bill providing military aid to israel and imposing new sanctions on syria. democrats are blocking bills not relate today reopening the federal government. and now to live coverage. u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. prayer will be offered by dr. dr. barry black at this time. the chaplain: let us pray. o god, our way,

our truth, and our life, we worship you. quicken our consciences by your holiness that we will find nourishment in your truth. as this partial government shutdown grinds on, help our lawmakers to to open their hearts to your love and to surrender their desires to your purposes. in this tangled world, we are conscious of our woeful inadequacies to sit in the seats of judgment, to balance the scales of justice, and to respond with

equity to the myriad calls of human needs. we need you, eternal god, to crown our deliberations with your wisdom and with spacious thinking to fit these challenging days. we pray in your strong name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 1 which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of s. 1, a bill to make improvements to certain defense and security assistance provisions and so forth and for other purposes.

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. grassley: i understand that there's a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: s. 109, a bill to prohibit taxpayer funded abortions. mr. grassley: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceedings. the presiding officer: the objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. grassley: i -- the presiding officer: the senator from virginia is recognized. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to talk about the significance of today, the 11th of january, the 21st day of the partial government shutdown. today we tie for the longest

shutdown in the history of the united states government. tomorrow we'll set a record for the longest shutdown. today is the first paycheck day where 800-plus thousand federal employees will not be paid. in fact, some have already started to get their paychecks because even when there's no pay, the process of producing the check and the stub continues. and so people get paychecks but there's a zero in the line which is sort of like pouring salt in a wound or insult to injury. it's one thing not to be paid but it's another thing to be working and then get the stub and have there be zero there. and people have already reported some of our air traffic controllers and t.s.a. professionals and others that they're starting to receive those checks. january 11 is also a time where i know what it's like in my family. my wife and i kind of load up on both the charitable contributions and buying gifts for our family in december and

that credit card bill in january is the biggest one we pay all year. families are receiving those. january tends to be among the coldest months of the year where heating bills are the highest. we're going to have a cold snap and maybe a snowstorm in washington this weekend and those bills will be high. january 11 is a time where a lot of families sit around kitchen tables and strike tuition checks for the spring semester for their kids to be in school. it's precisely the worst time, precisely the worst time to have a shutdown of this kind that affects more than 800,000 people and jeopardizes their liveliho livelihood. i stand on the floor today to repeat what i said tuesday night when many of us stood here and said it's really time to end this shutdown. the house wants to end it. an increasing number of senators want to end it by passing bills

that are right here on the senate, available for consideration to reopen government and to engage with the president in a meaningful, short-term prompt dialogue about border security and immigration reform. but i want to just share some stories that are flooding into my office. and i'll be back on the floor later because at 11:00, senator warren and i will be at a community senator and i will be bringing more stories back to the floor before we adjourn at 1:00 today. before i share stories, i do want to express appreciation to the majority leader, to the republicans and the democrats who join together -- joined together with us yesterday to pass an important bill, senate bill 24, which is a bill -- it's not as good as getting a paycheck, but it is a bill to tell those who have lost paycheck, or losing paychecks during this time, when we reopen, you will be paid. in the past we've done that. once we reopen, we figure out a way to do that.

but i felt like it was important on the day when people are not being paid, for them to at least get the signal from congress, some certainty, something that they might be able to show to a landlord or to a bank, i am going to get paid. and the senate majority leader and minority leader worked at the end of the day to make sure that a u.c. to pass senate bill 24 was successful and it was at about 5:00 last night. we sent the bill to the house. the house is taking the bill up this morning. senator mcconnell, i applaud him also for reaching out to the white house and speaking directly with the president about the bill. and the president indicated that he would sign it when the bill gets to him. again, it's not as good as a paycheck but it adds a little something on a tough day to tell people that they can rest assured that when we figure this out, they will be paid whole. so i do want to express appreciation to all for working on that yesterday. but again, that is not a

cessation of the pain. i'm going to read stories from federal employees, but i do want to acknowledge that this is not just 800,000 employees. it's also millions of americans. i told a story on the floor tuesday night about just coincidentally two saturdays ago going to four different units of the national park system under the department of interior or the national forest system under the department of agriculture and being turned away by a gate code and the sign saying we're -- closed and the sign saying we're shut down. i was just interested to watch other families pull up in their vehicles on a saturday, spending time with their kids, time with the family is precious. you often don't get a lot of it. sometimes driving with kids a long way to get to a national park or something, they're squabbling in the back seat and you're really hoping to get there. watching families pull up and looking at their faces as they saw what they hoped to do that

day they couldn't do because it was closed, that made an impression on me. people trying to visit the museums here in washington who can't. citizens who are falling into hunger who want to apply for food stamps. 95% of the workforce that processes food stamp applications have been furloughed during this time. air traffic controllers, they're working because they're essential, but it's got to make you a little cranky to get a paycheck with a zero in it. and i can't imagine of a federal employee that i would less like to be cranky than an air traffic controller. i mean, this is like really important stuff. you don't want an air traffic controller sitting in that tower thinking about anything other than air safety. and if 5% of their brain is sort of bad at this shutdown and 20% of their brain is how am i going to pay the bill, air traffic controllers have shared this, they need security clearances to do their jobs.

do you know if your credit is impaired and you start to get hit on your credit report, that can endanger your security clearance. in some circumstances it can lead to your security clearance being taken away. if you were under a court order to pay alimony or child support and you can't regardless of whether you have a good reason or not and then there's a court order forcing you to, that can lead you to lose your security clearance. so you don't want somebody in the tower of air traffic control worrying about anything other than the safety of the passenger. and if they're mad at government for shutting down and they're anxious about not getting a paycheck and wondering how long it will go on and what the consequences might be, that is not something that makes me feel comfortable. this is an issue about the federal worker but also an issue about the affect on americans who need all kinds of services. like every office here, my office has been flooded with

expressions of concern. senator, why can't you do something, what's going on, how long is this going to go on and i don't have a good answer for them. let me just read some stories. i read seven or eight tuesday night. these are stories that have come in since tuesday. shane from alexander, i'm a veteran and a furloughed government employee working for the peace corps. my wife is a disabled veteran and we live paycheck to payche paycheck. i lost my job during the housing crisis and we lost our home and then relocated to the d.c. area for work. we've worked hard to build our lives back up again and now own a home again but that's all in jeopardy. if i don't get paid, we can't pay the mortgage and we'll lose our home. i relocated my family from florida for a secure job here and to provide financial stability to my family. now because of a dysfunctional government, i may have to find

new work again but it may not be in time to save our home. please, please, please do what you can to open the government back up. terry from fairfax, i'm writing you along with my other elected congressional representatives seeking your help in bringing the government shutdown to an immediate end. today is day 19. this was sent to us on wednesday. and counting with no end in sight. the information put out by media saying the number of those affected by this partial government shutdown is 800,000 i submit to you it's much higher than that, especially in the commonwealth of virginia. currently i work for the department of homeland security, the t.s.a. at washington-dulles international airport. i have the compliance department enforcing the code of federal regulations and i have 15 people working for me. we make sure the nation's transportation system at washington-dulles is secure and safe and we're exempt from

furlough. of the 15 people that work for me, most live paycheck to paycheck. as you can imagine with the outlook of no paycheck coming this saturday, the morale is starting to go down. and mazlo's hierarchy of needs is kicking in. that is self-preservation. their focus is switching from that work, keeping things safe and secure for their family and how they're going to provide for them and survive. as for me, i served honorably in the united states coast guard and retired after 26 years. i started working at washington-dulles when t.s.a. first stood up and i've been there over 16 years. i'm 63 years old. my coast guard retired paycheck is my financial security, something to fall back on, something i can plan on up until now. i just learned yesterday there won't be -- there won't be a retirement check for coast guard retirees because of the shutdown. the financial security we work

for is no longer there. this is a breach of trust between the u.s. government and every coast guard retiree and it's wrong. i've proudly served the american people for more than 42 years, and i've been through every government shutdown since 1976. this particular one is getting old in a hurry. it it may be the -- it may be the worst and it needs to stop. for my people at work, my family at home, and my fellow coast guard retirees, we need your help in ending this shutdown. garrett, a virginian working as a contractor at nasa. i'm a contractor for nasa. i'm shut down and i'm not very happy. this is having a negative financial affect on my life. i'm okay today, but soon in the very next few days when i have exhausted my vacation, then take leave without pay, then have to pay for overpriced health insurance, then i will be --

then i will be in a big pinch. as a contractor, we're not guaranteed to be reimbursed for our leave. the last shutdown, i lost a paycheck i never got back. it was something like a 2% pay cut. i won't be able to take sick leave or vacation this year. something has to be done, and i'm relying on you to make it happen. we all are. just think of all the good government employees that will be forced to leave the government because it is such a negative place to work. government just -- government employees being forced to leave the government. today in fairfax, the fairfax county public school system is having a hiring fair just for federal employees. they need substitute teachers. they need bus drivers. they need cafeteria workers. and so they're doing the hiring fair to try to play upon the unhappiness of federal employees who are out for the shutdown and don't think that they're going to come back to work.

phil from chesterfield. through no fault of my own, i'm not being paid my bye weekly salary tomorrow. this will cause a significant strain on my family, my church contributions, my shared health care costs, my retirement contributions. having a college student attend virginia commonwealth university with winter semester fees for tuition and room and board totaling thousands of out of pocket is extremely frustrating. i can't go for a long time without a salary. long-term policy disagreements among both parties of our elected senators using federal government employed salaries as a token to rally off is not democracy. this is not fair to you or to a career professional like me who works for the united states government. i ask you to consider a c.r. which would fund our government through a short-term solution and tell you and your bipartisar bipartisan colleagues can fix a long-term problem. my family and i are out of funding now. i ask that you publicly announce

what you will do and help lead the bipartisan change to help virginians. a family from loudoun county, one a 20-year government employee. i'm scared not knowing when i am get paid. our two young children should be signing up for spring sports this week, but we're cutting out optional spending. we're eating out of the food pantry instead of going to the grocery store. real people are hurting, working and not being paid. it's 800,000, but the broader fear and economic impact is tremendous. opal from hampton, my name is opal and my husband kenny is an inspector with the f.d.a. as you know, he has been unable to go to work for the past few weeks. i'm writing to you to keep our story and our situation at the forefront of your agenda. please continue to push for our congressional leaders to get the government open. it's really hard to explain to

our 9-year-old why daddy isn't going to work, and why mom and dad are having trouble paying their bills. this shutdown is wrong, and i feel that it's also wrong for federal employees to not be able to go to work because a person some people elected president wants an extreme form of security. please, sir, reopen the government. many people's lives are at stake. daniel from arlington. i'm a furloughed employee at the department of commerce. my income is stopped. i have become aware that i will soon be responsible to make payments for my family's health care, my life insurance, and other benefits that are normal paycheck deductions so now i have no income plus these unbudgeted expenses. i have some hard decisions now with regard to paying my rent, paying more my family's health care, and paying for care for my elderly parents. i have applied for unemployment assistance. i'm trying to find work to

survive throughout the shutdown. i have five years of federal service, and i have experienced furloughs before. until now, i have not needed to take resources away from the unemployment system. until now, i haven't had to compete in the job market to take a position away from someone who has no job at all. but i'm personally shut down. i'm using as little gasoline as i can. i'm only shopping for necessities. i'm cutting back in every money-saving way that i can. this is a disheartening way to just try and survive. please try and support legislation that will return furloughed federal employees to pay their work staffs. final story. joey from warrenton. my husband is a highly experienced ph.d. ph.d. economist with the s.e.c. i'm a disabled, thanks to cancer, episcopal priest. we're in free fall, not -- in

freefall, not knowing in my husband will have his job again and the health insurance we need for my crn. we need every -- my cancer. we need every penny he earns. we spent most of our savings paying off my $40,000 in cancer and cancer-related bills just last year. still, we live modestly in a 1700-square-foot old farmhouse with no central air or heat, drive a 13-year-old car and another old used subaru. it's early thursday morning, january 10, and i'm having a panic attack. wondering if i will lose my dogs if we get evicted in case this runs a few months and we run out of savings to pay our mortgage. we have no family support or backup. we have a son with anxiety and adhd issues for which we spend thousands of out-of-pocket dollars because mental health services for young people are either unavailable or don't accept insurance. please continue to pressure all

your colleagues to reopen the -- to bring opening the government to a vote. working americans need protection. mr. president, this is just a sample of the letters we have received, and when i come back from the session that senator warner and i are doing in alexandria, i will bring back more stories. and i know that other offices are receiving these same kinds of inquiries. even with the guarantee of back pay, for so many people who live paycheck to paycheck or who have modest savings, the timing of even missing one paycheck is very, very critical. the house has already taken action by a strong majority to reopen government. by my count, just based on what folks have said in this chamber, there are at least 52 members of this chamber who have already gone on record and said we should take up the house bill and vote to reopen government.

my hope is that when people listen to stories like this about lost paychecks and the effect on families, when people in this body understand the magnitude of tomorrow's record-breaking day when we establish the longest shutdown in the history of the country, as our colleagues are back in their home states over the weekend chatting with folks, that that number of senators, 52 who want to take up these votes votes -- bills and vote on them will increase and that we can end that suffering that is so unnecessary. i will say this. i get, i definitely get that there is an important controversy that needs resolution, talking about border security, talking about immigration reform. we have been talking about these issues since i got here, and regardless of your position on how we should solve them, i think everybody in the body knows no immigration reform done since 1986. border security funding a

perennial topic. there is an important issue to resolving this, how much we spend for border security, what's the right way to spend the money, what's the right place to get the money, can it be done by executive fiat or must it be done by congressional appropriation, what are the immigration reforms that we need having not done an immigration reform bill since 1986. when the president says these are important issues, he is not wrong, he's right. that the idea that even with an issue of importance on the table that we need to grapple with, that people who are unconnected to that issue have to be victims, have to suffer as we're trying to resolve that issue. i just -- i just don't get it. and some of those who are suffering are even -- it's kind of even counter to the -- the national emergency or crisis that the president is talking about. so, for example, the coast guard, as was indicated by one of my stories, terry, the coast guard is one of the agencies

because it's under the department of commerce, i believe, that is shuttered. they are not a department of defense agency, so they're not funded. 42,000, i believe, coast guard employees. most are essential and are working without pay but some are furloughed. if there is a crisis at the border and as the president described that crisis, some of the crisis, a significant portion of the crisis is illegal drugs coming across the border, and we need folks to interdict illegal drugs, why would we shutter the coast guard? the coast guard has many missions, but one of their important missions -- and they work very well on this in tandem with other agencies in this country and other countries -- is the interdiction of illegal drugs. how does it make sense if there is a crisis at the border dealing with drug importation for the coast guard to be shuttered? so the president's statement that this is an issue that needs a resolution is correct, but punishing people who are unconnected to the issue or even

punishing some of the very people who need to solve the issue is just the wrong approach. and that's why i believe the right approach is the approach taken by the house, bringing up bills that were bipartisan bills that were worked on and voted on either by senate committees or on the senate floor and saying let's just do these. let's reach an agreement for the nonaffected agencies, the nonimmigration-related agencies, between now and september 30, reopen government, and let's provide short-term funding. a month or three weeks funding for the immigration and homeland security agencies, and let's just make the whole next chunk of time in this body a discussion of and a resolution of and a compromise that will enable us to meet some of what the president wants and some of what we want. and that's possible. and i think sometimes the word that goes out from a shutdown or

the word that goes out from some of the news stories is, well, there is not going to be a compromise that's possible. the sides are dug in. we can't find an accord. i just want to remind the body -- and the president knows this -- it was just last february where eight democrats and eight republicans worked and introduced a bill that coupled border security with protection for dreamers. the president now is asking for $5.7 billion essentially in border security. the bill that we had in february is $25 billion over ten years, $25 billion, which was exactly to the penny that the president had asked for. $25 billion border security done right. we wanted to exercise traditional congressional oversight in the then republican house on how the money would be spent. but the amount asked for wasn't the problem. it wasn't a problem at all. $25 billion in exchange for something else that the

president had asked for. he had said we shouldn't protect dreamers by executive order, it should be done by congress, there should be a statutory congressional fix, and he's right about that. that's a better thing to fix it via statute than to rely on executive action which can change with the whim of each new executive. he was right about that. and so we basically went to him with a proposal, 16 of us introduced the bill. $25 billion, mr. president. that's what you asked for. protection for dreamers. mr. president, that's what you asked for. and the response from the white house was not to say i don't like that deal, let me give you a counter, or could you add this to it. within less than 24 hours, the white house put out a press release attacking those who put the bill together, even the republicans as proponents of open borders, who wanted to end immigration enforcement as we know it. it was a press release from the d.h.s. that read like it was somebody's campaign literature rather than the response that

you would expect from a white house or cabinet level official. but what that offer showed is there is great willingness in this body to invest in border security. in fact, we put that bill even after the president poured cold water on it, we put that bill on the floor for a vote. 46 out of 49 democrats voted for it. 46 out of 49 democrats voted for $25 billion in border security. just like more than 50 democrats in 2013 -- and i was part of this as well -- voted for more than $40 billion in border security. so for folks at the white house wondering whether they are in a three-week or month-long intense discussion, could we find a path forward on border security and immigration reform, the evidence is out there that yes, we can, we can find that path forward.

but we ought to open up government and let those unconnected with the dispute at least go back to work. at least go back to work and start getting paid, and then in this body, which is a great deliberative body with 100 people who are very savvy and smart and who can find a deal moving forward, we can find an answer to this that would enable the president to say he got significant investments in border security and would also enable those of us who have promoted commonsense immigration reforms to feel like there was something in there as well. so, mr. president, with that, i'm going to yield the floor. i'm going to go to meet with federal employees and then return to share some of their stories. but my ask is a simple one -- we need to reopen government. we need to lift the burden of this anxiety over people. and the last thing i'll say, is now if this back pay bill passes

and the president signs it, if we're going to pay people, if we're going to guarantee their pay, why wouldn't we want them to be serving? wouldn't we remember, if they are going to be paid, wouldn't we want to be serving americans rather than not serving americans at this time in and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. hirono: mr. president? the presiding officer: the nor is recognized from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. hirono: mr. president, this shutdown is not a negotiation situation. this is a hostage situation. for the past three weeks, donald trump has held 800,000 federal

workers, tens of thousands of federal contractors, and thousands of small businesses hostage to extort money for his vanity wall under the pretext of an emergency at our southern border. and today hundreds of thousands of hardworking civil servants felt the pain of missing a paycheck because of this amoral, host package-taking president is continuing to throw a temper tantrum. most of us live in the real world where paychecks are needed to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. growing up, my mother was the sole breadwinner for three of us kids. it would have been unthinkable, disastrous for our family to miss even one paycheck from her low-wage job. when the president says he can relate to the hundreds of

