. we have markups. we find out what each service branch needs in terms of personnel, in terms of bases and installation, in terms of new

acquisitions. and that process takes a fair amount of time. and that markup is not done. and so i would love to move on dense appropriation -- defense appropriations, but from the standpoint of responsibly spending hundreds of billions of dollars, we're not there yet. so, therefore, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. hatch: mr. president, america's kids have access to quality medical care is among my top priorities in the senate.

that's why long ago i reached across the aisle to create the revolutionary children's health insurance program, or chip. i'm proud to call chip my own. ted kennedy -- teddy kennedy, to get this bill passed, and faced an uphill battle to get this bill passed. bur we were willing to take the heat because we knew it was the right thing to do. he came on board shortly after filed this bill and i have never regretted it. for more than 20 years chip has served as the literal lifeline for millions of children whose families cannot otherwise afford health insurance. without exaggeration, this groundbreaking program has saved thousands of young lives and has long stood as a symbol of what our two parties can accomplish when we look beyond the horizon of our differences to find common ground. sadly, in today's washington, the bipartisan spirit that

breathed life into chip has been all but snuffed out. as a case in point, democrats are now holding this health care program hostage to their own radical agenda, using it as a bargaining chip in a dangerous political game. after months of hard work and goodfaith negotiation, progressives have effectively walked away from a once-in-a-generation deal to extend chip for six years, the longest extension in the program's history, and something i would like to do. and unless republicans cave to their unreasonable demands, the federal government will remain shut down for who knows how long. rather than holding chip for ransom, i implore my friends on the left to work with us, not only to reauthorize this beloved program but also to approve a federal funding package so that we can get the government back up and running. contrary to what the senator from ohio asserted just a few

moments ago, republicans have been working diligently this whole past year to get chip across the finish line. we did not let chip funding lapse but worked continually to make sure there were sufficient funds forbe the program, even after the fiscal year. under no circumstances was i ever going to let chip expire without taking care of it. that's why senator wyden and i engaged in a bipartisan process following regular order back in the summer. we came to an agreement together. we reported a chip bill out of committee, on a voice vote, with plenty of time to pass it through both chambers. and since that time, i have worked with leaders to ensure that the program was sufficiently funded in the short term until we could bring up and pass our long-term extension. so, mr. president, the idea that we would have let funding lapse

is absurd and the senator from ohio knows it. moreover, the accusation that republicans have ignored chip is false on its face. give me a break. our work is on the record, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either severely misinformed or playing political games, something that's not usual around here, especially now. speaking of clinical games, democrats are now saying that both chip and daca are a package deal, and there is no fixing one without the other. it sounds like real support, doesn't it? but, mr. president, that just simply isn't true. we're imposing imaginary deadlines on ourselves that will leave everyone worse off, both chip recipients and dreamers alike. the truth is we can secure chip funding tonight, ensuring that there are nine million kids who depend on this critical program

will make up tomorrow with the promise of continued medical care. resolving the chip crisis now will then give us the breathing room we need to find a lasting solution on the daca issue. let's not pretend that right now is a do-or-die moment on immigration reform. we have until march to resolve the issue, and we're going to need all of that time to make sure this gets done right. quite frankly, i have had enough of the democrats' arbitrary deadlines, and i'm offended by those who say that lawmakers who want to spend more time to resolve the daca issue don't care about dreamers and their families. i have stuck my neck out on immigration issues year after year, and i have more to show for it than most. so the idea that i don't care because i would rather do this right than simply do it now is ridiculous. as anyone who has served more

than a single term in this body can tell -- can tell you, immigration is an incredibly complex issue filled with pitfalls and surprises at every turn. an issue of this sensitivity needs to be negotiated in good faith, not in the middle of a government shutdown with a gun to our heads. on the subject of immigration reform, i am bewildered by my democratic colleagues who insist on poisoning the well with an unnecessary government shutdown. there is no reason for my colleagues to pit their righteous crusade on immigration against their righteous crusade for chip. this is simply a matter of priorities. and as it turns out, the american people agree with me. in fact, a cnn poll released on friday showed that a majority of americans feel that funding the

government is more important than funding an immediate solution to the daca program. we were extremely close to doing exactly what the american people wanted. bipartisan majorities in both the house and the senate supported a noncontroversial bill to keep the government funded. but democrats filibustered this bill, voting instead to shut down the government and block funding for chip. they own this mess. now we need to work together to clean it up. we won't make any progress by continuing to invent imaginary deadlines. mr. president, now is not the time for political brinkmanship, but for responsible governance. millions are depending on us to do the right thing, and we cannot let them down, so let's get this right, and let's get it done right. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: