Default Prevention Act of 2013

Madam President, for nearly 2 weeks I have watched the debate on the Senate floor as well as on the House floor, and I have become more and more frustrated. My frustration is, in part--I would say in large part--driven by the contrast to what I see going on in my home State of Colorado.

During the past several weeks, Coloradans have come together in the wake of Biblical rains and beyond devastating flooding to begin the long process of rebuilding our State better and stronger. We in the West--and I think I can say we as Americans--are rugged cooperators. Sure, we are each strong individuals--and that is a strong point of view in the West; it is the core of who we are, that we are strong as individuals--but we know we are best when we band together, despite any political or philosophical differences, to face our shared challenges. I am doing my level best to bring that spirit to Washington, DC, especially now in this time of shutdowns and ultimatums and ideology that doesn't make sense to the people I represent in Colorado. I invite all of my colleagues to come to Colorado to see the collaborations occurring in these flood-ravaged communities such as Jamestown, Lyons and Estes Park and Fort Morgan. There are no games. There is no posturing. There is no politics. There is just a doggedness to make their communities better. I surely hope the strength and the focus of Coloradans could be an inspiration to all of us as we tackle what are very pressing policy issues.

On that note, I wish to speak about one of my constituents, someone I work for--Jeff. He is a Federal employee. He demonstrates the resilience, to me, of the people of Colorado. But his situation also typifies the worst of what this shutdown and this brinkmanship is doing to the real people, the good people of my State of Colorado.

Jeff is a Federal employee. He was trapped for 3 days in last month's flood. That flood cost him almost everything. He has very few possessions

left. Once he was free, he went immediately back to his day job. He was working for an agency that is integral to the flood disaster response. What happened? The government closed. So now he rents out an apartment. His home is inaccessible, literally, due to the flooding. He doesn't have a paycheck and he is being told he is not essential and he shouldn't come in to work.

There are a lot of reactions I have to that. There are a lot of reactions anybody who is paying attention would have to that. One is that now there is one less pair of boots on the ground helping with the flood response efforts in Colorado.

To a certain extent, politics is about finding the right strategy to advocate for what a person believes is right. But what is going on right now is shameful. What is happening to Jeff is flatout shameful.

What we are seeing is one faction of one party, in one Chamber, in one branch of government, holding this Nation's health, economy, and security hostage and, in the process, causing the Federal Government to shut down and threatening a government default on our obligations. By doing so, these individuals are holding our flood recovery hostage. It makes no sense.

I guess you have to ask yourself why. Why would a small group, a faction, be doing this? It strikes me that in part they are doing it because they are obsessed with undermining a law that is providing affordable health care to Americans, some for the first time in their lives, a law that is saving seniors hundreds of dollars a year on prescription drugs and is leveling the playing field when it comes to providing health care and putting consumers back in charge of their own health care.

I want to make this clear: After having legally passed both Houses of Congress, being affirmed by the Supreme Court, and then serving as a referendum in the just concluded campaign that overwhelmingly reelected President Obama, the Affordable Care Act is settled law. Let me say that again. The Affordable Care Act is settled law.

But describing it as settled law alone I know is not enough to resolve this latest crisis. So I would like to take viewers and my colleagues back a decade when the Presiding Officer was a Member of House at that time, when President George W. Bush pushed us to pass what was an unpaid-for Medicaid prescription drug benefit.

Members of my caucus over in the House felt that this massive unpaid law was thrust upon us without due consideration and at a time when we should not be racking up further debt. Many of us on my side of the aisle were literally reeling with anger after it passed. It also passed in ways with which we disagreed, in the middle of the night, literally. The desk in the House was kept open--I think the Presiding Officer knows--for close to 4 hours to find those last votes.

I was angry. I voted against that Medicare prescription drug benefit. I am sure I was as angry as some of my colleagues were when the Affordable Care Act passed over 3 years ago.

So what did I do? I took a lot of deep breaths. I listened to the counsel of people I respect, I listened to my own counsel, and I not only decided it was settled law, but I decided to start holding townhalls and listening sessions so I could help my constituents sign up for it. I knew it was the settled law of the land, just like ObamaCare is today, and I wanted my constituents to be best served by its implementation.

So I went out and spread the word about the benefits, figured out what questions my constituents would have. I wanted them to sign up. I wanted to make it a success. I wanted them to have those benefits.

So let's fast forward to today. Far from helping people, our friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle have relentlessly spread uncertainty about ObamaCare, attacking its implementation at every turn, and now to close down the Federal Government over their concerns about it.

We are in the 10th day of a government shutdown. Our national security has suffered. Seventy percent of the intelligence community is furloughed. We do not have enough food inspectors on the job. Our veterans are not getting the services not only that they need but that they have earned. Our national parks are closed, hurting economies like ours in Colorado. I mentioned Estes Park. Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. If Estes Park is going to recover from these devastating floods, Rocky Mountain National Park has to be open for business.

This is not how the greatest Nation in the world can go on doing business. I have said from the very beginning--I think the Presiding Officer agrees with me--the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect. No mandate law is. As with every law, it will undoubtedly need some improvements and some constructive changes during its implementation. I am committed to doing that, just like we did after President Bush moved his prescription drug law to the finish line.

In the past few days we have seen statements indicating that some Republicans are starting to understand that this partisan focus on ObamaCare is futile. So as their next step they have seized on yet another destructive tactic, manufacturing a new crisis, an even more serious, potentially devastating crisis than shutting down the government. What have they done? They are threatening the full faith and credit of the Federal Government to push their budget demands. They have threatened to force us past the deadline, which is October 17-- that is a week from today--when the United States will no longer be able to meet its financial obligations.

Grandstanding on funding the government is bad enough. If we do not agree on a way forward to reopen the government, but we also do not agree on a way to ensure that the Treasury Department does not default on our Nation's debt obligations, we will seriously damage global confidence in the United States, make no mistake. There are some voices in this building who think that will not happen. They are wrong.

If we damage the global confidence in the United States, we are going to hamper our economic recovery, we will slow job creation, and we will make borrowing costs more expensive for government and families alike. This is no way to win the global economic race in which we find ourselves. Coloradans are telling me in every way they can that they expect a lot better than this.

Ronald Reagan used to joke in only the way he could that he was not worried about the debt; it is big enough to take care of itself. But every American should worry if Congress refuses to meet the obligations we have already made.

I know many Americans are worried about our debt and our capacity to pay the bills we have incurred. I have been worried about this for a long time. I think if you would ask anybody around here, they would tell you I would vote in a minute for a sensible grand bargain. It is true. I have worked across the aisle and built a record of efforts to reduce wasteful spending and set our budget on a more sustainable footing. It should be one of our top priorities. It has to be one of our top priorities.

I have been a longtime supporter of the line-item veto. I supported the initial structure around which the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission worked. I called for an end to earmarks. I worked with Senator Coburn from Oklahoma on ending some wasteful public subsidies, including those for the political party conventions every 4 years. It is why I was the first Democrat to champion a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution in many a year. I am not the only Member, as well, of my party who has been fighting for commonsense reforms.

This is critically important work. I would love nothing more than to bring a serious deficit reduction plan to the floor and pass it along with raising our debt limit to avoid an American default.

But let me be crystal clear: To default on our debt because a grand bargain eludes us would make our debt and deficits even worse and thrust us into an economic tailspin. It is irresponsible to even suggest forcing America into default as a legitimate negotiating position.

Let's sit down and have a grownup discussion about these important issues, but not like this. Let's fund the government, let's pay our bills, and then let's sit down and negotiate again. Negotiation is good. Compromise is good. But we cannot have this important set of discussions with one party constantly threatening to shut down

the government or throw our country into default, each of which makes our deficits and debt even worse.

We have, literally, centuries of examples of a Congress collaborating, working together. We have done that for over 200 years. We can debate, we can have contentious back-and-forth, but in the end we need to compromise and agree. We need a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction plan that can pass both Chambers and be signed into law.

No party gets to threaten the American economy and shut down the government when they do not get their way. No party gets to jeopardize middle-class families' 401(k)s or senior citizens' retirement savings or set our economic recovery back just because their positions are not strong enough to prevail on their own.

That just is not the way to address our Nation's shared problems. And trust me, our debt and deficits are a shared problem. We can do better.

I want to begin to conclude by again referring to the Coloradans I am so fortunate to represent, just like the Presiding Officer, I know, is honored to represent the good people of Wisconsin. Coloradans have shown the true strength of our State in the wake of this tragic flooding that literally has wiped communities off the map and destroyed thousands of homes. If we could have done anything to prevent that natural disaster, we would have.

We now face a potential manmade disaster. We have to protect Americans from a looming manmade disaster that is emerging right here. We have to bridge the partisan divide. We have to end this government shutdown. We have to stave off an American default. We have to pay our bills. We could do this today if Speaker Boehner would just allow the House to vote on a clean funding resolution that we have already sent to the House, with the House numbers in it, by the way. So let's just see a vote in the House. The continuing resolution would pass in the House today with Republican and Democratic votes.

So let's just vote. Let's hold the vote. The Presiding Officer and I served in the House. When we were eager to go to work we would shout: Vote, vote, vote; work, work, work. It is time for the House to go to work. Let's vote to end this debt ceiling crisis and make sure our Nation pays the debts it has already incurred.

These are the basic functions of Congress. If we fail to act, history will never forgive us--any of us.

I yield the floor.

I move to proceed to Calendar No. 211, S. 1569, the debt limit bill.

Following leader remarks the time until 1 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders and their designees.

At 1 p.m. the Senate will recess subject to the call of the Chair for a special caucus meeting with the President.

Measures Placed on the Calendar--H.J. Res. 84, H.J. Res. 89, H.J. Res.

90, H.J. Res. 91

There are four measures at the desk due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings with respect to these measures en bloc.

The President issued a warning to Congress:

The full consequences of a default by the United States--or

even the prospect of a default by the United States--are

impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration

of the full faith and credit of the United States would have

substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the

value of the dollar in exchange markets.

The President went on to warn of ``risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage'' of failing to avert such a default.

This is not Barack Obama; this was Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Four years later in 1987, Reagan again warned Congress about the impacts of a default on the economy. He said:

This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds

and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits.

Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in

the financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.

Yet three decades later, an alarming number of Republicans have denied or downplayed the seriousness of a first-ever default on the full faith and credit of the United States.

To these default deniers, east is west, north is south, black is white, and right is wrong.

Let's talk about what raising the debt actually means. It simply means we are going to pay our bills. It is not a vote to spend more money to authorize new programs or to buy new things. It is a vote to pay the bills.

The Federal Government has already incurred these bills, bills for roads and bridges--we have already built them--the warships we have already commissioned, wars that have been waged and tax breaks that have been charged on a national credit card.

A vote to avert default is a vote to pay the bills for all these and more.

Many Republicans are in the press today, and have been for the past week or 10 days, arguing, Why worry about it? It will all work out.

These same Republicans who argue that we should default on the Nation's bills voted time and time again to spend borrowed money, and a lot of it, without any regard for the long-term effect it would have. These Republicans voted to sell government bonds to China, Saudi Arabia, and Japan to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republican Senators have come to this floor and lamented raising the debt. We have to raise this debt because of two unpaid wars costing trillions of dollars; tax breaks for the wealthy costing trillions of dollars, all given to the rich with borrowed money; wars fought with borrowed money.