thousands of families going without a paycheck, who does he think he's kidding? most people don't have daddies as he did to bail us out time and again by the millions. enough said about our president who does not feel your or anybody else's pain. we can't look to him for leadership, moral or otherwise. one person who can enable the congress and end the shutdown is majority leader mitch mcconnell. all he has to do is bring up the bills that the house sent us last week, the same bills that passed the senate in last congress to keep government open. no one needs to remind senator mcconnell that the senate is part of a separate and coequal branch of government. the senate can and should without the president's consent, consent he is currently with holding unless he gets his

vanity wall. so instead of standing up to donald trump, senator mcconnell is missing in action. and through his silence and inactions, senator mcconnell has endorsed another of donald trump's lies, that there is a crisis at the border so severe that it justifies taking 800,000 people hostage as leverage fo fa $5.6 billion downpayment, only a downpayment for his vanity wall. let me be clear. the only crisis is the one donald trump manufactured and the only wall that is real is the one that is closing in on him. the weekend before donald trump shut down the government, i joined several of my colleagues on a visit to texas where i saw the real crisis at the border. the humanitarian catastrophe created by donald trump's disastrous immigration policy. at detention facilities in dilly

and kearns, facilities that a top official from immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e., callously and dismissively described as summer camps. i saw families locked away, some for months at a time without proper access to legal, medical, or mental health care. many of these families have access to legal services only out of the generosity, ingenuity, and hard work of volunteers and overstretched nonprofits. i also visited the massive detention camp for unaccompanied children at torneo. it started as a temporary camp for several hundred kids in june 2018 after the trump administration systematically separated parents from their kids under the zero tolerance policy. it has now ballooned to

currently holding some 2,700 unaccompanied children. i know there are now an estimated 15,000 unaccompanied children in facilities throughout our country. since june, the administration has already spent more than $144 million on the makeshift camp where food, water, and other basic items have to be trucked in regularly. i was disturbed to find that thousands of kids are being held in these soft sided tents in the middle of the desert, shut off from the outside world and the local community. in fact, when concerned members of the local community came by to drop off gifts and items to show these kids that there were people who cared, the detention camp turned the community people

away because, as was explained to me, i said why would you do that, it was explained to me there were not enough items brought to give to every child. a pretty sad reason in my view. most troubling was that there was no good reason for the prolonged detention of children at this facility. we were told that between 800 and 1,300 kids at tornillo already have sponsors such as parents or relatives lined up to take them into homes. but the children continued to be detained because of the administration's policy of requiring all potential sponsors and all adults in the potential sponsor households to submit fingerprints which would then be information shared with i.c.e. thus, subjecting everyone to potential deportation. the chilling effect of this policy is obvious and the

skyrocketing length of detention of these children as fingerprints are obtained and processed. now the negative consequences of this policy has become apparent even to this administration which instituted the policy to begin with. so the administration is now easing up on the fingerprinting of everyone in the household, but the damage has already been done. in 2016 the average length of stay for unaccompanied children in these facilities was 35 days. today the average has been reported to be at least 59 days and even up to 74 days. these are kids who need to recover from the trauma of coming to this country not to be retraumatized with prolonged detention. the detention of unaccompanied children and families for longer and longer periods is the real

humanitarian crisis facing our country at the southern border. and this crisis will not be fixed by trump's vanity wall. as if holding 800,000 workers and their families hostage is not horrible enough, donald trump is now thinking of taking billions of dollars away from disaster victims to find a way to pay for his wall. this is callousness compounded. sometimes i find myself totally at a loss for words as the president keeps coming up with all these ways to basically get himself out of a corner that he's gotten himself into. so, mr. president, i call on senator mcconnell to use the power he has to bring the

house-passed bills to the floor, the bills that we in the senate passed by voice vote last congress to end this shutdown. unnecessary paying -- 800,000 workers go without pay. food safety is being compromised. our national parks go unopened or unprotected. air travel can turn into a nightmare as more and more of the t.s.a. agents stay home. the list goes on as we wait for the president to come to his senses. we should live so long. meanwhile, our country is waiting for senator mcconnell and our republican colleagues to come to their senses. so leader mcconnell, everyone knows you have the power to act. bring these bills to the senate floor. we can end this shutdown now.

the senate, senator mcconnell, if you bring the bills to the floor, we'll pass these bills because we already did so. end the unnecessary pain. we don't have the you luxury -- we don't have the luxury of waiting around for the president to truly feel anybody's pain because he is incapable of feeling anybody's pain but his own. we can end this shutdown now. we can take action on the floor of the senate. we can do the responsible thing in response to the pain that i know we are hearing from all of our constituents all across the country. what are we waiting for? end this shutdown now. i yield the floor.

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. ms. hirono: i note 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 maryland is recognized. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. today marks the -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. van hollen: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, today marks the 21st day of the government shutdown, an unnecessary and shameful government shutdown. we are now tied with the longest shutdown in american history. a few weeks ago, the president of the united states, president trump, said he would be proud, quote, proud to shut down the government if he didn't get his way. mr. president, this is nothing to be proud of, and the harmful impacts of the shutdown are growing by the day, growing on people throughout this country who are being denied important government services, really impacting every american. we just heard the other day from the food and drug administration that they are no longer going to

be able to carry out some of their food safety inspections, putting at risk the american food supply for every american. we heard from e.p.a. that they're going to be suspending their monitoring of some toxic pollutants, also every day having a growing harmful impact on the country and putting the help of american citizens at risk. so that is nothing to be proud of, mr. president. nor should any of us be proud of the fact that today marks the first full pay period in this shutdown where federal employees are going to get no pay. these are civil servants who go to work when they are allowed to for the good of our country and all sorts of agencies, providing

fundamental services and today -- i know you can't read it from there -- they are getting pay stubs, and on the pay stubs in the place where their normal pay period salary should be, there are zeros, zeros. now, mr. president, i just arrived here on the senate floor from a meeting that senator cardin, my fellow senator, partner representing the state of maryland held in 104th county, maryland. we met with 16 federal employees, most of whom have been locked out of work and all of whom are not getting any paycheck. and we wanted to bring them together to hear about the impact this shutdown was having on their lives and on their

families. the first thing they really want to talk about was that they wanted to get back to work to do the business of the american people. that when they are out of work, so many americans that rely on their efforts are denied the benefit of their work. so they emphasize the fact that their number one priority was to get back to work on behalf of the american people. but we also want to hear from them directly what the impact was on them as individuals and their families, because they're now getting a big zero on their pay stubs. one of the people we heard from was frieda mcdonald.

we works at fema, the federal emergency management agency. she is furloughed right now. she has a chronic medical condition that requires her to get treatments every week. now, she says she has pretty good insurance to cover most of her health condition, but her insurance doesn't cover the cost of her medication fully, and she needs to get that on a weekly basis, and that on a weekly basis, the co-pays amount to hundreds of dollars. so she is going to be squeezed right away on getting access to the medication to treat her medical condition because she got a pay stub with a big zero on it. we heard from kerry woodbridge, mr. woodbridge. he works at the office of

personnel management. they are the agency that has to oversee federal employees throughout the system. if they are not at work, the whole system begins to break down. the first thing he emphasized was the total waste of dollars to the american taxpayer in keeping them out of work because that just creates even more inefficiencies throughout the entire federal government when the office of personnel management can't be on the job. but he also talked about the fact that he's not going to be able to make his mortgage payments. now, there are a lot of federal employees, thousands and thousands of federal employees, mr. president, g.s. 2's, g.s. 3's, they are literally one payment from not being able to make their bills. and now their pay is not coming in, but i can tell you their bills are still coming in. their mortgage payments are coming in, their rent payments are coming in, their medical

bills are coming in. all those bills, they keep coming in even though their paycheck is not. and mr. woodbridge talked about the fact that with the upcoming mortgage payment, he didn't think he would be able to make it, got the electric bills, and he spoke very passionately about his children because he has a son who has some special needs, and in order to make sure that his son can perform well at school, the family has hired a tutor for that child. and he doesn't think he's going to be able to make the payments to the tutor in the coming weeks. he said, well, the agency said, you know, you should get a lawyer to protect you from the creditors who are coming after you if you can't pay your bills. mr. woodbridge had a pretty simple question. if i can't afford to pay my bills, how can i afford to hire a lawyer to protect me from the

people who are demanding i pay my bills on time? eric bryant, another federal employee there, an air force vet, someone who served his country in uniform before serving his country in a civilian capacity in our federal government. and, mr. president, 30% of our federal employees -- 30% -- are veterans. they served their country in the middle, and now they're serving their country in a different way, as civil servants in the federal government. he said that he had called the electric company to let them know that because he wasn't getting paid, he wasn't sure if he's going to be able to pay his electric bill on time. could they take it easy on him? the electric company said, we want our money.

