ms. mikulski: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that our remarks regarding the passing of skwrer dean tper -- of geraldine ferraro appear at an appropriate place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i also ask that the following senators be permitted to speak for five minutes each: senators -- on the subject of geraldine ferraro: senators boxer, hutchison, stabenow, shaheen. i don't know if the gentlelady from maine wishes to speak at this time or another time about -- would you like to speak at this time? let me reiterate the unanimous consent. the following senators be permitted to speak for five minutes each: boxer, hutchison, stabenow, shaheen, snowe. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: thank you. mr. president, we come tohe floor with a heavy heart and great sadness. geraldine ferraro, a former member of the united states house of r

ms. mikulski: mr.nt, i so ask that the following senators be permitted to speak for five minutes each: senators -- on the subject of geraldine ferraro: senators boxer, hutchison, stabenow, shaheen. i don't know if the gentlelady from maine wishes to speak at this time or another time about -- would you like to speak at this time? let me reiterate the unanimous consent. the following senators be permitted to speak for five minutes each: boxer, hutchison, stabenow, shaheen, snowe. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: thank you. mr. president, we come to the floor with a heavy heart and great sadness. geraldine ferraro, a former member of the united states house of representatives, a congresswoman from new york, who was the first woman to be nominated by a major party for vice president, has lost her gallant and persistent fight against cancer and has passed away. i really thank the leadership for offering a resolution noting the many contributions that she made to america and express t

ms. mikulski: well, then my time is up. maybe the senate's not paying attention, but the american people are paying attention. and i'm telling you, this is a situation of enormous negative consequences, and i think we're going to rue the day the way we're functioning here. we need to come to the table, and we need to sit around and act like rational human beings. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: madam president, as congress and the obama administration grapples with how to responsibly address our long-term deficit, something that the senator from maryland has talked so eloquently about, we need to remember why it's so important to get on a path to balanced budgets. we need to address the long-term deficit because this deficit is a threat to america's future prosperity. economic growth and jobs, that's why the deficit matters. the deficit is not just some math problem where it's solved if the numbers add up right. the choices we make, which spend program

ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, my colleague has talked about one disease in washington but i'm going to talk about another disease that seems to be running rampant over in the house republican caucus and that is hypocrisy. hypocrisy. and the reason i say that is that they say one thing and they mean another. they say one thing and they deceive the american public. now, we're narrowly -- now, ordinarily i wouldn't comment on the behavior or the tribal wares of the republican caucus, but they've had a field day on tv kind of ridiculing the senate, kind of ridiculing the democratic senate, essentially doing a lot of name-calling. now, i'm not doing name-calling. i'm going to do fact describing. the reason i call it "hypocrisy" is this. what they say they want to do, which is reduce government spending, they don't. what they -- they only do it on particular groups of people. and the other is something called the consequences of the shutdown. let me just say this. they w