During the Bush administration, these same Republicans were happy to run up America's credit cards to the tune of trillions of dollars. Their theory was lower the taxes; it will be great for the economy. They are now howling about the debts they created, the debts they voted for. Never mind that with little help from Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama has reduced the ratio of deficit to gross domestic product from 9 percent to 4 percent. This is very good, in spite of the debt he has been trying to get charge of; it wasn't his.

Now that the bill for the Republicans' excesses has come due, the bills for wars they supported and the tax cuts they have received, they are not willing to pay them. They want to walk out on that check.

Many of these same Republicans also say we can avoid default by prioritizing whom to pay and when we pay them. They say we should pay foreign debtholders first. They all agree with that. China would be first, then Saudi Arabia, and maybe Japan.

We shouldn't and couldn't pay Social Security recipients under that scenario, veterans or Medicare. No matter how much we would want to, we couldn't do it. There would be no money to do it. In addition to having shockingly skewed priorities, Republicans are also using very flawed logic.

Here is a real-world example. Let us say the Presiding Officer has a mortgage, car payment, and a cell phone bill. The Presiding Officer has to decide: Which one should I pay? I can't pay them all. Which one should I pay?

It doesn't matter if the Presiding Officer picks one of them because he has defaulted anyway. He can't pay his bills. He likely would never be able to buy another car, cell phone, certainly not a house. His credit would be ruined for the foreseeable future.

The same thing would happen to our country. One week from today--and that is not a definite time, it could be a couple days before or a couple of days after, but we are there; let's say a week from now and use that as a point of reference--the United States has no money. It can't borrow any money. The Federal Government paid China but failed to pay Social Security recipients, unemployment benefits or the salaries of our brave men and women fighting in uniform.

The damage not only to our credit rating, world credit rating, but also to our global reputation would be profound and irreversible. The risks, the costs, the disruptions and the damage would be incalculable. This is what President Ronald Reagan said.

Why don't they listen to this man they say is such a great leader-- and was. I agree. He was a tremendous President. I didn't agree with him all the time, but he was a real leader. He, more than anyone else, is responsible for ending the Cold War. There are many who say he couldn't fit in the Republican Party of today.

Robert Dole, who was the majority leader of the Senate from the State of Kansas, a patriotic American, said himself he doesn't fit in the Republican Party today.

The stakes couldn't be higher. A global economic recession, and possibly even depression, face this great country. This is why President Obama reached out to House Republicans, inviting them to the White House yesterday afternoon for a serious discussion. Guess what they said. We are too busy. We will send a few of us, but we are too busy. Remember, the House is led by this same man who said he wanted to have a conversation, but they are unwilling to have one with him.

I was disappointed to hear that the same intractable Republican leaders who caused the current government shutdown were unwilling to even allow their Members to meet with the President for a constructive conversation. Again, they will send--I think they picked 17 out of the 232 they have. This great conversation is one they don't want.

They want to talk, but their actions tell another story. They have caused enough economic turmoil with the reckless shutdown of the Federal Government. If that is not enough, now we have the debt ceiling coming in about 1 week. If Republicans force default on the Nation's debt, it would be magnitudes worse than the damage they have already caused our great country with this senselessly created government shutdown.

Yesterday, Fidelity, the Nation's largest mutual fund manager, with $500 billion in assets, announced it would sell all of its short-term government bonds because of the threat of default. Today there will be more.

Yesterday, government bonds were considered the safest investment in the world. Will they be so tomorrow? Time will only tell. If the United States fails to pay its bills, that safe haven will disappear very quickly.

We are going to vote Saturday on the ability to proceed to a clean debt ceiling. We will find out how Senate Republicans wish to proceed. Economists say the consequences of not paying our bills, not extending the debt ceiling, would be immediate and catastrophic. This isn't a bunch of Harvard leftwingers.

Even Republican economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin said debt deniers are dead wrong. He said a failure to raise the debt ceiling leads to very bad economic outcomes and chaos in financial markets.

Fidelity's move is only the first sign of economic chaos and will continue to spread the closer America comes to defaulting on its bills. With every day that passes, it is more and more important for Republicans to stop denying the reality of default and start working with us to find common ground.

All we have said is open the government. Let us pay our bills. We will negotiate with them on anything. We will have a conversation with them about anything. Open the government. Let us pay our bills. Then we will negotiate.

Recognition of Minority Leader

Reserving the right to object, the senior Senator from Texas has always been very courteous to me. Yesterday was no exception in withholding his unanimous consent request when we discussed this issue. It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, as he indicated.

I indicated that I thought that if we waited until 3:30 we would have this matter revolved, as that is what I had been told. In fact, it was a little after 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon that Secretary Hagel issued a statement announcing that the Department of Defense had entered into an agreement, as my friend said, with the organization my friend mentioned, and that would provide the family of fallen servicemembers--over the weekend, the Senator from Texas is correct, we had five soldiers killed, one of whom was a woman, four men and one woman. The agreement Senator Hagel came up with would give everyone-- provide to family members of the military the full set of benefits they have been promised, including the $100,000 death benefit gratuity. So the death benefit issue has been resolved. The Department of Defense stepped forward and took care of everything, so this issue is largely moot. It is clear the action on this legislation is now just for show here.

We all agree it is bad that the government shutdown led to this added grief for the families who had suffered such a terrible loss. Now we need to do what we can to prevent any further bad results--and there have been plenty of them in other areas. The right thing to do is to prevent more of these in other areas, and the House should just vote to open the government. This issue has been taken care of, and it is terrible that we even got to this point.

We should not forget that as long as the government remains closed and the Republicans refuse to open the government, the military is unable to, for example, buy armor and equipment needed to prevent future deaths in the military. For the families of FBI agents killed in the line of duty, it is the same problem--they can't receive their death benefits. Veterans' benefits are delayed and disrupted.

As for this bill, the Secretary has now acted. We all agree the issue is taken care of. If my friend from Texas feels more comfort as a result of doing this, which I think is unnecessary, I don't object.

Madam President, my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois, gave an analogy that applies to a lot of what my friend from Texas said. First of all, we haven't done appropriations bills. We haven't done appropriations bills because the Republicans won't let us. We can't even get cloture on a way to proceed to one of them.

But I want to be sure the record is clear that my friend from Texas doesn't have to give me the benefit of the doubt on what I said. If there were ever an example of this whole process being for show, it is this: We have a lot of things we should be working on. The country is within 1 week of defaulting on its debt for the first time in the history of this country. We should be focusing on that. The government should be open.

We had the unfortunate incident where we had five of our troops killed over the weekend in Afghanistan, and it brought to our attention they were not going to get their benefits because the part of the government that gives them that money is closed.

Now, we didn't close it. But Secretary Hagel, a former Republican Member of this body, worked it out so they are all taken care of. They are all taken care of. So this unanimous consent I agreed to is for show. It doesn't mean anything. They are being taken care of anyway.

So I appreciate the Senator giving me the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn't need to give me the benefit of the doubt. This whole thing is for show. This whole government shutdown is for show. It is a show that I don't quite understand the ending of, but that is where we are.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, yesterday we learned that for the remainder of the government shutdown one of America's great charitable organizations, the Fisher House Foundation, will provide survivor benefits to military families who have lost a loved one on the field of battle. Fisher House is really just almost too good to believe, a wonderful charity that has helped military families all across our country, including folks in seven different facilities in Texas, from the VA North Texas Health Care System to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, the Carl R. Darnall Medical Center, the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, the Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System. I personally extend my thanks and express my gratitude to Fisher House for making such a tremendous commitment to our military heroes and making such a generous offer for the families of the fallen.

Secretary Hagel was quoted when he announced that Fisher House was going to fill the gap left by the cutoff of Federal funds, saying he was ``offended, outraged, and embarrassed that the government shutdown had prevented the Department of Defense from fulfilling this most sacred responsibility in a timely manner.''

I agree with his outrage and sense of offense and embarrassment. But I want to recall how we got here. If our friends across the aisle had simply agreed to delay the individual mandate and to eliminate the special congressional carveout under ObamaCare, this never would have happened.

We have now reached day 10 of the shutdown. Over the last week and a half, administration officials have done as much as they possibly can to make this shutdown as painful as possible. They made the decision to barricade the World War II memorials and monuments along the National Mall, hoping to keep out our veterans, many near the end of their lives, for whom these monuments were built as a way of honoring their sacrifice. They kept these barricades in their way to impede or perhaps prevent them from visiting things such as the World War II Memorial.

The Obama administration we know has temporarily closed or interfered with privately run parks and historic sites, such as the Claude Moore Colonial Farm in Northern Virginia.

Why would the administration, in order to turn up the heat or increase the pain of the shutdown, impose itself to shut down a privately run park? Well, there is a reason for that, and it is because this is a cynical game--not one designed to get to a solution but one to gain political advantage. It should be offensive, embarrassing, and outrageous--to use the words of Secretary Hagel--for a political party to try to use a shutdown for such craven political gain.

Meanwhile, our Democratic friends have refused to support legislation that would reopen our memorials and national parks and fund the National Institutes of Health. I heard the distinguished assistant majority leader come to the floor a few days ago and decry the fact that cancer research for children was being temporarily stopped because of the shutdown. We have come to the floor and offered a bill that would reopen it, along with clinical trials, and it has been refused by our Democratic colleagues. We have come to the floor--and the House has passed these bills--and said: Let's fund the Veterans' Administration to make sure the backlog of disability claims gets taken care of and so our veterans who have given so much and sacrificed so much don't have to wait on getting their disability claims processed. That was objected to by the majority leader. They also objected to funding our military Reserves. As I said, they seem intent on maximizing the pain in hopes of gaining political advantage. That is outrageous, that is embarrassing, and it should be embarrassing.

Before I conclude, I want to say to all the military families out there who have lost a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father, or a mother on the field of battle--I want to leave you with the words of a great American President who said:

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of

your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of

the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours

to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Those noble and inspiring words in that prayer are the type of tribute we should be giving to those families who have lost loved ones on the field of battle, not the sort of shortsighted political treatment that has been given by the efforts across the aisle to shut down every reasonable opportunity to alleviate some of this hardship and to mitigate some of the pain.

We have done it together successfully when it comes to paying our uniformed Active-Duty military. We got a unanimous consent agreement between the parties to make sure our Active-Duty troops are getting paid. Why is it we can't do the same thing with the survivors of those who lost their lives on the field of battle?

When I asked unanimous consent yesterday for the majority leader to agree to that piece of legislation, he asked to delay consideration of that request until the Defense Department could announce its proposal with the Fisher House. Again, I commend the Fisher House for stepping up and trying to fill the void, but why should we not do our job? Why should Congress not act? We should act and I hope very soon. We can do our job and honor these fallen and their families in an appropriate way by coming together as Republicans and Democrats and making sure these survivor benefits to the families who have lost loved ones on the field of battle are paid on a timely basis without being caught up in the political games occurring inside the Halls of Congress.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Yesterday I came to the floor with the distinguished majority leader to raise the issue of survivor benefits to those who died in the line of duty. Reportedly, 26 servicemembers have died since the government shut down on October 1, including 5 in combat. Their families have been denied the basic survivor benefits, which include a death gratuity, $100,000 of life insurance, a housing allowance paid for a year, paid in a lump sum, as well as burial and other related expenses.