sorry, go find the money to pay the bill on time. i don't know if they threatened to turn the lights off or not, but people appears going to be able to pay their -- aren't going to be able to pay their mortgages or rent or electric bills. now, there was another federal employee who took a moment out of work. he's actually not furloughed. he's working because he's part of the federal law enforcement officers group, and he has been deemed essential for the public safety. but he came there to let us know that when his colleagues, many of them in the analytics part of federal law enforcement, the folks who collect d.n.a., the folks who are tracking suspects, people who are tracking fujitives, when that whole part of federal law enforcement is

furloughed and can't do their job, that puts those who are on the job and in the line of duty at greater risk. he said it puts their lives at greater risk. at the does not that we're -- at the extent that we are compromising and weakening federal law enforcement in general, we are also putting the public at greater and unnecessary risk every day. and we heard similar accounts from other federal employees who were there. we also heard from a small federal contractor. and, mr. president, i'm sure all of us are hearing not just from federal employees but so many small businesses that provide services to the federal government in places around the country, and they are in danger of of going belly-up in many

cases, the small business contractors. and in order to deal with the shutdown and the fact that they may not get paid as a small business by the federal government for their services, they also are laying off their employees. and many of these are low-wage employees who are median-wage employees. think about contractors that provide food services to different government agencies, janitorial services. those employees are also living paycheck to paycheck, and they've been told not to come in to work. and we heard from one -- one is a nonprofit, a nonprofit called senior service america that actually helps put seniors to work in jobs around the country. and this particular agency,

federal contractor in maryland, just a few days ago furloughed, laid off 176 of their employees. so these aren't federal employees being laid off. these are, in addition to that, federal contractor employees who work for small businesses that contract with the federal government. so, mr. president, this is mushrooming. the negative impacts of this are mushrooming by the day, harming families, harming communities, and harming all the others who also require the economic activity from either federal employees or small business contractors to help with their restaurants. and that is on top of what i talked about earlier, which is the negative impact on the denial of important services and health protections for the entire american public.

and a lot of the concerns expressed this morning by federal employees also included the long-term impact. so, for example, if you don't make a mortgage payment on time, that's going to hurt your credit rating. in some cases, federal employees who work for national security agencies, their ability to keep their security clearance is tied to their credit rating. so when you start having your credit rating downgraded, it's going to mean, number one, you don't get credit, can't pay your bills; and it also means, in some cases, that you risk your entire livelihood, at least in those federal government jobs that require good credit ratings. so, none of this is anything that the president of the united

states or anybody should be proud of. i do want to say a word, mr. president, with respect to the contract employees. yesterday senator cardin, senator smith, senator brown, senator kaine and many senators, about 30 senators, wrote to the office of management and budget, wrote to the trump administration, and asked them to use their contract authority to hold harmless those federal service contract employees who are being locked out of work through no fault of their own. i was pleased that just yesterday in this body, on a unanimous basis -- or by unanimous consent, we passed legislation that would ensure that federal employees were made whole at the end of the day because they should not be the ones who are punished for a

shutdown they had nothing to do with. so senator cardin and i and others proposed legislation to ensure that federal employees, innocent federal employees should not be the victims of a political fight they had nothing to do with, and i'm hopeful that later today that the house of representatives will pass that legislation and that the president will sign it. now, that, of course, removes a big cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the head of federal employees who are either working without pay or furloughed and locked out without pay. it of course doesn't deal with the fact that while federal employees will deny add paycheck they're not going to be able to make their payments on time on mortgages and rent and that they will have a snowballing, harmful effect from loss of credit rating, won't -- and won't address that. there is other legislation

that's been introduced by senator schatz, myself, and others to make sure that federal embryos aren't -- to make sure that federal employees aren't hurt by the impact or by people collecting their bills, just as we protect servicemen and women who are overseas to make sure that people can't go after them when they're not here and able to pay their bills. so, i hope, mr. president, that we will pass that legislation. but all of this just goes to show that while federal employees and these small business service contractors and the growing number of communities that depend on that economic livelihood that being hit by the day, that the big lysessers are the american people, because of the lack of health protections and services, but because at the end of the day, taxpayers want to make sure they're getting services for their tax dollar. and so what are we accomplishing

what are we accomplishing with a government shutdown? i must say that when the president of the united states says that he can, quote, relate to what's happening, it's pretty clear he can't. right? i mean, i don't know if my colleagues saw the coast guard statement the other day and how you're supposed to help make do during the government shutdown. here's a recommendation that they provide. it's step four to supplement your income. they suggest finding supplemental income during your furlough period might be challenging, but here are a few ideas for adding income. have a garage sale. have a garage sale. clean out your attic.

basement, and closets at the same time. sell unwanted, larger-ticket items through the newspaper or online. mr. president, give knee a break. right? and when the president of the united states says he can relate, i want to see the president of the united states hold a garage sale. this is somebody who, you know, goes from trump tower to mar-a-lago and then back to the white house. he can't relate to these fellow americans -- federal civil servants, who when they miss a paycheck they can't pay their mortgage. so this is why just yesterday senator cardin and i asked for unanimous consent for the united states senate to act immediately on two bills that came over from the house to reopen the government.

because, yes, this is the shutdown that president trump said he would be proud to have if he didn't get his way. he is certainly the initiator, he's certainly the protagonist of the shutdown. but every day that goes by, mr. president, when this senate doesn't do what it can and within its power to end the shutdown, the senate is an accomplice in president trump's shutdown. if we have it within our power to do our job as a separate branch of government, then we should do it. it's not an excuse not to act because the president doesn't like what we propose. under article 1 of the constitution, we're a separate, independent, and coequal branch of government. now, last thursday, as their very first order of business, the house of representatives passed two bills.

the first bill was h.j. res. 1. i got a copy of it right here in my hand. and what this bill does is reopen the department of homeland security at current funding levels through february 8 to give us all an opportunity to debate the best and most effective way to provide border security in our country. the dispute here is not about whether or not we need border security. of course we need secure borders. no one wants open borders. we need secure borders. the question is, what's the most effective and smart way to accomplish that? and the presiding officer is an expert on this, and i respect his -- the input that he has provided to this body and many others. we need a multilayered approach. but the purpose of h.j. res. 1

was to say, okay, we have some differences over the best way to do that, but let's not shut down the department of homeland security while we debate that. let's keep it open at least until february 8 at current funding levels and work that out. that's what the house sent to the senate. and guess what? with respect to the department of homeland security, it's identical, word for word, to what this senate passed just before christmas. we passed it on a voice vote. big, overwhelming, bipartisan vote. that's what that vote was, right, to keep -- to keep the department of homeland security and other departments open until february 8. and so what is the justification, mr. president, for not having a vote in the senate on the same thing that we passed by voice vote just a few weeks ago? and the answer we get is, well,

the president of the united states doesn't agree with it. well, too bad. we're a separate branch of government. the president wants to veto that, let him veto it. then it comes back here. under the constitution, we would have a veto override vote. but we shouldn't be contracting out our responsibilities under the constitution to the president. and yet the republican leader, the majority leader, objected to letting us vote again on the same measure that we voted on just before christmas. senator cardin then offered the other unanimous consent request yesterday, and that was to pass legislation to open up the other eight of the nine federal departments that are closed, departments that have nothing to do with homeland security, nothing to do with border security.

and this legislation was also passed by the house of representatives on their opening day. a week ago thursday. and here's the kicker -- the house didn't take the numbers that the house of representatives was proposing in the appropriations bills for these departments; they took the funding levels the senate had proposed on a bipartisan basis, and the senate did that on a bipartisan basis in two ways. first of all, this senate, the full senate voted overwhelmingly , certainly by a veto-proof margin, to fund eight -- those eight federal departments through the remainder of this fiscal year, so september 30, at levels that we agreed to. first the senate propose yaigs committee and by an overwhelming vote on the senate floor. the other measures in the bill the house passed were measures that the senate appropriations

committee on a bipartisan basis had overwhelmingly supported. so the house said to the senate, we're going to send you a bunch of bills to open up the government at levels that the senate has already agreed on on a bipartisan way one way or another. but the republican leader, senator mcconnell, on behalf of the caucus said no. we're not going to allow a vote to reopen those eight of nine departments because the president doesn't want to. because the president wants to hold all those departments that have nothing to do with homeland security hostage until he gets his wall. 2,000-mile long wall. the irony, of course, mr. president, you know this because the president's own budget for this year was $1.6 billion.

that was the president's budget for this year. now, i am happy to sit down and all our colleagues to work out the best way to provide border security. we had -- we've had barriers along parts of our border long before president trump was in office. part of an overall approach. but we don't want to be wasting taxpayer dollars -- as i said, even the president's budget this year wasn't requesting what the president now says he needs. let's be straight with the american people. it's not just a $5.7 billion or whatever it is to. to build a wall you're talking about a 2,000-mile wall, $30 billion. what the president wants to do is come back every year and shut down the government until he gets his next installment on a 2,000-mile long wall that the experts tell us is not the

smartest way to provide border security and certainly not the most cost effective way. let us remember again the president said this was something mexico was going to have to pay for, not the american taxpayer. i saw him on tv down at the border yesterday trying to explain away that campaign promise. oh, i didn't really mean they were going to pay for it directly. it's going to be indirect. that's just not happening. we know mexico is not paying for this wall like the president said. and so that's why it's important for this senate as its first order of business to pass the legislation that's before us that we've already supported on a bipartisan basis. we literally have the keys today if we wanted to to pass the bills to reopen the government. send them to the president. he doesn't want to sign them?

