Pay Our Military Act of 2023

Madam President, I am very glad that you have taken the chair to preside because I want to talk about something I think is kind of near and dear to your heart. This is something that I passed in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the Senate back in 2019, and this was passed with bipartisan support. I am talking about a bill called the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act.

Following passage, I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal. I just want to read the first two paragraphs of that column, published on September 22, 2019:

If the Legislature in my home state of Wisconsin fails to

pass the next year's appropriation bills, we don't shut

government agencies down. We fund them at the previous year's

appropriation levels. Doesn't that make sense?

That common-sense approach should apply in Washington, but

it doesn't. By the time I arrived in 2011, Congress's

appropriations process was completely broken.

It still is.

The United States has since had--

Again, this is as of September 2019.

--the United States has since had three government shutdowns,

passed 34 continuing resolutions to avoid shutdowns, raised

or suspended the debt ceiling nine times and--

Again, this was just 4 years ago.

--increased the federal debt $8.5 trillion.

So here we are, a couple days before the end of the fiscal year, 4 years later--our debt, by the way, has more than doubled; it stands at $33 trillion now--and we are facing a shutdown.

Isn't this ridiculous? There is no reason for this.

Again, back in June of 2019, I tasked up my committee members. I said: OK. I want to pass a bill that will end all government shutdowns forever. Take it off the table.

Now, there have been a number of bills designed to do that offered in both Chambers, both the House and the Senate.

I have three members of the committee--four members of the committee have their own bills.

The bill I selected to debate, mark up, and pass was one offered by Senators James Lankford and Maggie Hassan.

I chose that bill because--one bill actually increased spending; one bill decreased spending. But the Hassan-Lankford bill did what we do in Wisconsin: You don't shut an agency down; you don't shut the government down; you just keep spending at last year's level until the legislature can get its act together and appropriate the funds.

So that bill that I chose that we passed--by the way, on a bipartisan basis. I believe every Democratic Senator on the committee voted for it because Senator Hassan, Senator Lankford did a good job of coming together in a bipartisan fashion. They put some disciplines in there.

But what it does, it just creates rolling 14-day CRs. With those disciplines, Members can't travel back on the government dime. You only have a 24-hour shutdown, I believe. There are other disciplines there that put pressure on the process to get our act together and start appropriating bills.

If you don't get it done in the first 14 days, you have another 14- day CR, you do another 14-day CR, until we complete the appropriations process.

Again, not an efficient way of doing things. I think the reason most Members say that they don't want to shut down the government is we realize it is a very inefficient process, and it hurts people. It hurts people.

So why haven't we passed this in the last 4 years? Why haven't some of these other preventing government shutdowns acts passed in the past? Why not? It is ridiculous we haven't done it yet.

The result, by the way, has been what this chart demonstrates. Again, I already mentioned we are at $33 trillion in debt. It is very important to recognize how out of control spending is here in Washington, DC.

When we were debating the omnibus last year, I asked my Republican colleagues at the Senate lunch: Does anybody know how much the Federal Government is going to spend this year?

I didn't get any answers. Maybe somebody knew, but they didn't volunteer to answer.

I went out and asked the Washington press corps, the folks who are supposed to be reporting on this to our constituents and to the American public: Does anybody know how much the government spent last year?

Well, it is over $1 trillion. Well, that is true in terms of discretionary spending--less than 30 percent of the budget.

By the way, I granted them immediate absolution. I said: I wouldn't expect you to know how much the Federal Government spends in total because we never talk about it.

Think of it. The Federal Government is the largest financial entity in the world, and, in December of 2022, the people I was asking--the people who should have known this--had no idea what in total the Federal Government spent. Well, the answer was about $6.2 trillion.

Let me put that in context. That is what this chart shows. The numbers are pretty small. So I will describe them. This column is fiscal year 2019 spending. This is the fiscal year before the pandemic and the pandemic recession.

This column is this fiscal year, fiscal year 2023 estimated spending. We don't have hard figures yet, but we have a pretty good idea of what we are going to be spending.

Just 4 years ago, in just the year 2019, total Federal Government spending was $4.446 trillion--$4.4 trillion. Let me put that in perspective. In 2002, it was the first time we passed the Rubicon of spending over $2 trillion in total. Seventeen years later--it took us 17 years to more than double that to $4.4 trillion.

This fiscal year that we are closing out in a couple of days, we will spend over $6.3 trillion. We are spending $1.9 trillion more this year than we spent just 4 years ago. This is completely out of control.

By the way, if you put us on a baseline, based on just population growth and inflation--in other words, take out the massive out-of- control spending during the pandemic and just put us on a reasonable baseline--last year, we spent a little more than $5 trillion.