Yesterday I asked unanimous consent that we take up and pass the House bill. The majority leader and I entered into a conversation, and there was a question as to the intervening action by the Department of Defense to try to work around the lapse of the funding. Fisher House, which is a wonderful charitable organization, helps to operate and fund seven different facilities in my State alone. I know they are extraordinarily generous and do very good work. They offered to enter into a contractual agreement with the Department of Defense to fill the gap during the interim. But what I would like to do is ask unanimous consent that we take up and pass the House legislation, which would alleviate the need for Fisher House and the Department of Defense trying to figure a workaround. We would actually pass legislation that would reopen that stream of funding so that these families could get the benefits they deserve.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.J. Res. 91

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 216, H.J. Res 91, making continuing appropriations for death gratuities and related survivor benefits for survivors of deceased military servicemembers of the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes; that the measure be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, if I could respond briefly, I appreciate the majority leader not objecting to the consideration of this legislation. He believes this issue has been resolved by this contractual arrangement between Fisher House and the Department of Defense, but ultimately the Department of Defense would have to reimburse Fisher House under what I understand is the purported arrangement to be made. This obviates the need for any of that kind of workaround, together with any legal questions that might arise as to whether this is actually something the Department has the authority to do. I am not suggesting they don't; I am just saying this alleviates all those considerations.

So I am pleased we were able to come together in a bipartisan way, as we were on the military pay for uniformed military, and pass this narrow piece of legislation. I think maybe now that we have passed the pay for Active-Duty

military and we have passed the provision that provides for survivor benefits for the families of the fallen, perhaps that paves the way to be open for some other narrow bills until we can come together on a larger bill.

We have offered, for example, funding for the National Institutes of Health, NIH. A few days ago the distinguished assistant leader from the Democratic side gave a very eloquent speech about children's cancer research. Under the bill that was passed by the House on a bipartisan basis that we have called up here, that funding would be restored, as would funding for the Veterans' Administration so they can process disability benefits, which they are not able to do now because of the cutoff in funding.

There are a number of areas where I think we can work together constructively if we will do so. I am pleased we were able to take care of this one.

I yield for a question.

Madam President, responding to the question of the distinguished assistant majority leader, I would say that we would all like to try to find some way to get back to business as usual when it comes to funding the government through the regular appropriations process. We haven't done that for a long time, and so we have been operating not on individual bills--I think there are 13 separate bills as part of the appropriations process. So now we have unfortunately already degenerated to this continuing resolution process, which has its own problems.

I would say to my friend that for every one of the hardships we can mitigate through passing narrow legislation absent a global agreement on the continuing resolution, it seems to me we ought to be doing that. If there are other suggestions the Democratic side has about how we can do that, I think that would be a good thing to do.

The problem is that I know the majority leader--I will give the majority leader the benefit of the doubt. I hope he didn't really mean he thought this was a show process, trying to restore these survivor benefits through this unanimous consent request, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

I do think there are a lot of questions raised in the minds of the American people whether what is happening here is being done purely for political purposes. We have veterans of World War II and Korea who come to the World War II Memorial only to be met with barricades. I have met a number of the Honor Flights of the ``greatest generation'' at a number of these memorials, and they have basically decided to go around the barricades, as I believe is their right under the Constitution.

It seems as if there is an effort made to maximize the pain associated with the shutdown. We know 83 percent of the government is being funded. Why can't we try to chip away at some of these narrow provisions and mitigate some of the hardship that we can rather than getting in our corners, squaring off, and creating more and more problems? I think this is important. We ought to be doing this. We should have done this a long time ago.

I would say to my colleagues, there were reports that Secretary Hagel notified the administration of this lapse in survivor benefits before the shutdown even occurred. It took the President 9 days before he finally ordered the Department of Defense to come up with a workaround, thankfully with the help of the Fisher House.

I think there is an impression that a lot of gamesmanship is going on. I don't think it becomes the Senate. I think Congress's approval rating is in the toilet, and we ought to be doing everything we can to address the problems where we can.

I yield the floor to the Senator.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be here with my colleagues from Montana and Alaska to talk about some of the impacts in our various States. I thought I would share six or seven different aspects of the impact of a government shutdown and the potential of a default and then turn this over to my colleague from Montana. Then I think we are going to engage in a little bit of back-and-forth.

Before I list specific examples of the challenges that are faced, I thought I would give a framework or an analogy of how to think about this.

The legislative process is very much like a baseball game where various folks come together. There are some for bills, some are against a bill, they have a competition, and ultimately one side wins. Normally, the side that loses, if they believe they are still right, will say we will be back again later in the session, next year, just like a baseball team, to compete again or we will be back next year with an improved team.

But in this case, after the team that supported health care won, the team that lost said we are going to appeal the ruling to the umpire and we are going to ask the umpire to rule the game out of order and rule that the losing team actually won. Then, if the umpire doesn't come to our rescue, we are going to hold the crowd hostage and we are going to threaten to burn down the stadium.

Those are the types of actions that are outside the sphere of the normal legislative process--and they should be--because we have to be able to have a dialog in a democracy where we consider a bill and decide yes or no and then implement it and then come back and have an argument over improvements to that framework or whether we should throw it out completely. The American people have the opportunity to weigh in and say: Keep those folks. They did good legislation or throw the bums out.

But all that is broken if, instead of completing that cycle, we have the losing team say we are going to hold the crowd hostage and threaten to burn down the stadium. Then democracy doesn't function. That is where we are right now. Holding the crowd hostage is the government shutdown, and threatening to burn down the stadium is the threat to default on the payment of bills due.

So let's look at how the government shutdown is reverberating in some unexpected ways. Let's take home mortgages. A great majority of home mortgages across the Nation are insured by Fannie and Freddie. That insurance doesn't happen while Fannie and Freddie are shut down.

Let's take work necessary to improve our ports, where that work is on jetties. Now that work has to stop because we can't incur a new liability to the contractor to haul the rock out and put it into place or maybe it is on a dredger that needs to take place during a window between different salmon runs in the Columbia River. But now that gets delayed and who knows when it will get done.

Let's talk about a company in Oregon that exports, and they need for those exports an export license, but they can't get the export license because Commerce is shut down and can't issue that license. They have inventory that is waiting to ship out. Then they have cashflow problems not only because they can't ship the inventory, they can't get the payments for shipping.

Let's talk about the trickledown for folks who are unemployed. You may think about it as an employee who is staying home. One employee wrote to me and said, think about this, think about the fact that I owe child support that is not going to get paid because I am not getting paid. Then he said, think about the housing market. I am not going to be able to pay my mortgage. What impact is that going to have on the U.S. economy?

Let's take a look at the backlog of veterans' benefits. All over my State I have veterans who are applying for benefits and they want an answer, and the Veterans Department is trying to process those applications. They have a high, intense effort to catch up on that backlog. Suddenly the backlog is getting bigger instead of getting smaller because the work that was being done to get rid of that backlog grinds to a halt and therefore individual veterans are disadvantaged by not having their applications processed.

Let's think about Head Start. Jessica wrote to me.

I work in early headstart in Grants Pass. We are facing a

shutdown due to the government shutdown. We have children who

need stability and a caring place where they can get their

basic needs met. So many families struggle to feed their

children and sometimes the food we serve is all those

children get for the day.

Then she says:

We provide more than just what some consider day care. We

teach, we nurture, we give hope to the next generation.

Shutting down our centers would mean a higher rate of poverty

and dangerous homes for families and children. We need our

voices to be heard. We need someone to stand up for us.

There are so many different ways in addition that this shutdown is reverberating in Oregon. One that affects every rural community is the impact on timber planting. We have had the shutdown going on of actual logging that is taking place in Federal forests. Folks who are logging are being told to stop cutting new trees, to pull their logs, skid them out, if you will, haul them out and shut down.

What about the planning for the cuts for next year? What about the supply of logs to the sawmills that is going to keep that sawmill operating through the winter and into the spring? The reverberations are substantial. What about the economy in those small towns that depends on those log mills when folks don't have the money, because they can't log, to buy food at the grocery store?

I know the issues are not unique to Oregon. I am sure many of them reverberate in Alaska and Montana.

With that, I yield the floor for my colleague from Montana.

I thank my colleague from Alaska. He is correct in pointing out that essentially right now we have a shutdown tax being imposed on families and businesses across our country. Indeed, we are facing just a few days from now a default tax. A lot of folks from across the aisle come here and say they took a pledge to block any form of tax. But this is the worst kind of tax of all.

There is absolutely no value, no revenue raised that can be applied to the important aspects of running a government or reducing our deficit. Indeed, this is a burden on

American businesses and American families that has no benefit in any other way.

In fact, the Senator mentioned the ripple effect. That ripple effect means what damages a family--I gave the example of a simple situation when an employee does not get their wages. They cannot pay their child support and they cannot pay their mortgage--and then what goes on from there.

Let's take, for example, the cut in food stamps. If food stamps are not issued, then it is not just the family who is directly hurt--and I might mention our most vulnerable families--but it is also the grocery stores that are hurt. They may have to lay off additional employees, additional ripples. This is a huge infliction of a burden.

If we want to think of a few examples of what happens with the default, we can think of many. Let's picture the default tax. By threatening not to pay our bills, that reduces confidence in Treasury bills, so therefore the interest rates go up on those Treasury bills. The interest rates therefore on mortgages go up and the interest on home loans go up.

Indeed, maybe you were planning to take out a home equity loan to repair your roof or make improvements to your house. You are going to pay a higher price. This is a default tax on all of America that does nothing productive at all.

This infliction of pain and agony on our businesses and our families is something that has not apparently resonated for some of my colleagues who want to threaten a default. Some of them have come to this floor and said: We think there is enough revenue coming in that we can pay our T-bills--our Treasury bills--and we can default on other obligations and therefore there won't be much damage.

We had a group of experts come in and testify before the banking committee. They said: Look, envision a situation where you are applying for a mortgage and you tell the bank that you have always made your house payments, but you were not able to make some of your other payments, such as your student or car loan. The bank is going to charge you more for your house payment because there are bills you have been defaulting on.

The same situation applies in America. If we pay our Treasury bills but we don't pay other obligations, that in itself will lower our credit rating and increase interest rates. A default is a default. You can choose whom you are going to default on, but no matter whom you default on, there will be a default tax on American families and American businesses with great damage to this country. That is why President Reagan simply said: Do not mess with the good faith and credit of the United States of America.

I think the children across the country know that responsible individuals pay their bills and responsible governments pay their bills. I am sure this concept is common sense in the great State of Montana.

If I could just emphasize the point the Senator from Montana just made, there are those who say they want to engage in a default strategy because they think it will somehow do something positive in controlling our deficit and controlling our debt, but what the Senator from Montana pointed out is that when you engage in using default as a weapon, you reduce revenues, increase costs, which increases deficits and increases the debt.

I think what we can summarize is not only is the default strategy severely damaging to families and businesses across the country, but it is damaging to the effort to reduce our deficits and reduce our debt.

I ask through the Chair whether the Senator knows of any business group in Alaska that is arguing that the government shutdown strategy or the default strategy is good for business.

It is the same in Oregon. I don't think I have heard from a single business group that has argued in favor of the shutdown or default strategy. I know many businesses need the export license, and they need permission to take up the subcontract or the contract on the jetty or the dredging or any number of other areas.

We have Crater Lake National Park. The tourist industry relies on people to come to that area. There are timber companies that need to have permission to complete their logging contract. In every single way they know, they are partnered with the government groups that enable this work to go forward, and they want those doors open. They want the government open.

I ask through the Chair, what is the story in Montana?

I appreciate my colleague from Alaska helping to organize this conversation. I must say, I think if we got 10 commonsense people in a room, they would agree to do that short-term continuing resolution. The Democrats have agreed to a Republican number. It is a win for the Republicans. The Democrats are asking for a negotiation. That is a win for our country. We are asking for the default strategy to be set aside completely because it is completely contrary to any responsible organization to use a strategy of not paying their bills.