at least we've done our work as a senate and we would then face the question ofoverriding the president's veto to open the government. so this is where we are now and as i said, we have as each day goes by, americans being denied more and more services, in addition to the ones i've already mentioned -- i spoke to a lot of small businesses who rely on the small business administration for their small loans to get up and running. a lot of folks in farm country who really rely on farm service credit and farm center services, they're being squeezed very, very badly. so this is impacting people throughout the country. you know, 80% of federal

employees actually live and work outside of the national capital area. 80% of them are folks like the folks along the border. t.s.a. officials all over the country at airports, all of them are being asked to come to work every day without pay. they're getting a zero on their pay stub like the other hundreds of thousands of federal employees. so it seems to me, mr. president, that this is the time for us to act. and that's why i've joined with so many of my colleagues to just say to the republican leader, to the majority leader, let's do our job under the constitution. yes, we know what the president's position is but

what's our position? and why are we unwilling to vote on two bills that are before us that reflect the position that this senate has taken on a bipartisan basis already? how can we justify to our constituents and people around the country that we're unwilling to take a vote on measures that we know have overwhelming support here in the united states senate because we want to somehow reinforce the president on his own political fight. so i'm very hopeful that as the days go by, the republican leader here will decide to make sure this body, the united states senate, does its job as a separate branch of government and take up the bills that will

reopen the federal government, put people back to work for the american people, make sure that federal employees who are working get paid and those who have been furloughed have a chance to come back to work on behalf of the american people. we have it within our power to do it today. we have it within our power to do it any day now. and i hope we will do our part to end this shameful shutdown. tomorrow it will be the longest shutdown in american history. and the president of the united states may say he's proud of it. but i hope not a single senator, republican or democrat in this body is proud of being here in the day of history when we broke the record for the longest government shutdown because in my view, that's a dereliction of

duty and certainly a dereliction of duty not for us to do our part and to use the power we have to take a vote on the bills that are at the desk in the united states senate to reopen the government for the american people. and i see that my friend, the senator from maine, is now on the floor and i want to thank him for his leadership in this battle. and let's do the right thing, mr. president. and i yield the floor. mr. king: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: mr. president, i first want to make a simple declarative sentence. there is no one in this body who is for open borders. one of the most troublesome aspects of this debate as it has been framed, particularly by the administration, is that you're either for the wall or open borders. that is not true. virtually every -- well, two-thirds of us voted in 2013 for a very strong boarder

security provision as part of the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed this body, as i say, by two-thirds. it was never taken up in the house. had it been taken up in the house, it likely would have passed. the president would have signed it and a lot of these issues would be behind us. all of us, everyone here on both sides of the aisle support border security. what we support is cost effective, effective, sensible border security, not border security that really doesn't fit the nature of the problem that we face and so far, anyway, is undefined in terms of location, design, cost, and all the other characteristics of any major construction project submitted to this congress for its approval. i don't believe a wall -- and again, one of the problems with this whole discussion is what does the president mean when he

says wall. is it 30 feet high? is it 20 feet high? is it steel, concrete? this has evolved over time. but the biggest question is where and how long. is he talking about a wall that extends from the gulf of mexico to southern california to the pacific ocean? that's about 2,000 miles. is that what he's talking about? if so, we should know that. and then we can debate it as it relates to other potential options for securing the boarder along that -- the border along that distance. it also should be noted there already is wall by anybody's definition along portions of that border. i've seen them. i've been to mcallen, texas, where the president was yesterday and i've seen the wall, a wall. but the question is how big is it? where is it going to go, and how is it going to be designed and paid for? now, one of the reasons the wall is really not the right solution

for the current problems of immigration starts with the fact that about 50% of the illegal immigrants of the undocumented immigrants in this country today are here on legal visas that they've overstayed. so a wall has nothing to do with these people. these are people that came in at airports and all other ports of entry into the united states all over the country. 50% came -- are here on overstaying visas. the wall has zero effect on that issue. the other issue we're facing at the wall -- and this also has been confused in the coverage and the caravans and the news and the fear that has been spread. the vast majority of the people coming to the border today are not looking to sneak across. they're looking for a port of entry to give themselves up as

asylum seekers. they are not illegal immigrants. they are availing themselves of american law that once they get to this country with a credible fear of prosecution or persecution or danger in their home country, they have a right to be determined whether they're legitimate asylum seekers, and that's who we're dealing with. that's who all those people are when you see the pictures, the care van. they weren't headed for a blank place in the arizona desert. they want to go. they want to be captured. they want to be taken into custody and then they can have their asylum claim adjudicated. so the wall has nothing to do with them. and the wall is a response to a problem that's decades old that has grossly -- drastically diminished over the last 10 or 15 years. the problem of people literally sneaking across the border, entering the country illegally.

all of the data is that that number is down. it's down about 85% from the number of people that entered the country illegally in 2007. over the past 10 or 11 years. and by the way, all the data can be found in a fascinating document produced in september of 2017, about a year ago, by the trump administration department of homeland security. and i can't remember the exact title but it's something like status of illegal immigration at the southern border. it's a long report full of graphs. and i like graphs but i don't need to hold them up because all of the graphs have a downward slope in terms of illegal entries, people that get away, the number of people coming in that are recidivists, they've been here before, they're all down. so to argue that somehow we're in a crisis today that all the

indicators are moving in the right direction is really hard to reconcile with the reality. so the issue that i'm trying to illustrate is the wall is the wrong solution to the current problem. it may have been a rational solution in 2005 or 2006 when the congress passed a major fence law and did increase border security substantially, but today we're dealing with a different set of problems that the wall -- a wall, whatever it is doesn't address. so, i said at the beginning nobody here is against border security, and there may be places where a wall is part of that. but one of the secondary problems that we have is, we've never been told what this thing, the wall is, how long it will be, how big it will be, how much it will cost, whether it's going

to be on private land or federal land. we don't have the plans, a plan for what it is that's actually being proposed that the government is being held hostage over. we don't know what the president wants. to say i want a wall doesn't tell you much. is it 2,000 miles long or 100 miles long? is it 20-feet high? is it a fence? or is it a 30-foot-high concrete wall or something with steel slats which seems to be the design of the day. we don't really know what it is. if the mayor of bangor, maine, went to the city council and said i'm going to build -- i want to build a new school, but i'm not going to tell you how many students are going to be in it, i'm not going to tell you where we're going to build it, and i'm not going to tell you what it's going to cost, but just give me a blank check to build that school.

the city council of bangor would laugh her honor out of the hall. it wouldn't -- it wouldn't even think about doing something. no city in america would do something like that, and yet that's what we're being asked here today. we're being asked essentially for a blank check -- well, it's a check of $5.7 billion, but that's a down payment. the real estimates for what they think the president wants is more in the $20 billion to $25 billion amount. and that gets me to my final point before i talk about the impact of this in maine. let's say we could settle this this week. we could negotiate with the white house, which is not easy to do, because the -- their position changes day to day, but let's say we could negotiate and say okay, it's going to be 100 miles of wall, and here's what it -- this would be the size, this will be the design, this is the agreed upon cost. let's say that we could do that.

if we do that in the context of the government being shut down, we are inviting this to happen again. next year, we'll have more budgets. we have got a debt ceiling debate coming that's very important for the future of the country, for the economics of the country, for the soundness of our economy. and we have budgets coming next september. if this works, if this shutdown that's been initiated by the president works as a tactic to get a portion of his wall, he'll do it next time. that's -- that's why the age-old principle is you don't negotiate with hostage takers. why? because if you do, the next time they'll do it again. and this will become a normal and routine tactic between this president and perhaps future presidents, and the congress

that puts us in a position of being totally -- we have to choose between a government shutdown and the pet project of whatever -- whoever that president is. that's a very dangerous path for us as a deliberative body and particularly as a co-equal branch of the united states government. so -- i talk in sort of global terms, but this is hurting mainstream america. we have heard today and we have heard on the news and we hear all the time about the effects on the furloughed federal workers, which are very real. today's the day they don't get their check. and here's the problem. you can shut down and stop people's checks from coming, but you can't stop their bills from coming. their mortgage payments. their child care payment. their automobile insurance.

their home insurance. their heating bill. their medication. their food. all of that has to be paid for, and we can say well, you know, we all make adjustments. well, that's a pretty hard path to put people on. that's a heartless path. and these people are being used as pawns, as hostages in a policy debate that has nothing to do with them. one of the easiest solutions, mr. president, would be for us to pass the six bills that the house has passed that we passed that fund 90% of the government. why should the department of agriculture be caught in the cross fire of a debate over a wall in texas? why should park rangers be caught in that? why should coast guard people be caught in that? and this is having a real effect. aside from those federal workers of whom there are about a thousand in maine on furlough

right now, there are all the contractors that serve these government agencies. and we passed a bill last night that's going to ensure that the federal -- the furloughed federal employees will eventually be paid. that doesn't say anything about what they're going to have to do about penalties on late mortgages and those kinds of things that they can't pay now, but there is no help for the contractors that are going to lose total income during this period, and some of them will be threatened of going out of business. so it's not just the 800,000 workers nationwide. it's thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people who depend on those agencies for the work that they do that they provide to the federal government. but let's talk about effects in hometown, in main street america. in just places all over maine.

in portland, for example, one -- i chuckle because it sounds like oh, this is no big deal. one of our most growing industries in maine is beer. we now have over a thousand people employed in the craft brewing industry. it's been a growth industry. and yet, they are being stymied, the brewers are being stymied, many of them, because they can't ship their beer across state lines without approval from the food and drug administration of their labels, and that's held up. and we've got a merger or an expansion of a brewery in southern maine that's held up because they can't get their permission from the tax and trade bureau, from the a.t.f. so these are the kinds of services that are being provided that aren't being occurred. the ""portland press herald"" reported on the breweries. they also reported on a

developer that has a project to develop a real estate project in maine, can't get an s.b.a. loan, s.b.a. is shut down. and that's going to hold it up and could even cause the deal to fall through. the ""bangor daily news"" reports a family is stuck in the middle where they have moved out of their house, anticipating a closing on a new house with an agriculture department loan guarantee that's now stuck, stranded, no action, nobody to answer the phone, and they're living out of boxes. they're caught in the middle. these are people. these aren't federal employees. these are good maine people who relied upon the daily activities of the federal government occurring, which ought to be just simple common sense, and yet they're caught without a place to live. the "elsworth america," an

award-winning weekly newspaper, reports about a smoke house that does smoked salmon. they were getting ready to reopen, hire people, they have got people on staff. all of a sudden they are dead stopped because of the food and drug administration can't -- can't act to approve their licenses. now, you can say okay, this little smokehouse can survive, the family will find a place to live, they can live. but if you multiply these examples by thousands and millions, you're talking about t understandable, but this is an eminently negotiable not a c problem. i don't argue that it's not a problem and that the southern border doesn't need to be secure. again, that's where i started. the question is how do you do it right? how do you do it in a way that makes sense to the american

taxpayer? there may be places where it's wall, but the wall is $20 million a mile. there may be ways to do it for a fraction of that and provide eql through, and around some place in the middle of the desert. that's where the drugs are coming through. that's where we ought to be concentrating. that's where we ought to be putting the technology. more dogs or more technology that can detect this kind of thing. not building a wall that doesn't address the current problem. it just -- it's a solution, but it's going after the wrong problem. so these are real-life impacts. we don't -- it doesn't need to be this way. if this were a project being proposed by the military, a new b.o.q. at fort benning, it would come to this congress, it would go to the authorization committee, the plans would go to

the appropriations committee, we would review it, question the sponsors, determine if it was an appropriate expenditure of public funds, and either approve it or deny it or suggest some alteration. this wall has never gone through that process, and we are basically abdicating to the maj, particularly about public expenditure, without meeting our responsibilities. now, one really simple pay to get out of this would be for us to vote by two-thirds to pass the budget that we voted like 98-2 several weeks ago, has $1.6 billion in it for border security, by the way, pass that, and then sit down and talk to the administration about just what it is that you want and what's reasonable and how do we do it in a sensible way, and then we can get this thing done. what worries me is the posture that the senate is in today is

adding a provision that isn't in the constitution. the constitution says the president can veto a bill. what we are saying here now through our inability or unwillingness to bring a bill to the floor is the president can stop a bill simply by saying he doesn't like it. that's not what the constitution says. it doesn't say the president has the right to stop bills he doesn't like. he says he has to veto it. if he's going to veto it, fine. then we can discuss it and debate it and determine whether that's an appropriate veto. but by avoiding the responsibility of considering this legislation, we're essentially handing the president a massive power that presidents, i don't believe, should have. this is an important issue. it's one that should be considered. it's one that should be debated. i'd like to see the

administration given the opportunity to make its case for the specifics. not the case generally about criminals or drugs, which many of those claims have been refuted, but a specific case about here's what we want to do, here's the effect of it, here's what it will cost, and here's why this is the best solution as opposed to other solutions like a fence or more border patrol agents or more technology, a drone, sensors, or whatever. but we're not being given that opportunity. i'm perfectly willing to debate that in good faith. i don't dismiss out of hand that wall -- a wall makes sense in certain areas, but i'm not prepared to give this administration a blank check for some construction project that i don't know what it is they want to build. i'm also very reluctant to concede anything in the context

of a hostage situation where the united states government is being held hostage because of a project that the president wants to build. if we do this, mr. president, this will become the go-to tactic for this administration and probably for future administrations. we will have established a precedent that will haunt this institution for years to come, and that's one of the reasons i think it's just imperative that we not cave in to this kind of attempt at intimidation. and express our good-faith willingness to look at, work on, and try to establish the right role for all parts of border security, but not put all of our chips in one area that i believe will be both ineffective, not cost-effective, and damaging to our other efforts to actually secure the border and protect the american people.

mr. president, i yield the floor. ms. murkowski: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i listened to some of the remarks of my colleague from maine. i appreciate so much of what he has said. the reminder to us all to be acting in good faith here. and i'd like to just take a few moments this morning to just say count me in. count me in to be operating in good faith. count me in as one of the many in this body and the many around this country who want to ensure that we have strong borders in this nation. that we have true and meaningful border security, whether it is at our southern border or whether it's at our northern border. whether it's our borders on land

or whether it is our borders on sea. count me in as one who is prepared to deal with the difficulties, the true humanitarian issues that we are seeing on the southern border today with an influx of children and families, those who are seek something asylum, those who are frustrated with our systems, count me in as one of those who wants to address these issues. but also count me in as one who says that shutting down the government is not governing. nobody is winning in this. and i've been reading all the accounts that are out there in terms of whether people think that this is on the president, whether this is on the democrats, whether this is on

the house. you know who is it is on, mr. president? it is on the backs of all of us, of the men and women who are the federal workers who work hard, who get up every day doing the job that we've tasked them to do, some of whom are furloughed, some of whom are working without pay, but all of whom are worried about where we are. we are now the longest shutdown that we've seen. i think it's either today or tomorrow that we pass that benchmark there. and it's not just those that are federal workers that are being impacted. it is those of us who rely on the services of those who work in our agencies. i come from a state, as does my colleague from maine, where fisheries are a significant issue for us.

noaa, and some of the other agencies have a great to do with our economic health. this is our crabbing season. there are a lot of folks out on the water that need to be able to provide for their families, their livelihood. and the you think it's all about looking for the crab at the bottom of the bering sea. well, in order to do that, you not only have to have certain permits, you have to have the ability to unload your load at the dock with certified scales, not necessarily in the crab fisheries but in other fisheries you have to have observers on your boats. well, one of the things that we're learning is the observers need to be checked out after their trip. they have to be checked out before they can move to another vessel. well, you've got kind of a ripple effect that is going on out there. so whether you are a cod

fisherman or a crab fisherman and you're thinking, government shutdown doesn't mean anything to me, it does until it doesn't -- or it doesn't until it does. the reality is that there is impact, and i understand that it impacts us in many, many different ways. every morning i check in with the folks that are answering my phones here in washington, d.c., along with staff back in alaska, and i'm saying, what are we hearing from folks back home? and i'll tell you, i've got a lot of people that are saying, lisa, you got to stand with the president, you got to stand strong on this because we need to have border security. then i have an equal number that are saying, please -- please, do something to help reopen this government. we expect it of you. we need it from you. we are begging you to make things work.

fix it back there. and so i think about where we are right here and right now. and there have been some suggestions out there that we don't know how long this is going to take, but we've just got to hunker down and you're just going to have to figure out how you can make ends meet. and we've got some great credit unions in the state of alaska that have put out notices that have said, hey, you got -- you're concerned about how you're going to make that mortgage, make that car payment, pay your landlord. come to us and talk to us. and i see aappreciate that. but i also know, i also know that many times that is limited in its application. and so this suggestion that i've heard by some that, well, you can just go out there and get a second job. i come from a state where we've got the highest unemployment rate in the country right now -- or maybe we're now just second from the bottom.

but you're in communities where you don't have a lot of options. our coast guard base in kodiak is the pride and joy for the coast guard. we've got a lot of coasties that service us in alaska, about 2,500. that's significant for us. but in the community of kodiak, if the military spouse, if the coast guard spouse says i've got to go find a job because my husband isn't getting paid and we're not quite sure when it's going to come, in kodiak, it's pretty dang tough to go find a temporary job. one of the things that we've learned is that you've got a situation -- okay, the coast guard are required to be showing up. we so appreciative that. we -- we so appreciate that. we so appreciate the work of the coast guard.

they're helping those dealing with some pretty extreme conditions and every day they're putting their lives on the line for us. so the fact that they are not protected at this point in time causes me great concern and anxiety and stress, as is it does them as well. but think about if. you've got a situation -- but think about it. you've got a situation your nonexempted employees are those that are providing child care at the child care center. so still are going to work, but you are not getting paid, but your child care center is now not open. think about these real-life implications -- applications. think about the very easy answer, well, go out and find something to tied you through -- to tide you through. i asked my team back here, i said, wait a minute ... you could go out and you could drive uber. well, if you're a federal

employee, you can have secondary employment, but in order to ensure that there's no conflict with your federal job, you have to get permission to do so. so if you're in the middle of a shutdown, where do you go and it's your department that's shut down, where do you go for permission to get that secondary job? where do you go for permission to say, hey, i want to drive uber for the next however many weeks until the government is now open? there's known there to give the approval. so it's things like this where we can say back here in the halls of congress, just hang tough, just be strong, just talk to your landlords, we're all going to get through this together. we want border security. i want border security. i think that the president's request for a comprehensive view of how we address this is not

something so unreasonable. let's figure that out. let's walk through it. i was part of a group this week that was suggesting, let's take that proposal that the acting o.m.b. director sent to the chairman of the appropriations committee. let's treat that as a request for supplemental appropriations. let's have that hearing. but in order to do this, we've got to get our colleagues on the other side to sit down and go through this process with us. so maybe we can get a short-term reprieve. let's do a short-term c.r. to allow us to process this. but let's not keep the government shut down while we do this. we can figure these things out. everyone is talking about leverage. it's all political leverage. work tell that to the people who are really worried right now.