On that foundation we should get back to the normal process of considering legislation we should be passing, such as how we restore the regular budget and appropriations process. I know that would be very welcome across this Nation. This Senate has to be able to get a budget process that isn't cut off right out of the gate, if you will, as it has been this year. It was 6 months ago that we passed a budget and we started to go to a conference committee, and a small group of colleagues filibustered starting the budget conference committee. Somehow we have to have a process where we can get into a conference room and have that conversation and not have a small group basically sabotage the entire budget appropriations process that is so important for our Nation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 7 p.m be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with Senators on the majority side limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I have heard a number of speeches from my colleagues on the floor today, both while presiding and in the last few moments, that call on President Obama for Presidential leadership to help us reopen the government, address our serious long-term fiscal issues, and move us forward.

I want to note for the folks who might be watching that the President is at this very moment sitting with the leadership of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. Tomorrow morning, I believe, he has invited the Republican Members of this body to the White House for conversation.

I think we agree. One of the core challenges we face as this Federal shutdown goes into, I believe, its 10th day is discerning exactly why the Federal Government is still shut down. When initially taken over the cliff into the shutdown, it was to prevent the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That is what a number of Senators said on this floor was their purpose. Now, many days and many unintended and unexpected harmful consequences later, we are told what this was really all about was to force the President to negotiate.

I serve on the Budget Committee. We passed, more than 200 days ago, more than 6 months ago, a budget on this floor, and we have tried to go to conference on that budget now 21 times.

Yet each time it was blocked, objected to by a small number of Senators from the other party.

Frankly, my expectation, my hope is that we will return to a rational rules-following process here, reopen the government, not default on our national debt, and begin those serious negotiations, those Budget Committee negotiations that are long overdue to deal with the very real challenges that are facing our country.

I wanted to speak today about one of the consequences of shutting down our Federal Government. We see new ones every day, and we hear about them on the Senate floor. As the days drag on, we hear more and more about the impacts of the shutdown, sometimes with surprise, sometimes with regret, sometimes with outrage.

There is a lot on the line, and we have heard a lot about what the shutdown means for the various functions of the executive branch and of the legislative branch. I have heard colleagues come and speak about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, about the FDA, about its impact on higher education, its impact on families, and its impact on small businesses. I have heard many folks come to this floor and comment on how the executive branch and its functions that affect communities and families all over this country are affected by the shutdown.

We have heard from our constituents who are trying to reach Senators and are trying to seek our help with a variety of Federal services. They are frustrated that the legislative branch is largely shut down, but there is another branch to our three-branch coordinate government. Absent from this debate and discussion is how the shutdown is affecting the judicial branch of our government.

When the Federal Government shut down 10 years ago, the Federal court system was initially seemingly largely unaffected because they had enough funds in reserve to remain open for 10 business days--a period that will come to an end early next week.

On Tuesday the Federal judiciary of the United States will run out of the reserve funds it has been using to stay open. The big question is, What happens then?

The chief judge of the bankruptcy court for the District of Delaware, my home State, told me:

We are really in an uncertain situation, particularly when

it comes to employees. I am fearful for them and how they are

going to be able to pay for rent and mortgages, and provide

food and day-care for their families.

This is uncharted territory for our Federal judiciary. When the money runs out, Federal, circuit, and district courts will each be on their own, much like each Senator who has to choose which of his employees or her employees are essential, deemed vital, and need to stay, and which should be furloughed and stay home, uncertain whether they will be paid. Each district court and circuit court will figure out on its own how to keep the lights and which employees will keep working without a salary.

As the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts, I have heard from a number of Federal judges this week who are frustrated by the amount of time they are spending trying to figure out what the shutdown means for their courts and their employees rather than doing the job for which they were confirmed, which is to judge cases.

This is an enormous distraction, a profound waste of time. This is not advancing our core objective, which should be growing our economy, strengthening our country, confronting the fiscal challenges in front of us, and working together to achieve some principled compromises in the Congress of the United States. In my view, Federal judges should be deciding cases, not deciding how to keep their courthouses running during this Federal Government shutdown. This needs to end. It could end literally today in a matter of minutes if Speaker Boehner would bring to the floor and allow a vote on a bill sent over from this Senate more than 10 days ago that would allow the Federal Government to reopen.

The judicial branch is not another Federal agency. It is not a program that can be suspended or a benefit that can be delayed. It is a branch. The Federal court system was created in our Constitution as the third pillar of our democracy. It is an independent branch of government whose fundamental mission is being undermined by folks, some of whom claim to love and to rigidly interpret the Constitution. Yet the consequences for our constitutional order of this senseless shutdown, I am

afraid, will soon become clear in the days ahead.

The subcommittee has heard from a number of Federal judges and clerks this week. I must warn you there are a lot of unanswered questions there. The path forward is murky. The central question in the courts-- as it was here in Congress and in the executive branch--is who is considered ``essential.'' Is it the people directly involved in the resolution of cases or are the staff who support that process also expected to work without pay?

Here is the type of question our judiciary was dealing with today instead of resolving disputes or working on long-term cost-saving measures. Evidence in our Federal courts these days is typically presented electronically to jurors rather than handing out photocopies, which is great as long as the technology is working in the courtroom. Case files are processed electronically these days as well. But what if there is a problem? What if the technology doesn't work and a trial is disrupted? At what point does a technological glitch become a legitimate due process issue? If the courtroom technology can't get an upgrade to fix a bug, will it result in a costly mistrial? The Constitution and the Sixth Amendment guarantee criminal defendants a right to a speedy trial. What happens when our courts can't live up to that Sixth Amendment guarantee because of this ongoing Federal shutdown?

The problem is equally severe in civil and bankruptcy matters. With the DOJ's Office of the U.S. Trustee in shutdown status, the number of trustee attorneys in Delaware has been cut from seven to two. This can dramatically slow the bankruptcy process and leave real jobs and real lives hanging in the balance as cases are unresolved and as resolutions don't move forward.

This raises another fundamental question. At what point in this ongoing senseless shutdown does our civil justice system fail to live up to America's promise as a free market economy grounded in the rule of law?

When an investor anywhere in the world looks to make a bet on a new company, a new idea, that investor will obtain certain rights in exchange. Those rights may include a share of equity or a priority right in the event of liquidation. What gives those rights meaning is ultimately a highly functioning, impartial, and reliable court system. That historically has been one of our great advantages competitively in the world economy. Our courts, even while plagued by persistent vacancies, lack of new authorized judgeships, and the sequester, continue to perform this vital function. Without these courts, these rights mean nothing. Without the reliable enforcement of these rights, there is no more new investment, no more new job creation, and no more new ideas successfully brought to market. We are not the only country in the world competing for investment capital and for ideas. When we undermine our civil courts, we are being hostile to those very investors who could help get our economy back on track.

The Federal shutdown is already slowing the resolution of civil cases involving the Federal Government. Clerks at district courts around the country have confirmed to my subcommittee that the Department of Justice is requesting continuances broadly and across-the-board and trying to juggle the demands of their caseloads with the constraints of this reckless shutdown. Think about it. Social Security appeals, civil forfeiture cases, business disputes, consumer protection cases, Medicare fraud cases, incidents of employment discrimination--they are all being pushed to the background. This shutdown is bringing new meaning to Dr. King's famous words: ``Justice too long delayed is justice denied.''

Only this morning I heard from the head of Delaware's district court, chief judge Gregory Sleet. He said, in essence--no insult intended, but his observation was that Congress is letting our country down. The subcommittee also spoke with a district court clerk yesterday who said--and I thought this was particularly striking--he was glad he was nearing retirement so he could escape the dysfunction of the Federal Government and our ongoing, seemingly routine manufactured crises.

This shutdown is exacerbating what is a more profound problem--a disregard for the upkeep of our Federal judiciary. More than 90 Federal judgeships are vacant. There are 39 vacancies that are deemed ``judicial emergencies.'' We need to do more to support and sustain the staffing, quality, and future investment that is required to make our Federal courts work as well as they possibly can.

I wish to make a point or two in conclusion. First, one of the essential questions every district court and circuit court will face is which of its employees are essential. After all of the cuts of the sequester and all of the burdens and challenges facing our Federal Government, aren't all the employees of our Federal judicial system, this separate branch, essential? The chief judge for the Third Judicial Circuit of the United States believes so, and I agree with him. This morning he announced that nearly ``all functions, with few limited exceptions, are essential . . . .'' I join the chief judge of the Third Judicial Circuit and urge other circuits to follow suit and to recognize that this independent third branch of our constitutional order is essential.

Last, this shutdown has dragged morale in our courts and our court system to a new low. We in Congress are blessed with a record number of attorneys who serve in Congress. It is my hope that this body recognizes the unique value of our Federal court system. Our democracy cannot afford to furlough justice. We cannot shut the doors to our courthouses. It is my hope that Speaker Boehner, following the conversation unfolding at the White House, will come back and put to the vote an action that will allow the courts and this country to get back to work.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Oregon for speaking so forcefully and ably about the real-life stories in his State--stories of people affected very directly by the shutdown and the prospect of the greatest Nation in the history of the world failing to pay its bills on time. As powerfully as he spoke, so did our colleagues from California and Maryland, emphasizing again the evidence of how deep and broad the cumulative effect is of the shutdown.

I had occasion to speak to people across Connecticut, as I know my colleague, the Acting President pro tempore, has done over the past 10 days. He and I have talked about how Connecticut is affected and about the individuals there who have borne the burden of this shutdown. As in Oregon and California and Maryland, there are real-life stories of people who have been affected not just temporarily but lastingly and enduringly.

I had occasion over the last 48 or 24 hours to talk with many of them out of the glare of the public eye--privately, candidly--and I want to tell some of their stories today, beginning with a meeting I had this morning in East Hartford at VFW Post 2083, at the invitation of my good friend CDR John Hollis of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a group he helped to invite--veterans of conflicts ranging from Korea, to Iraq, to Vietnam, to Afghanistan--all ages, all races, religions--more than 20 of those veterans telling me their stories and imparting to me their message: Get the job done. Reach a bipartisan compromise and make sure the government opens and end the shutdown and pays its bills on time, as befits the United States of America, for which they fought, the Nation they served and sacrificed to keep free.

I was drawn by young men such as Micah Welintukonis, Jordan Massa, Michael Scavetta, David Alexander, veterans of the most recent conflict in Afghanistan; and John Hollis, Ed Dettore, Lester Yarmiel, Richard Kennedy, Mel Huston, Lucius Miles, who have fought in previous wars.

As a matter of fact, Micah Welintukonis has recently returned from Walter Reed, where he had to undergo the latest round of surgery to his arm, which was severely wounded in Afghanistan in combat there. That wound led him to receive the Purple Heart. He was there with his wife Camilla and his three children to talk to me about his fear that he will be denied benefits and compensation that he is due, he deserves, and needs--the disability claim that he may apply for.

Of course, Jordan Massa is also a Purple Heart recipient as a result of a wound that he likewise received in combat. He waited for 2 years to receive approval of his disability claim, only to learn on October 1 that he will very likely have to wait longer because of the VA furloughing so many of its employees.

Others who came to this meeting: Mike Scavetta from Wethersfield--a veteran who served in an Air Force military police unit deployed to Afghanistan, who needs the GI bill, which he credits as reconnecting him to a civil society after his return. He has applied for a higher disability rating with the Department of Veterans Affairs based on his continued experience of post-traumatic stress.

Jake Demaskiewicz in Rocky Hill, who has served not only in the Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, but on his return now in a nonprofit organization, is assisting other veterans. Thirty percent of his paycheck comes from the VA's vocational rehabilitation program, and he receives disability payments.

These payments, compensation claims will run out at the end of October, and the delays are present even now, discouraging and failing these brave combat veterans who have endured so much for our Nation-- the Nation that now has shut down these services because of a small fringe of extremist ideologues in one House of this Congress, one branch of this government, who have succeeded in paralyzing the process.

There are many other impacts on veterans in the denial of programs that are so important, many of which I have mentioned on the floor, such as the Education Call Center, personal interviews at regional offices, education and vocational counseling, outreach programs, including at military facilities and VetSuccess on Campus.

These programs and benefits and claims cannot be sustained by a piecemeal allocation of money. The claims need to be verified by going to other agencies such as the IRS. The labor training programs need to be provided by the Department of Labor. Opening one agency is no substitute for a comprehensive approach to serve these veterans and the people of the United States, whether it is Head Start children who depend on that program, or seniors who depend on nutritional services.

Over these past 2 weeks, I have spoken to home buyers whose loans cannot be processed by government agencies or by banks, business owners whose borrowing cannot be approved, potential victims of health threats who cannot be protected by the FDA or the CDC. There are researchers at the NIH and at places such as Yale who cannot continue their vital work to learn of new treatments, of advances in medicine that can help save people's lives and prevent suffering, and medical school applicants and Ph.D. candidates whose financial aid is in jeopardy and who cannot even, many of them, travel with government support to interview for their next possible assignment and study.

These ramifications are not limited to veterans. They affect our economy at its core. I warned about the effect on job growth and economic recovery and now it is visible, literally visible in the businesses and offices and places of employ throughout Connecticut.

Just yesterday in the Connecticut Post there was this story. The picture is of Robin Imbrogno. This picture of Robin Imbrogno from the Connecticut Post in yesterday's newspaper is of her at a meeting with her staff, preparing for their work. Their office in Seymour, CT, provides human resource services for businesses from California to Maine, across the country, to more than 150 business clients.

It begins:

Robin Imbrogno pulled her staff together after work on

Thursday for an update. How, she asked, has the federal

government's partial shutdown impacted business at her

company, the Human Resources Consulting Group. ``Even more

ways than I'd thought,'' she said moments later.

I am going to quote the article.

At the company's office in downtown Seymour, the staff of

about 30 was having trouble carrying out a host of tasks for

their more than 150 clients located from California to Maine:

For one, they can't access [the central source of information

in the government.] For another, they can't finish background

checks or file equal employment opportunity reports. Most

vexingly, perhaps, they got more phone calls than ever on

Monday complaining that paychecks hadn't arrived in people's

mailboxes across America--even though the U.S. Postal Service

is supposed to be fully staffed.

Their report is about new businesses that cannot open, retail businesses that cannot go into business because they cannot ``procure the necessary business license.''

As Robin said, ``It wasn't a fun phone call.''

There is evidence of this effect on employment in businesses across this country, across the State of Connecticut. This relatively modest- size business in Seymore, CT, the Human Resources Consulting Group, founded and headed by Robin Imbrogno, is just one of many across the country.

Her reports about the effects on jobs--we are talking jobs--is a wake-up call for this body. It is a wake-up call for not only the Congress but for everyone in positions of leadership, because this effect will be enduring.

In the same article from the Connecticut Post, it talks about the SBA not providing loans to small businesses: $150,000 worth of loans every day in one Congressional district in Connecticut alone. Eight companies slated to get SBA-backed loans from a private nonprofit organization will not receive them because of this shutdown.

There are other individuals. I cannot share all of their stories, but just a few. Mary Brady in Durham is trying to buy a home. She cannot do it because she is unable to verify Social Security numbers and income with the Internal Revenue Service; Jesse Pannell, who contacted my office because the buyer of his home in Union, CT, cannot process a loan from the USDA because the USDA employees are furloughed and there is no one to process his buyer's application.

In the city of New Haven, which I visited over the weekend, urban renewal is halted because of the shutdown. This city relies on the Department of Housing and Urban Development to proceed with foreclosure actions on developers. Those developers are subject to foreclosure actions when they fail to maintain their property, when that property becomes a blight on the neighborhood. But, of course, HUD employees are furloughed and they are not at their desks to help the city of New Haven.

This ripple effect spans the State and the country. It goes from loans to a physical therapy company, a car wash, a catering company, a dental firm, small businesses that populate Main Street. As much as we focus on the markets, on Wall Street, we are talking about Main Street in jeopardy because of this shutdown. These are real-life tragedies. There are real consequences to real people, real harm and hardship in real lives. This body has to listen to them, as I did, and as I have done over the past couple of weeks.

Behind all of this real harm to real people is the prospect of an even more horrendous possible harm resulting from this Nation failing to pay its bills on time. The havoc and chaos that would result, the calamity and catastrophe across the globe, the lasting impact on our Nation, on our credibility as a world power, simply is unthinkable and unimaginable.

How would we face our children if we were to allow this Nation to go into default? How would this generation explain itself to the next and the one after? Every generation enters into a compact in America that we will leave this Nation better than we found it, just as the World War II generation fought to preserve freedom and democracy and gave of itself in combat and then came back to build the interstates and desegregate our schools and put a man on the Moon. In peace as well as war, our veterans are coming back eager and ready to contribute to this country.

The men I just mentioned and met with in East Hartford at VFW Post 283, veterans across Connecticut, veterans across the country, expect more from this government and are eager to leave this Nation greater than it was left to them, and there are millions of other Americans who also are contributing and giving back in their own ways and who are committed to following that model of courage and dedication that has characterized previous generations. How do we face the next generation if we allow this great Nation to fail to fulfill its most basic obligation that every family meets--paying its bills on time.

It is often said America always does the right thing, after it tries everything else. I know I am paraphrasing, not quoting directly. Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst of all possible governments, except for all the others.

We do not have the luxury today of trying everything else before America does the right thing. We do not have the luxury of failing democracy and failing to pay our bills on time. We must meet this challenge and follow the example of those veterans and millions of other courageous Americans who have said to all of us, as they did to me this morning: Get the job done. Make sure the Government of the United States serves the people and pays its bills on time.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, a colleague recently described on this floor his experience flying in a private aircraft when a fire broke out in the cockpit of the plane. He observed that putting out the fire distracted the pilots from flying the aircraft and that they precipitously lost altitude. This tea party shutdown and the tea party's threat to our country's credit, like that fire in the cockpit, are distracting us from flying the plane.

I dispute the notion that those who caused the shutdown have good standing to come to this floor and criticize the way the Obama administration is implementing a shutdown that we don't want on our side of the aisle and that the Obama administration does not want. The tea party and Speaker Boehner, for their insistence on lighting that fire in the cockpit, are answerable to history and their consciences.

In the spirit of getting back to flying the plane, I will talk about, as I usually do, a real and looming crisis--not the manmade fire the tea party has lit in the cockpit of our government. That tea party shutdown could end tomorrow if the Speaker of the House would simply call up the measure the Senate passed. He refuses to do so, and it is his continued indulgence that keeps this shutdown going.

Climate change is for real. It is not manmade, nor is it something the Speaker can turn off with a vote. It is coming at us, and it is time to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and ocean.

Regrettably, one of the reasons Congress is still asleep is that the worst culprits--the big corporations that do the worst carbon polluting--are pretending it is not that bad, it is not that serious, and they should keep doing what they are doing; the status quo is fine. It causes me to wonder why it is that corporations seem never to admit they are wrong. Why is ``oops'' a word they can't seem to use?

When it turned out that people would be a lot safer with seatbelts, did the car industry say: Oops. We should have put those in and put seatbelts in the cars. No. They fought and they had to be defeated, and then we got seatbelts.

When cigarette makers found out their product made people really addicted and really sick, did they say: Oops. We better figure out a way to not kill so many people. No. They fought and they lied for decades.

When it turned out that lead paint damaged children's brains, did the lead paint companies say: Oops. We better warn folks about that and clean it up. No. They fought against protections and had to be defeated. Indeed, they are still fighting.

When it turned out that aerosol refrigerants and propellants were eating away at the Earth's ozone layer, did the manufacturers say: Oops. That is dangerous, and we better come up with a safer product. No. They fought the change, but they lost, and now they are making money making new safer products.

When acid rain was killing off the fish in the northeastern lakes, did the big utilities say: Oops. We better clean up our emissions. No. They fought the changes until they were forced to clean up.

When the flame-retardant industry found out its product was dangerous and ineffective, did they say: Oops. This flame-retardant stuff is hurting people and doing creepy things in nature, so we better knock it off. Nope. It is still fighting while whales turn into swimming toxic waste.

Now that carbon pollution has blown through 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere--a first in human history--and launched the most rapid acidification ever seen in the oceans--and by that I mean going back to geologic time--are the polluters saying: Oops. We better take our billions of dollars in profit and trillions of dollars in capital and invest seriously in new fuels and power sources. Fat chance.

Corporations that are harming people never say ``oops,'' and for two big reasons. One reason is there is a lot of money at stake. They would not be in the business if they were not making money, and they don't want to stop. The other reason is that corporations don't have consciences, they have reputations. A reputation is something you can manage. Huge chunks of Madison Avenue and K Street are dedicated to managing corporate reputations. So with no conscience and only a reputation, you manage the problem that you are harming people.

By now, the strategy for managing a corporate reputation while hurting people is well developed. It is a common one across cigarettes, acid rain, lead paint, flame-retardants, refrigerants, and now carbon pollution. There is a playbook, and guess what. The big carbon polluters are following the playbook: one, pretend to care--that is important; two, attack the science, and if you can't attack the science, attack the scientists themselves; three, claim it will cost consumers a fortune; and four, make your goal not victory but doubt.

Pretend to care.

I don't know if you remember those phony-baloney Exxon ads that were all over the place a while ago with guys in lab coats, and they had these Lucite molecules floating around. They wanted you to believe they were out there looking for tomorrow's clean fuels. Well, you got had.

Since 2005 ExxonMobil has been making tens of billions of dollars in profit every year. It is hard to pick through their numbers, but sources report that over that same time it only spent tens of millions per year on clean energy--about what it spent on advertising. They spent as much advertising their clean energy, it appears, as they did investing in it, and it was a tiny fraction of their profits, let alone their revenues.

Remember BP and their green Sun baloney? BP pulled completely out of solar and completely out of U.S. wind investments once it had laid down a fat barrage of advertising about being beyond petroleum. Pretend to care.

Attack the science and even the scientists themselves.

The polluters have to do this through proxies. Nobody will really believe it if Exxon's fingerprints are all over the attack on the science, so others do the dirty work.

One example is Virginia's tea party attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who attacked the top climate scientist at the University of Virginia. He used his powers of office--the special powers of office that are entrusted to attorneys general. Having been an attorney general, I know something about how precious and special those powers are. He used those powers to harass and subpoena a college professor. UVA's lawyers stuck up for the professor, and the Virginia Supreme Court threw that nonsense out. But for the polluters behind it, it was right out of the playbook.

You may remember the polluters whipping up a phony scandal called climategate, pretending that a group of climate scientists were doing dishonest work. The scientists had to endure audit after audit, every single one of which gave them a totally clean bill of health. It turned out it was the cooked-up, phony scandal that was dishonest, but the polluters had a field day in the meantime. It was right out of the playbook.

Claim it will cost consumers a fortune.