we had a pretty tough earthquake november 30 that a lot of folks are still digging out of, that are writing checks to contractors because they need to make sure that they're going to have a boiler to get through a cold winter, or make sure that the foundation in the home this they want to get back into, that they're going to be able to get back into it sooner than later. but what do you do if you're not sure if that paycheck that was supposed to come today is coming today or coming two weeks from now? and you've written the check to the contractor. there's a lot of anxiety out there. and so i hear from them -- a lot of these folks that are dealing with unexpected household expenditures after that earthquake -- and i shouldn't say it's just after that earthquake. we just had another one yesterday, 4.2, i'm told -- oh,

excuse me, 4.7 yesterday. this is the fourth earth quick that we've had since -- earthquake that we've had since the first of this year, january 1, that has exceeded is 4.0. so we had the big one. then we've had thousands afterwards. so we're still dealing with a the love this stuff. so when people hear that the request for fema assistance or for small business assistance may be delayed because the government is not open, think about how we're compounding their stress, their anxiety. so i have been part of groups that have talked to the vice president, has talked to his negotiating team, i've raised these issues myself with the president. i want to be part of a solution, and i want to be part of a solution sooner than later. because we owe it to the people of this country to function, to

function. and when the government is shut down, partial or otherwise, we're not functioning. so let's stop talking about who has leverage and who doesn't have leverage and when that is going to -- when that's going to tip to advantage the other side. let's do what we need to do when it comes to ensuring the security of our nation and our borders. let's navigate those issues, but let's not hold hostage good men and women who are working hard to keep us safe every day through the basic functions of government. i'm one who has signed on, i think, to most of the bills that are out there that would help

alleviate some of what individuals and their families are seeing, whether it's pay our coast guard act, the pay excepted personnel act. but, you know what? those are simply band-aids, and quite honesticallily, they're probably not -- quite honestly, they're probably nothing more than messages right now. but what i'm hearing from folks is, keep us secure, deal with our borders, deal with humanitarian issues, but allow our government to function. go to work, stop arguing about who's winning, and let's get the government open. so, mr. president, with that, i yield the floor. -- wait, i don't yield the floor, excuse me. i would now ask unanimous consent that the senior senator from alaska be authorized to signing duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions through today through monday, january 14. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. monday,

january 146789 following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally, notwithstanding the provisions of rule 22, the cloture motion with respect to the motion to proceed to s. 1 ripen at 5:30 monday. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that that stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of the senator from my colleagues. a senator: will the senator yield for a short comment? will the senator yield? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. king: i just can't leave the floor without complimenting nigh colleague for her usual thoughtful analysis and constructive approach to dealing with this issue. i'm proud to serve with the senator on the energy and natural resources committee and she brings the same wisdom to the floor today that she does to the work of our committee. and i simply wanted to acknowledge that and thank her

for her comments. ms. murkowski: and i thank my friend from maine. i enjoy working with you as well.

ms. baldwin: madam president, is the senate currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call. ms. baldwin: madam president, i rise to speak about president trump's shutdown and the real pain that it is causing in my home state of wisconsin and in communities across this country. the trump shutdown is now in its

21st day, tying the longest federal government shutdown on record. today is also the day that approximately 800,000 federal workers won't get their regularly scheduled paychecks, including approximately 3,000 wisconsinites. many of these workers are doing their jobs without pay. coast guard workers, transportation security administration agents, air traffic controllers, along with federal law enforcement including f.b.i. and d.e.a. agents. these hardworking americans are suffering because president trump and republicans in congress refuse to support bipartisan legislation to end this shutdown and reopen the

government. we should be working today to pass bipartisan legislation to end this senseless and useless shutdown and reopen the government. sadly, no votes are scheduled today by the senate majority leader, meaning that the trump shutdown will continue. the house did their job and passed bipartisan legislation to end the trump shutdown, but senate majority leader mcconnell has thus far objected to bringing this legislation up in the senate. in fact, yesterday i joined many of my colleagues on this senate floor in an effort to pass once again bipartisan legislation to reopen the government, but majority leader mcconnell blocked our efforts, and the pain will continue for so many

across this country. over the past three years, president trump has publicly promised well over 200 times that mexico would pay for his wall. now he has shut down our government over his failure to keep his promise. he even said that he takes pride in this trump shutdown. the american people shouldn't pay for this deception, and congress should not make taxpayers pay billions of dollars for his wasteful and ineffective wall. what we should do instead is reopen the government and pass bipartisan homeland security legislation, again supported by

both democrats and republicans, that provides smart and cost-effective border security. president trump's shutdown has many consequences, and he has created many victims. i want to speak about some of the pain wisconsinites are feeling. in wisconsin, the trump shutdown is hurting farmers and rural communities, and it really could not come at a worse time. wisconsin lost over 600 dairy farms last year, and over 500 the year before. in response, congress worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass a farm bill that would support our farmers and our rural economy. but unfortunately with this

shutdown, president trump has threatened all of that progress. his shutdown is stalling the implementation of the bipartisan farm bill and delaying things like subsidy payments and loans that farmers need to get ready for the spring planting season and plan how they will endure in these very uncertain market conditions. we've heard from farmers about the pain that the trump shutdown is causing them. here's one story. michael slattery. he is a grain farmer from manitowack county, wisconsin. he is waiting on $9,000 that the department of agriculture agreed to pay him to compensate him for the losses from the president's trade war and from -- and for conservation efforts that he

participates in in his farm. mr. slattery planned to use this money to get ready for the upcoming planting season, but now that's all on hold. to quote mr. slattery, we're being played the stooge. he's right. farmers like him have suffered enough under this administration, and the trump shutdown is just another blow for mr. slattery and farmers like him across wisconsin and the entire nation. i also heard from kelly. kelly lives in black river falls, wisconsin. kelly has a disability, and she also takes care of a grandchild with a disability. kelly received funding from the department of agriculture, including a program that specifically helps low-income

and underserved people in rural communities. the usda had agreed to help her close on a home and to help her make some immediate home repairs, but now the funding is on hold and she can't pay the contractor that made the repairs, and she is also having trouble paying the mortgage on her new home. what is the department of agriculture doing to help or assist kelly? well, right now, nothing. she can't even get information from the usda because of the trump shutdown. people like kelly and michael should not have to suffer because president trump broke a promise to make mexico pay for an ineffective border wall. democrats and republicans agree

that president trump should end his shutdown and accept bipartisan legislation to fund the department of agriculture and reopen other agencies in the government. in fact, the house passed bipartisan legislation just yesterday to fund the usda and reopen it for business. unfortunately, the senate majority leader is blocking that legislation, too. i am calling for a vote in the united states senate on the house-passed legislation to fund the government, which senate republicans previously have supported and would reopen the federal government and finally end the trump shutdown. we should pass this legislation, and the president should sign

this legislation so that this shutdown ends for people like kelly, people like mike, people in rural communities, and all communities across wisconsin. madam president, i yield the floor.

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the presiding officer: the senator from maryland -- the senator from virginia, excuse me. mr. kaine: madam president, are we in a quorum call?

the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call? mr. kaine: thank you. i would like to continue comments i began at 10:00 this morning. i left at 10:30 to accompany my virginia colleague, senator warner, to a round table with federal employees at a community center in alexandria, and i just want to share some of their stories. what agencies did these employees work for? there was quite a variety. department of homeland security, department of justice, environmental protection agency, f.a.a., air traffic control, various groups within the ag department, chemical safety board, department of labor, immigration officials. so they were from many different parts of the government affected by the shutdown. how did they describe the effect of the shutdown on them? these were almost all employees who were furloughed and their spouses and children in some

instances. a couple of them were not furloughed. they were deemed essential and working without pay. how did they describe the choices they are having to make? i paid this month's mortgage payment but i'm not sure i can pay the next. i'm a diabetic, and i have to decide which of the medications i can afford this month. my kid is in college, i'm not sure i can make the entire tuition payment for the spring semester. i've had to take money out of my i.r.a. to cover my bills and pay a penalty for doing that. i'm being penalized because the shutdown of government leaves me no other choice than to dip into retirement savings that are part of my ira. had to borrow money from family and friends. i've had to reduce the money that i pay to help my mother rent her apartment. i tried to put my seven-week-old daughter on the federal health insurance plan that i get because i work at the department

of justice. but because i'm furloughed and the h.r. department is furloughed, when i tried to put her on the federal health plan, i wasn't able to do that. and when she needed medication, thankfully for nothing life threatening, when she needed medication i was not able to get that covered by insurance. i finally worked for awhile and was able to find a work-around for it. so families described all kinds of ways that they're trying to cope and all kinds of effects that this is having on them. i was struck, madam president, by a common theme. i work for the government because i love serving people. i love serving the american people. that's why i chose to do what i did. that's why i moved from somewhere else to come here. that's how i met my wife or my husband, and we're jointly committed to public service. many of them described this was sitting on my desk the day that i left and i'm so anxious that

it's still there and undone. one of the individuals who worked with the f.a.a., his job includes certifying helicopter pilots who fly to support the american military mission in iraq, and he said i had a big sheath of those sitting on my desk when i left the office. these are people who support our military mission, and they're not getting certified and they're not getting authorized to do the work as long as i'm furloughed. another man talked about his passion for the food stamp program. he works for the ag department and he is involved in one portion of the snap program which is certifying new grocery stores to take snap benefits. he indicate -- he indicated in , which is all furloughed, 95% of the snap program is furloughed, there have been 2,500 grocery

stores applying to be able to accept snap benefits. often there are food deserts that is it hard for people to find stores that will accept snap benefits. he talked about his anxiety, but i've got to get back to work to process these so that more places would be more accessible to people who have food needs. but that passion for serving the public, and that's what's driving them. one woman indicated she had a great job in colorado but was able to get an internship with v.h.s. and moved her family from colorado to woodbridge, virginia for internship and that has now turned into full-time work and she indicated how proud he is to work at homeland security and how challenging it is to have no

pay. they talked about psychologically, who is essential. why are 95% who work on the snap program are essential as if hungy families don't matter and -- hungry families don't matter. and why is that not essential. a lot of the -- as painful as it is to be deemed essential and work with no pay, being determined nonessential is kind of even more of a dis to you. this is a powerful group of testimony, but, madam president, i want to conclude and i know that senator warner is a slower driver than me, so i got here before he did. he should be here shortly to close us out. i got handed pay statements. i brought back, i don't know, about 100 of these, and i'm not