This is a playbook classic. The big polluters are always talking about how it will cost you to clean up their act. Implicit is that they are going to put all the costs on to you and that they are not going to eat any of it and that their shareholders are not going to bear any of it.

Let's get past that. What they conveniently overlook is that, for instance, under the Clean Air Act--yes, complying with the Clean Air Act did cost utilities a lot of money, but for every $1 that was spent cleaning up to comply with the Clean Air Act, Americans have saved about $40. They spend $1, you save $40, and they want you to believe that is a big problem?

The Office of Management and Budget does a little calculation called the social cost of carbon. The latest cost is $36 per ton of CO2 emitted. For every ton of carbon pollution the polluters don't sell, we save $36. But they will never tell us that side of the story, nor that there are more jobs now in green energy than in the entire oil and gas industry, nor that we are in an international race for tomorrow's clean energy technology innovations. It is a race these big international corporations are perfectly happy to have America lose. It is no skin off their nose.

Last, their goal is not victory, it is doubt. They don't want to convince anyone that climate change isn't happening. They don't need to do that. Of course, they couldn't do that in any kind of a fair debate. All they need to do, the playbook strategy says, is to convince us, as we are driving down the road listening to the radio, that nobody is sure yet; that there is some doubt, but we don't need to do anything just yet; that people can move on to their next worry; this one is still up for grabs. They will keep trying to push action on carbon pollution over that horizon of doubt, never having to prove their case.

The American people are being played for chumps in this game. It is a racket, and we are the mark.

Even so, even with all of that, the facts around us--what is happening to our woods and shores and farms and weather--are becoming so clear that even with the playbook they are losing, just like they ultimately lost on cigarettes and seatbelts, on lead paint and acid rain and the ozone hole.

Here is what Americans are saying: 61 percent of Americans say the effects of climate change are already affecting them personally or they see it happening in their lifetime.

Fifty-eight percent said the country should do more to address climate change, including 51 percent of Independents, while just 14 percent--14 percent--said we are doing enough already.

Sixty-five percent of voters support ``the President taking significant steps to address climate change now''--65 percent. That number jumps up to 70 percent when looking at voters under 40 years old.

Sixty-six percent of young voters--two out of every three--say climate change is a problem to address, while just 27 percent say climate change is a natural event that humans can't affect, and only 3 percent don't believe climate change is happening.

Fifty-three percent of people say they would be less likely to vote for a politician who did not understand that climate change is a real problem.

Even in the red State of Texas, 70 percent believe global warming is happening, and more than half say more should be done about global warming at all levels of government.

Today is day 10 of the tea party shutdown. As we have pointed out over and over, it is a manufactured crisis. It goes away the instant Speaker Boehner stands in the House and calls the measure the Senate has passed, without amendments and without gimmicks, to the floor. It will pass. The crisis will be over.

This crisis is different. This is not a crisis of a fire in the cockpit that is being kept burning by Speaker Boehner who could stop it at any time; this is for real. This is Mother Nature--400 parts per million for the first time in 800,000 years is serious.

The tea party Republicans are wildly out of step with the American people on both issues, and it is time for them to wake up.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request, if I may ask the distinguished Senator from Georgia to yield for one moment.

I ask unanimous consent that Senators on the majority side be limited to 10 minutes each until 1 p.m.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Here we are again at the same crossroads. We know the landmarks. We know the signs. We have been here before. We negotiated in good faith to avert the last shutdown, the last default threat. We opposed the sequester, but that wasn't enough. So here we are, once again, and here we will be again in a week, a month, 6 months, a year, being asked for more concessions to a minority of extreme Republicans who seem to have forgotten that we operate under the rule of law. They simply have chosen to ignore it.

The fact is we passed the Affordable Care Act. It went through the legislative process, was signed by the President, tested in the Supreme Court, but so what, they say. It does not count. Similar to the schoolyard bully, they want a do-over or they will take over your lunch money.

The rightwing Republican minority claims to love the Constitution, adheres to the strictest interpretation of its tenets but apparently is not interested in living by it or by the rule of law that this Nation stands for and lives by.

They say Democrats have failed to negotiate in good faith and voted against trying to reach a compromise. The fact is for 6 months Senate Republicans have stood in the way of budget negotiations--what they want, negotiations--by blocking requests for Budget Committee members to conference with the House of Representatives. They have objected over 20 times to those budget negotiations.

The Senate followed regular order and passed a budget resolution for fiscal year 2014 on March 23 of this year. Our budget resolution provides just over $1 trillion by replacing the irresponsible sequestration cuts while following the spending limit imposed by the Budget Control Act. The House wants to keep sequestration cuts by funding the government at $976 billion or about $80 billion less than the Senate. The fact is we have already compromised with the House by agreeing

to a continuing resolution at a level of $986 billion--much closer to their numbers than to ours. If you ask me, that is more than $70 billion in compromising. But they simply will not take yes for an answer.

What the past weeks have shown us is that this is not even about budget numbers. They just want to make a political point, and they are holding the country hostage in order to make it. They simply do not want either the Affordable Care Act or, for that fact, this President to succeed. But that train has left the station. The President is already turning the economy around from the massive deficits he inherited when he took office, and the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land.

Make no mistake, it is not a coincidence that we are here again doing the same thing much like ``Groundhog Day.'' Mark my words, we will be here again tomorrow and in the future if the Republican shutdown strategy continues.

We are being asked to capitulate yet again at the threat that Republicans will keep the government shut down, that they will force America to default on its obligations and risk a global consequence and America's leadership role in the world.

It is a deliberate, if fatally flawed, Republican strategy. One might go so far as to call it a conspiracy--adopted to achieve through bullying what they cannot achieve at the ballot box.

We know it is a deliberate effort hatched many months ago. In fact, it goes back to 2010 when the House Republicans threatened to push the Nation into defaulting on its obligations and shut down the government unless we agreed to aggressive and deep structural cuts that met their political objectives in the midst of one of the deepest recessions in our history, a recession President Obama inherited when he took office.

Then, in November of 2010, the antitax, antigovernment, antispending, antiprogress side of the Republican Party exercised their newfound power and hamstrung their leadership into rejecting any kind of compromise, forcing the House Speaker and majority leader to reject any grand bargain proposed by the Democrats. They did it gleefully. It was part of their strategy to block any successful effort to actually govern. They chose instead to fuel the rightwing flames, burn down the house, and bring government to a halt until they achieved their objectives.

From December 2 to December 21, 2010, we enacted four separate continuing resolutions to keep the government open--four of them--to keep the government functioning until March 4. Let's not forget that these appropriations actually cut the Congressional Budget Office's projection of discretionary spending from 2013 through 2022 by $400 billion. But that was not enough. They wanted more.

On March 2, 2011, as the new deadline approached, we passed another short-term CR, taking us to March 18--just 16 days--that cut spending by yet another $4 billion. Still not enough.

On March 16, the deadline approaching once again, we passed another continuing resolution, taking us to April 8, with another $6 billion in spending cuts. Was it enough? Of course not.

On April 4, House Republicans applauded the Speaker's announcement to begin preparations, for what, yes, a shutdown of the government. Clearly, nothing is enough.

On April 14, just before midnight, the Speaker agreed to the seventh short-term extension with more cuts that analysts said would amount to an additional $350 million in that year alone.

All in all, we agreed to $40 billion in total cuts, and we have cut even more since then, including the current Senate-passed clean funding bill that would reopen the government today if the House would just pass it.

They say we have not taken votes. We have taken a bunch of votes on what they have sent us. They have not taken one vote on the one resolution we have sent them.

It is a clear pattern, a clear strategy. They will not stop. They will not take yes for an answer, and they clearly will not govern until they achieve their political and ideological goal to end government as we know it. That has been their plan all along.

In fact, last Sunday the New York Times reported that after the President was sworn in to his second term, a coalition of top conservative activists, including former Attorney General Ed Meese, along with the Koch brothers, devised a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy to derail health care by shutting down the Federal Government. Now we are being blackmailed again. As further proof of this take-no- prisoners strategy, Jonathan Chait of New York magazine recently reported on something called the Williamsburg Accord. Mr. Chait wrote:

In January, [this year], demoralized House Republicans

retreated to Williamsburg, Virginia, to plot out their

legislative strategy for President Obama's second term. . . .

They called it the Williamsburg Accord. He said:

If you want to grasp why Republicans are careening toward a

potential federal government shutdown, and possibly toward

provoking a sovereign debt crisis after that, you need to

understand that this is the inevitable product of a

conscious party strategy. . . .

His article goes on to say:

The way to make sense of it is that Republicans have

planned since January to force Obama to accede to large

chunks of the Republican agenda, without Republicans having

to offer any policy concessions of their own.

That is not negotiation. We saw the implementation of that strategy beginning early in the spring when we did exactly what Republicans wanted. We passed a budget in the Senate, and the House passed a budget, and we attempted to go to conference to work out the difference between the two. Actually, we have attempted to do that more than 20 times now, and every single time Republicans have blocked action.

For 6 months they have refused to talk, they have refused to negotiate, they have refused to have a conversation. As we now know, this all was planned out from the beginning, going back to their January Williamsburg Accord.

They have intentionally driven us to the edge of the cliff to serve their own political interests at the expense of the Nation's economy, the jobs of working families, and the retirement savings of our seniors.

Now the GOP's solution to get us out of this Republican shutdown is the equivalent of Whac-A-Mole. It is their form of governing. Whatever issue pops up that they see a problem with as a result of their shutdown, they draft a bill to address a single issue. Last week it was national parks. This week it was death benefits for soldiers. What will it be next? Anyone who has ever been on the boardwalk and has played that arcade game of Whac-A-Mole knows you can never quite get ahead of those pesky moles that keep popping up. How long do they plan to govern in this way?

Bill Moyers recently wrote in an essay:

Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their

targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen,

they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control

coverage to female employees; they demand Obama cave on the

Keystone pipeline . . . they demand the watchdogs over

corporate pollution be muzzled and the big bad regulators of

Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The

debt ceiling is next. . . .

At least let's name this for what it is: sabotage of the democratic process.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones wrote:

How do you get across how insurrectionary this is? Raising

the debt ceiling isn't a concession from Republicans that

deserves a corresponding concession from Democrats. It's the

financial equivalent of a new nuclear bomb.

Warren Buffett used equally stark terms when he said in Fortune magazine:

It ought to be banned----

Referring to defaulting on the Nation's obligations----

It ought to be banned as a weapon. . . . It should be like

nuclear bombs, basically too horrible to use.

Clearly, in the name of some misguided allegiance to an extreme ideology, a handful of ultraconservative extremists in the Republican Party are putting at risk the rule of law. They are putting at risk the full faith and credit of the United States, America's influence--as well as our obligations--around the world, and our national security, embassy security, intelligence collection apparatus, and American diplomats, Foreign Service officers, and contractors serving in posts around the world.

This is not a game. Real people are already being hurt by these tactics. I find it pathetic that some Republicans are willing to risk the full faith and credit of this Nation and inflict unnecessary harm on hard-working families and put the very principles of this democracy on the line all just to show how ideologically pure they are.

It is one thing to come to Washington wanting to destroy your government. It is quite another to destroy our economy in the process.

If you want to negotiate, let's negotiate. Let's do it constructively, in good faith, and without threats. Let's try, as we have tried over 20 times, to get to that moment. Let's reopen the government, let's pay our bills, and then we will negotiate.

It is time to reject the schoolyard bully political strategy that Republicans hatched months ago, ratchet down the rhetoric, and do the hard work of solving problems together.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

We are now going into week three of a government shutdown, a totally unnecessary, totally avoidable, totally manufactured government shutdown that is now morphing together with a potential failure on behalf of the U.S. Government to pay its debts, the first time we have ever intentionally done that in our entire country's history.

This is not theoretical any longer. This is now right on top of us. On Thursday of this week we will no longer have enough money to pay all of the bills that come in to the government. We only have about 65 percent of the funds necessary to pay out all of the bills that come due to us, whether it is to our creditors or to the thousands of small businesses that rely on contracts with the Federal Government every week to pay their bills as well.

I appreciate all of my colleagues coming down here and talking about the real-world consequences of what this shutdown has meant and what a failure to pay our debts will mean. I come down and want to share a handful of stories from my State of Connecticut to tell you what is going on out there beyond the talking heads on the cable news networks. They are simple stories, but they are impactful because for hundreds of thousands of people in my State of Connecticut, there was no margin with which to operate when this shutdown hit and the consequential economic impact that has come to so many families. There was not any money stuffed under their mattress they could pull out and try to pay the bills they could not, now that their paycheck or their business had been lost.

This is a big deal to people in Connecticut, and in Hawaii, and to States all across our land because there was so much economic hurt that had already piled up for months and years that people had no wiggle room when the tea party decided to stick a knife into the backs of already hurting families.

That is why this makes no sense. It is not as though we had the cushion as an economy, it is not as though families had the ability to take on a little extra hurt when the tea party decided to shut down our government--not that it would make sense even if we were living in heady economic times. But today, right now, for families who are getting killed by an economy that has recovered for the top 5 or 10 percent of America but certainly has not recovered for the bottom 80 percent, this is no time to be playing around with people's lives.

Every single year at the start of the home heating season, I go to a nonprofit in Waterbury, CT, which dispenses home heating assistance to the thousands of families in the Greater Waterbury, CT, area who know that without a little bit of help from this agency they will literally not be able to heat their home, that their children will go cold that winter, because even though they are making money, they cannot keep up with the mounting bills.

Every single year, as I watch the sort of macroeconomic numbers get better for the economy, I keep on thinking that when I go to that agency in August or September or October, they are going to tell me: Guess what, Chris. Less people are coming in this year than last year to ask for home heating assistance.

We are in year five of this recession now. Every single year of those five, the number has gotten bigger--every single year. Even as unemployment goes down, demand for home heating assistance in Connecticut goes up. Why? Because the top echelon of our country has recovered but nobody else has. So that is why when this shutdown hit, it hurt so badly for someone such as Rich Martin in New London, CT. Rich did something heroic during this recession. He started a new business. Frankly, even more heroic, he started a bookstore and a record store in New London, CT called the Telegraph.

He said that business has been growing for the last 12 months. Every month he has been doing a little bit better. Then guess what. The shutdown. Rich wrote me and said: After growth in my business over the last 12 months, people have stopped coming in these last weeks. Because in New London, CT, where we make submarines for the U.S. Navy, where we have submariners at our base there, we have a whole lot of people who depend on the Federal Government or contracts from the Federal Government to be able to pay their employees. Nobody is coming into the Telegraph any more. His business is getting hurt. A business, a small businessman who did something great, is now wondering whether he can make it through the next couple of days and weeks.

Here is how the trickledown of this happens: Kathi Sanborn in Hartford is

paying the bills right now by babysitting. She is babysitting for a couple. But the husband is a defense contractor. Guess what. He has been furloughed, so he cannot pay her to babysit. Frankly, he is home anyway, so he can look after the kids. So she does not have her babysitting gig any longer. He is out of work and she is out of work. Guess what. That is not where it ends. Because now that Kathi does not have her babysitting job, she is going to stop buying what she used to buy. She is going to have her groceries. She is not going to go to the store down the street for a purchase for herself. It just keeps on going.

Don Spaeth in Putnam, small business owner, runs a little restaurant there. Small town, Putnam. He says his business has dried up the last couple of weeks. People are not coming in.

Rich from Fairfield has a severely autistic son. He is an adult, so he was on Social Security disability. But he had his disability benefits cut off because they wanted to review his eligibility. Well, guess what. The reviewer has been furloughed for 2 weeks. So his son, who was hoping to be able to have his benefits turned back on, or at least have resolution so the family would know what to do, now cannot get a resolution to his disability claim. His son cannot pay the bills to the provider who gives him housing. He is potentially going to be out on the streets because he does not have a reviewer in the Social Security office. That hurts economically, but that hurts psychologically as well.

Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers in New Haven gets Federal money to do something really simple: Provide frail seniors with rides to their doctors' appointments. They lost their Federal funding for 2 weeks, so they cannot give rides any longer. So seniors are sitting home not able to get to their doctors' appointments. Think about that. You have an 85-year-old widow who has to worry every day if she is going to get sick because she lost her ride to the doctor's office.

Then let me read you this quote from Michael in Hartford. I do not even have to embellish it:

I am an attorney and work for the IRS.

I have 3 children, a 16 year old girl and 8 year old twins.

My wife is pregnant with my fourth child. My 16 year old is

taking driver's education and wants her license. I cannot now

pay for the insurance necessary for her. She also wanted to

take a PSAT prep course, another $1,200 that I don't have.

She needs to start visiting college campuses. More money that

I don't have. One of my twins, Sofia, had some learning

disabilities and had private tutors and other professionals

to assist her in staying on grade level in reading and math.

I will soon run out of savings to pay for Sofia's support

system because November 1st means that there is a mortgage

payment, car payment, car insurance payments and the other

dozen or so monthly bills that keep our household up and

running. I do hope that the shutdown ends soon so that I can

get back to work.

These stories can be repeated, frankly, hundreds of thousands of times over all across this country. While to some people they may sound like small stories--a babysitter losing a job, the inability to get your disabled daughter a little bit of help for a couple months--they add up to $1.6 billion in economic activity coming out of our country every single week.

They add up to unemployment claims jumping to their highest level last week in 6 months. They add up to consumer confidence being the lowest in this country since the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

This doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is not as if we can tread water or move backwards economically while the rest of the world waits for us to resume our mantle of economic leadership.

China says they are looking to take their $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasurys and find someplace else for it.

I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.

Last month Japan announced its machinery sales were the best since 2008. The rest of the world is moving on.

If we are doing this much damage to the economy, why are we here? We are here mainly because tea party Republicans in the House see this misery as a bargaining chip. They couldn't get their way any other way. They couldn't win the legislative argument on the health care bill, a bill that passed the House and the Senate and was signed by the President. They couldn't win the judicial argument. It came before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court upheld the health care law. It couldn't win the electoral argument.

The health care bill was on the ballot in 2012. The President who ran on it and signed it was reelected by a wide margin. Every single Senator in this Chamber who supported it was returned to their seat.

Tea party Republicans have lost the argument on health care in all three of the traditional forums by which one would get their way in the legislative process--the legislative forum, judicial forum, and the electoral forum.

Just as a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime, they have been confronted with a last desperate option, which is to grab hold of the economy, put a gun to its head, and hope then that Democrats and President Obama will relent simply because of our compassion for people like Rich in New London, Kathi in New Hartford, Don in Putnam, the seniors who rely on Interfaith Caregivers in New Haven, and the young IRS attorney with a disabled daughter. They hope it will be our passion for those people which will cause us to do something other than what the people sent us to do and repeal, delay, or displace the health care law.

The good news is cooler heads are prevailing, that people do see--in this Chamber at least--the need to let go of the hostage. Two weeks into the shutdown, the cumulative economic effects on the economy are real. Those stories I told from Connecticut can now be multiplied thousands of times, tens of thousands of times.

The House looks as if they are going to try to pass another partisan political bill loaded with add-ons as conditions to restart the government and pay our bills. The Senate is working on a different solution, a solution that could bring together Republicans and Democrats to at least temporarily end this crisis. On behalf of my constituents in Connecticut, we certainly hope that is the result.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think one of the things we ought to be observing, here at least, is courteous rules among ourselves. This is meant to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. If we follow the rules, follow the regular order, follow the committee process, and follow the ways through the committee processes for resolving disagreements and disputes, I think we can get through this.

I believe on both sides of the aisle there are pragmatic people devoted to this country who want to solve the two major problems we have facing us right this minute; that is, to reopen government, because we are now in the 10th day of a shutdown; and, No. 2, to meet the debt obligations of the United States of America as mandated in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

I call upon my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the dome: Let's reopen government. Let's pay our bills. And let's get through the regular committee processes to solve our problems.

There are those on the other side of the dome in the House of Representatives that are proposing a new supercommittee. We have been there, and we have done that. After the 2011 crisis, when we faced our debt limit, there was a process put in place called a supercommittee. It went nowhere. This new idea will go nowhere as well. It is a new process that will only result in more delay.

I think we have two supercommittees. I call them supercommittees because they are great committees. They are wonderful committees. That is the Budget Committee chaired by Senator Patty Murray and her ranking member Senator Jeff sessions, himself a distinguished judge from Alabama, so he knows about conflict resolution. There is the Appropriations Committee that deals with discretionary spending, chaired by me and my vice chairman Senator Richard Shelby, again a seasoned fiscal conservative who knows how to concentrate on the bottom line so we can be a more frugal government but also be an effective government. Let that committee do its job.

There is also the Finance Committee chaired by Senator Max Baucus. I know the ranking member Senator Grassley from Iowa is on the floor. He has an incredible history of being a compassionate conservative and he knows the Tax Code and knows the values of Iowa--which is, let's put country above party.

Instead of inventing new committees and new processes, free us up to do our job. Free us up to be able to do what the committee process is meant to be able to do.

For me and the Appropriations Committee, we moved all of our appropriations bills. We are ready to come to the floor. We are ready to go to conference if called up, if we have a method for being able to move. We are ready to do it.

Senator Murray on the Budget Committee is ready to go to conference with the House. But 21 times she was blocked by 6 naysayers primarily representing a tea party, small faction within the Republican Party.

The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, has traditionally understood that you maintain the values of the country, that you are fiscally conservative, but you follow the rules that were established. The rules of the Budget Committee passed by the Senate in the Budget Control Act say they

were supposed to have their job done on April 15. Well, we moved the budget on March 23, over 200 days ago, and over 20 requests to go to conference with me, with Congressman Paul Ryan, and with his House counterparts to work out what our discretionary spending should be. What should our revenues be? What should we evaluate in terms of our mandatory spending where we can take a look at it but not shrink those earned benefits like Social Security and VA benefits that people count on and work their whole life for and even put their life on the line? We have to be able to do our job.

I will tell you what has been the latest situation that has so shocked me. We are on the verge of being a deadbeat nation. We are on the verge of being a global deadbeat nation. What is a deadbeat? A deadbeat is someone who does not meet their financial obligations.

Over the last 3 days, we have heard about how the families of the men and women who died in the line of duty serving their country and are entitled to a death benefit were not going to get it because of the government shutdown.

The Fisher family--well known for serving military families, well known and so deeply cherished--offered to step forward to pay that. The philanthropy of the United States, instead of the public responsibility of the United States.

I want to thank the Fisher family for stepping forward. But, my gosh, what humiliation. We are the United States of America, with the strongest and best military in the world, and to honor its obligation to its own, the United States has to borrow money for a death benefit. That is deadbeat. I think it is humiliating. I think it is despicable. It shows just how low we have sunk.

We can get it back. It is in our power because this isn't being inflicted on us. This is what is being inflicted on us by other Americans sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. When they took that obligation, they didn't take that obligation to just uphold the Amendments they like--like the second one--but they took that obligation to uphold all of the Amendments.