going to read them all. but it's just interesting. robert for the pay period 25, 2019, which is the paycheck that comes in today, net pay zero. jardine, same pay period, net pay zero. jarrod, net pay zero. and i really liked this one. brian, net pay, one cent. these are mostly from air traffic controllers. in my speech i saidier -- said earlier is there any group that you would want to be less angry than air traffic controllers. if you are an air traffic controller, you want 100% of your mind to be on keeping everybody safe. if 5% of your mind is on, i just

got a pay stub that says i get 1 cent. if that is 5% of your mind and another 15% of your mind is how i'm going to pay the mortgage or the babysitter. one woman said that because i'm furloughed, i'm not paying a babysitter, i said to her, i can't pay you this week or next week. i'm not paying you as long as there is a shutdown, but please don't find other work because i want to go back to work and hire you again, but what babysitter can take that gig, week after week after week not being paid on the hope that this person might come back to work. but for some reason of all the indignities, this really sticks in folks' craws. in some ways that might be

better than working full time and finding this on your desk or in your e-mail or at your house, you know, $41.75 or one penny. so, madam president, i know i'm preaching to the choir in this group here, but i just -- i just hope, as people are back home this weekend and they hear similar stories, they'll realize that immigration reform and border security are really important, and we've got pork to do -- work to do to find accommodations that congress and the president can accept, but there's no reason to keep the government shut down and sending paychecks for one cent and inflicting various harm on folks. with that, i would like to yield the floor to my colleague dpr virginia. mr. warner: madam president.

the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: first of all, i want to thank my good friend and colleague from virginia, senator kaine, for appropriately saying to the billion of the senate yesterday this is not business as usual and for objecting to us going into recess as 800,000 americans, many of them who are working, as we heard earlier this working, many of them working overtime, are getting paychecks that have zero on them. senator kaine has probably already outlined what he just came from. i want to give the same comments, and i also want to thank the chair because i know she has come to the floor as well and raised these concerns. we have a lot of debates in the senate and there are legitimate policy differences we have. and part of our job is to resolve those. part of our job should never be to shut down the enterprise of

the greatest government in the world, the united states of america. and i think about mr. trump who has spent a bunch of time going on tv and running to the border, my goodness, i just wish that donald trump or someone from his white house could have sat in the room that senator kaine and i just sat in with 15, 16 federal employees and just heard their stories. what we heard, and i'm sure senator kaine has already acknowledged this. we heard from virtually all of them the fact that they viewed public service and serving with a noble calling or many of them who had either been air force or army or navy who had served in our nation's defenses but felt that they were continuing to serve when they joined public service. we heard another person who

works in one of the -- part of our government i'm a little familiar with, but frankly, not that much that does investigations into chemical spills. it's a small, tiny agency, 40 professionals. there was a chemical spill in houston a week ago and no one has done any investigation about what the effects of that spill might be on that community. and she was saying somehow she doesn't feel like her job is nonessential. we heard from a young man who had moved to virginia just a few years ago, bought a house, thought he could get through one more mortgage payment, helps to approve food stamp approvals. and actually the grocery stores that apply to get food stamps, there are 2,700 grocery stores trying to get approval to take

food stamps haven't gotten approval. and to make sure that people who are hungry in this country get food, that is a nonessential job was both insulting and, frankly, a little bit demoralizing. to hear as well from -- i can't recall which organization he works for, but someone who was saying, understood that as a federal employee when he came and joined the federal workforce, he gave up his right, in many ways, to organize, to strike, but he felt like he gave up those rights but the deal was the government was going to pay him for his job and that in many ways what's happening right now is kind of in labor terms the effect of the government locking out our workforce. and i don't want to steal senator kaine's thunder. he may have already mentioned this comment, but i thought this

was, boy, oh, boy, it was telling. we had a number of air traffic controllers there. and these folks are not only working without pay, but many of them are working overtime without pay, and with our air traffic controllers, about 35%, 40% of them are at the eligible age of retirement today. they could cash it in and say we're done. one of the things about the shutdown as well, we have been working for some time, paul rinaldi, the head of the air traffic controllers, i advise anyone to talk to him because he can scare the dickens out of you about the challenge of air traffic controllers. we have been making sure to replace the air traffic controllers, welshing the next -- well, the next group of air traffic controllers are shut down. and mr. rinaldi said, do you want an air traffic controller

who is working overtime to not spend over 100% of his focus on keeping the skies safe but probably thinking about 25% thinking about the mortgage and another 10%, 15% thinking about can he pay his kids' tuition? is that what we really want from folks tasked with such an important job? now, due to the good work of senator kaine and others and the presiding officer, we passed, i think two days ago the fact that all of our federal employees will be reimbursed. i think the house passed it as well and the president will sign it. let's not presume by chance that will make everybody whole. we heard from a lady this morning who hadn't saved very much, but had done what we all urged, put some money away in her i.r.a. she's taking her money out of the i.r.a., paying the tax

penalty of taking that money out so she can get by. she gets her back paycheck, that doesn't replace the penalty in taxes she paid on her savings many we had another person who took an advance on credit cards. we all they that credit cards have some value, but those rates are not cheap if you take an advance from your credit card. and if you get back pay, that's not going to make up for those penalties. senator kaine may have mentioned this already. we in virginia and i know alaska has the same issue, we have tens of thousands of, maybe hundreds of thousands of workers who are contractors, who even when we reopen the government have absolutely no guarantee of being reimbursed. senator kaine may have mentioned there are veterans on a small business contractor had about nine employees who this week is probably going to shut down because he probably can't pay his workers.

he maintained as along as -- as long as he could, but cannot continue to pay his workers. what about the folks who are never going to get the hours back who worked providing food services or cleaning up our buildings, often the lowest paid employees, often contractors, who will not get the hours back and still stuck with christmas presents but never get the pay back from that time. the list goes on and on. alaska and virginia are both blessed with great heritage sites, great national parks, the shenandoah valley, around where senator kaine lives, a lot of battlefields around richmond, i'm sure there are some in alaska. there are restaurants, camp sites or other facilities that may not be on national park ground, but they get all their business from tourist who's come oftentimes during the holiday

periods. those folks get even when we reopen the government goose eggs. so i thank the presiding officer. i thank my friend from virginia as well. you know, i believe we will find a way to get this government reopen. my hope is that our colleagues, when they are home this weekend, will be refreshed by hearing from workers who are doing their jobs without pay and that we will find a way to get this -- this government reopened. but we should be very clear that the damage that has been done -- the damage that has been done in terms of how americans view all of us, regardless of where we are in this policy debate, how americans view our federal government, how the rest of the world views us now that we have got the -- the shutdown i believe by tomorrow will become the longest federal government shutdown in american history.

i hope and pray that we'll all maybe in the aftermath of stepping back, one, find a way to make sure that people who pay undue penalties, financial penalties because, through no fault of their own, the government shutdown, we find a way to compensate them had that we can sort through the complicated issue around contractors. and that for those private businesses who are around federal facilities that we try to come to some kind of joint agreement that never again -- never again will we use a nonconnected policy issue to hold hostage 800,000 folks who work for us and hundreds of thousands of others and frankly millions who depend on these services going forward. we ought to find an -- again i may be being overly optimistic that somehow or the other we'll get this resolved.

if we do, we ought to find those of us who are part of the group that niendz common ak -- finds common accord that we never do this again. my closing comments -- and i've got stories from a variety of residents from virginia here. i know the chair wants to get out of the chair at 1:00 so i'll submit these stories for the record. but i also, and as somebody who's been in the private sector longer than the public sector, and like my friend, my colleague from virginia, we've both had the honor of being governors of virginia so we've both been in executive positions, both been in positions where we've had workforces. i know as a business guy, you could tell how well a business would do on how you treated your workforce, because that's the most important asset you've got, your human capital. and if we think back over the last decade, even through tight financial times, we've found

ways, and appropriately so, for our military to get funded. we even found ways, i think irresponsibly, to dramatically cut on taxes particularly from folks at the top. every time we've had to make cutbacks, where we made cutbacks has been what we call domestic discretionary which in english is things like the t.s.a., air traffic controllers, the agriculture department, like the coast guard. and each year whenever -- we cut those programs. domestic discretionary spending is at the lowest percentage it's been since the 1960's. so we've asked all these folks who are furloughed or being asked to work without pay, we've asked them to do more with less, which isn't great for the workforce morale. and now we've had a white house -- and my gosh, i wish somebody from the white house could have sat there today because i would have loved for

them to try to explain how they ought to go back and negotiate with them, their landlords about their rent due or make do with a side job or as some folks are doing, who are selling their personal possessions on e-bay to pay the bills. the fact that this white house is willing to go to the border for a political photo op -- the president's words, not mine -- or get on television and blast his political opponents but not be willing to send anyone from this administration to sit down and listen to the concerns of our federal workforce is disgraceful. so i thank, again, my colleague from virginia for his great work on this. i think it is appropriate that we are in session today raising these issues. i think the level of angst that's going to take place over the next 48 hours as more and

more people get those paychecks with zero on it. we haven't seen anything yet, the angst we felt in virginia, maryland and the district people are going to feel all over the country. we need to put our workforce back to work. we need to make sure the service they provide are being applied in a way that makes our country safer, and we need to find a way to make sure that never ever again will we use these folks' lives as what they are being used right now -- their words, not ours -- political pawns. they are more important. their jobs are more important. their lives are more important than the way they have been treated over these last 21 days. with that, madam president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: would the senator withhold his request?

the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 3:00 p.m. monday.

senator from virginia is recognized. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to talk about the significance of today, the 11th of january, the 21st day of the partial government