Let's start with the 14th, which says that the debt of the United States of America should not be called into question. That is clearly in the Constitution. No matter what, America will pay its bills. The reliability of the United States of America to meet its debt obligations is the financial glue that helps to hold the global economy together.

I am not going to go into doomsday or Armageddon or whatever. But if you actually read what the ambassadors of China and Japan--one a great ally and the other a formidable competitor--say: We are holding your debt. Pay your bills, or a fiscal crisis will begin to unravel in your country and around the world.

We cannot be a deadbeat nation. If we are a superpower, we must first of all show our power by meeting our financial obligations. How we get our public house in order by reducing our public debt is the subject again of the Appropriations Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Finance Committee. We have the capability to do it. I am really calling upon my friends on the other side of the aisle--and there are many. And it is not that we are pals. It is because we have come together out of mutual respect to solve mutual problems, being of help to each other mutually, that we have been able to keep the government functioning and doing it in a way that is smart and affordable.

So I say, please, let's reopen government. I am calling upon the House to pass the Senate continuing fiscal funding resolution that would reopen government on November 15 and that process to lay the groundwork for resolving our appropriations bills and canceling sequester.

I call upon those six that are blocking us--meaning the Senate--from going to the Budget Committee to do this. Those are two simple acts within our power to do. I hope that we can do it.

I intended today to speak about how the shutdown is affecting Maryland. We are really being hard hit. Maryland and Virginia have the largest concentration of Federal agencies, both civilian and military, in America. And, gee, we are proud of that. We are so proud of the fact that we have the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which works with our private sector that enables us to sell products around the world.

We are so proud of the fact that we have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to make sure that we are looking out for large and small, whether it is to make sure that our mattresses are not flammable or that our cribs and swimming pools are safe for our children. I am proud of those agencies.

I am sorry that my Federal employees are not working. It is having a terrible impact on the Maryland economy. Both our comptroller and our Governor are talking about the significant amount of lost revenue that we are having because people aren't working and they aren't buying. If you talk to small businesses where these agencies are located, it is just terrible.

I just want to tell one story. The Social Security Administration is headquartered in Maryland in a community called Woodlawn, a wonderful community with a vibrant, civic engagement. It is just great. Across the street from the Social Security Administration is a small business called the Salsa Grill. It is usually crowded with lunch hour people, early morning coffee, those little baby showers that we women like to have or a birthday party the guys are throwing for one of their pals at lunchtime. The Salsa Grill last Friday, instead of 30 customers, had 3. The owner was quoted as saying if the shutdown goes on much longer, he won't be able to hang on any longer. This is what makes our economy great.

I talked to one of the largest automobile dealers in Maryland. The showrooms were empty in the Baltimore-Washington corridor last weekend, even though they had wonderful cars, new cars. They were ready to do deals for the old 2013 models they wanted to move out--empty; empty. This ripples through our economy. This is not just, ``Oh, we are going to contain government.'' We are hurting ourselves.

The fight about ObamaCare is over. Let's say goodbye to that fight. Let's get on to the fiscal issues of the United States of America. I say here, as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am ready to negotiate. I am ready to meet, to compromise, to see how we can have our domestic and defense discretionary spending done in a way that begins to reduce our public debt but will also have a progrowth way of public investments, making sure our country is safe, that we are building roads, building the superinformation highway, educating our young people, and doing research and development.

I know my time is up, but I believe very strongly that we have to solve our problems. I am ready to say to the other side of the aisle that I am ready to work together. That is because I have done it in the past. We actually like doing it, for us pragmatists to get into a room, solve problems, give and take, and actually learn from each other. I could give many examples of that.

Right now we need to set the example for the world that we are the greatest deliberative body. We have to get back to deliberating instead of delaying.

Please, for the House, pass the continuing funding resolution. For the Senate, limit your objection to the Budget Committee going into conference. Let's reopen the government, let's pay our bills, and sit down and negotiate in a way worthy of a great country, and let's honor the Constitution of the United States.

Madam President, I wish to thank my colleagues for what I think was a very vivid way in which they laid out the severe damage that is occurring because of the shutdown and the potential that one of the most important economic powers, if not the most important economic power in the world, is fooling around with the notion that we not pay our bills on time.

I wish to compliment various newspapers around the country that are doing their best to point out to people that this isn't some kind of exercise that is just about all of us here in Washington. This isn't about the politics or the posturing. This is about real people and the pain they are feeling.

This morning in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the headline was ``Shutdown is casting a wide net of grief.'' In that article, it went through a number of different people's lives and how they were hurting because of the shutdown--people such as Nancy Jones.

Nancy retired from the Army 4 months ago, and she was at a food pantry this weekend because her retirement check had not processed through yet, and now it is not clear when she is going to get her retirement check. She moved back to St. Louis to help with her four grandchildren, and now she is putting her head on her pillow tonight not knowing when her pension, which she has earned, will actually come through because of the shutdown. As a result, she is going to a food pantry at a local church to get two bags of groceries.

Then there is Rasheedah Whitfield. She went to the Social Security office in St. Louis to do something very simple, and that was to replace her lost Social Security card. She knocked and no one was home. The Social Security Administration has furloughed people who do things such as getting a replacement for people's lost Social Security card. Why is that so important? Well, because Ms. Whitfield needs her Social Security card in order to fill out her Section 8 application, and time is running short for her to find housing for herself and her small child. She is unsure what she is going to do if she can't get that replacement card.

Then there are the people who have been furloughed who clean one of the Federal office buildings in St. Louis. They work for $11 an hour cleaning the Goodfellow Federal Center in north St. Louis. It is an $11-an-hour job. These people aren't sitting on a big cushion. These people are trying to figure out now, without that $11-an-hour job, if they can either pay the rent or make the car payment, but probably not both.

Then there is Jill Ketchum who works and who is fortunate that her child, her 5-year-old daughter, goes to the Head Start school. She is not sure what she is going to do because she has been told by the Grace Hill Settlement House that the Head Start program cannot last through the month if the shutdown continues. That mother, who is working and uses that important Head Start program to make it work for her family, will have no place to take her daughter. What does she do? Does she have to quit her job? What about all the other single mothers out there with young children who have the rug pulled out from under them because Head Start can no longer operate?

Jill and Rasheedah and Nancy don't deserve this. They are playing by the rules. They are doing everything they should be doing in this great country. They are not asking us to do them a favor. They are just asking us to do our job.

Here is what I am so frustrated about. This pain is being inflicted on millions of Americans, and this pain grows every day. Somebody likened it the other day to when the power goes out at our home. In the first couple of hours, we are getting candles out and getting out the board games, and we think, Oh, this is kind of fun. I got the feeling around here the first couple of hours that we didn't understand the gravity of what this meant to so many people throughout this country and to so many people in my State. But after the electricity has been off a few hours, all of a sudden it is not funny anymore. We start to lose our food in the refrigerator, and we wonder how we are going to replace it. We wonder about what is going to happen with our jobs. We wonder about keeping warm. That is what we are getting to now. We are getting to the point where these families across America cannot believe this is going on day after day.

Here is the weird part. What are we doing? It is not even clear to me what the other side wants. It started out with a goal that was not only irrational, but unreasonable--that somehow the election last November didn't matter; that somehow a faction of one party in one House in one branch of this great government could say: If you don't give us our way, we are going to turn out the lights, and we are going to cut the power. So it was about blowing up ObamaCare.

Now it is not about that anymore. I listened with interest this morning as the Republicans in the House of Representatives spoke about what this is about, and it is not clear to me at this point what it is about. What is it that is the problem? Because it is not ObamaCare anymore. Is it entitlement reform? Is it a grand bargain? Speaker Boehner walked away from one of those not too long ago.

Is it about how much we are spending? We have been asking for a conference on our budget. For years, we were getting political criticism over the fact that the Senate had not passed a budget. So we stayed up all night, took dozens and dozens and dozens of votes, and passed a budget. Then we asked to go to conference. For month after month after month, the junior Senator from Texas and others blocked our ability to go to conference and talk about the budget.

So I don't even understand at this moment what this is about. It is not about ObamaCare anymore. Is it about reforming Medicare and Social Security? That is not clear. Is it about how much money we are spending? That is not even clear.

It feels as though we are boxing shadows.

I am really hopeful about my colleagues across the aisle in the Senate, many of whom I have worked with on many different issues and a lot of whom I have worked with on bringing down spending. My colleague from Alaska said we cut our deficit in half last year. It is a good thing we are spending less money. Most of us here think we should continue in a thoughtful way to spend less money. It is my hope that my colleagues who rejected--the majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected the effort of the junior Senator from Texas to say, ``Us too,'' to the goal that was irrational and unreasonable, shutting down ObamaCare. Those Senators who knew this was not a game that should be played, I am hopeful they will help us reach a resolution that will not only allow the government to reopen but allow us to quit playing the very dangerous game of saying to the rest of the world that we are not the United States of America; that we are not the grandest and most glorious democracy ever created; that we are dysfunctional deadbeats. If it gets to be Thursday and we have not gotten this wrapped up, the rest of the country is going to see this democracy as dysfunctional--a democracy that so many other countries have tried to copy and emulate because we have always managed to work it out. To me that is the saddest part of this whole thing, that we are actually playing around with the essence of what makes our country great, and that is our democracy, our ability to compromise, our ability to negotiate, our ability to not throw tantrums and say we either get our way or we shut the place down.

And the phoniest argument of all that is being made, the most disingenuous, misdirected reason we have gotten is this notion that somehow this is

all about if we would just stop the congressional exemption under ObamaCare. Members of Congress and their staffs are the only people in America who are required to shop on the exchange. Let me say it again. Members of Congress and their staffs are the only people who are required to shop on the exchange. The only issue here is whether or not we get an employer contribution. That is the only issue.

Every Republican in my State who works for the State government gets an employer contribution. Every Republican who serves in Congress from my State gets an employer contribution. They do it right now; they get that employer contribution. If it is so immoral, if it is so bad to get an employer contribution, give it up. Step up, set the example. Set the example, Say, ``No more employer contribution. It is evil.'' Until they step up and give up their employer contribution, I think it is beyond offensive that they would threaten the young lady who answers my phone with her employer contribution or the young man just out of school with a heavy debt load who thought he was going to get an employer contribution when he came to work for the Senate, who lives in Columbia, MO, and doesn't make a huge amount of money.

You do not come to work for the government if you want to get rich. You come to work for the government if you want to serve. The notion that for political purposes we are threatening the employer contribution of the people who work in our offices is, frankly, about as low as it gets. So I do not want to hear it anymore unless somebody is giving up their employer contribution. They all can. The minute I hear the Republicans who are advocating this position have given up their employer contribution--right now--then we can have a discussion that has misled the American people into thinking somehow--somehow-- this is some special deal for Congress.

Real people are getting hurt. We are not even sure what the other side wants. We are threatening the essence of what makes America great, which is our democracy, and we are misleading the American people in ways that are tremendously unfair to the great people who work for all of us across this city and, importantly, across all of our home States.

So I will continue to talk to my friends across the aisle. Even today, on Sunday, all of us are having these conversations. It is my understanding our friends down the hall in the House of Representatives went home. We are having conversations. One week ago I do not think the Speaker could utter a sentence without saying the word ``conversation.'' We are having conversations today. I hope they will continue into the night and that tomorrow will be a better day for this democracy that we all like to brag about but we are threatening to blow up.

Thank you.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.