But in the debt ceiling deal--which, by the way, didn't raise the debt ceiling by a given amount--but House conservatives basically gave the Speaker to negotiate $1.5 trillion. We have done one of these Washington games, which is suspending debt. It will probably result in a debt ceiling of $4 trillion, which will accommodate this massive-- massive--deficit spending.

So again, just to repeat: 4 years ago, $4.4 trillion; 4 years later, $6.3, almost $6.4 trillion. That is an increase of more than $1.9 trillion. And the deficit this year will be somewhere between $1.7 and $2 trillion. We need to get this under control.

But I want to make an important point here. As dysfunctional as Washington, DC, is--it is grotesquely dysfunctional. I come from the private sector. This would not happen in the private sector. You wouldn't take 72 or 73 percent of what you spend in your private sector budget and say: That is on automatic pilot. We are never going to look at that. We are only going to look at 27 percent of the budget and try to control that. That is basically what we are doing here with discretionary spending this year. Twenty-seven percent, we will focus on that, and we will ignore 73 percent and let it grow out of control.

But again, this is a well-honed process. This isn't--it is dysfunctional, but the process is in place, and it is a well-honed process to mortgage our children's future, and we are witnessing that process.

Again, this is my 13th year. I think every year, at least, a shutdown has been threatened, as we are threatening this one--again, disquieting people, worrying people, because if a shutdown does occur, people will be hurt. We can avoid it.

But this well-honed process is playing out as it has ever since I have arrived here. Basically, you don't do appropriation bills without the House, without the Senate. You might start. You might start the charade, like we did this year, and start passing them in this Chamber, in September, a few weeks before the fiscal year. Obviously, you don't have enough time to pass all of them. So then you threaten a government shutdown.

You predict calamity, and then you load onto a continuing resolution spending that may or may not be controversial. It is not where you increase spending. It is not where you put supplemental spending. But that is what

we do. So it becomes controversial, and, all of a sudden, here you are threatening shutdown.

Now the proposal on the table right now in the Senate is: Let's do a CR with some controversial spending, and we will have that CR end the day before the Thanksgiving recess--a little pressure on our Members, just in case we can get our act together to come up with a couple of massive minibuses or just one massive omnibus to drop on everybody's desk. And if they want to go home for recess, you had better pass that now.

Now, my guess is we probably won't be able to get that done in time, and so we will end up with another CR. This one will probably be scheduled to expire--oh, I don't know, pick a date. My guess would be December 23 and December 24--the same process. That is what happened last year.

Then we get it, again, dropped on our desk--about a 2,000-plus page bill. Nobody has time to read it, other than the people who wrote it. And you get the Hobson's choice--vote yes or no. The problem with that, in addition to just the grotesque dysfunction of it, is the individual appropriation bills do not get the scrutiny that they deserve.

If you bring up every appropriations bill--12--you have got to start somewhere around May. You bring up each individual appropriation bill. Now you can actually scrutinize it. The public can see it. We can offer amendments.

Again, it is not a panacea. I am not going to say it is going to completely stop this runaway spending train, but it will be some constraint. It restores some function to this very dysfunctional place.

So what I have been pushing for, for 4 years--and it is one of the reasons I withheld my consent on the minibus. And I appreciate the fact that the chairman and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee were willing to work with me and offer me an amendment on the minibus to try and get a vote to maybe pass the Preventing Government Shutdown Act, but other people are objecting, and we haven't got that vote yet.

So here we are, a couple days before a shutdown, and we need to do something. The House is having, obviously, a difficult time coming up with a solution. The Senate may pass something that really has no chance of passing in the House. I think we have to be honest about that.

So, again, in order to prevent a government shutdown, what we ought to do is do something that people agree on. You know, rather than trying to use this moment to jam something through that people don't all agree with, let's try and pass something people agree with, which is a bill that will prevent a government shutdown.

Now, I chose a 14-day clean CR--because that is pretty much the structure of the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, rolling 14-day CRs, giving both Chambers the time to act to start passing these bills with a little bit more scrutiny than what minibuses or an omnibus would afford. It is a very commonsense approach. It is something we all ought to agree on. It would prevent a shutdown. It would prevent pain to real people. And all we have to do is agree to do what we all say we want to do, to avoid what we all say we want to avoid--a government shutdown.

So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill, which is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Reserving the right to object, once again, we are asked to extend the flood program without any reforms to protect the taxpayers. Like many Federal programs, this Federal program is well-intentioned, but it may very well be the best real-life example of moral hazard.

We are told that the program is funded through insurance premiums, but the premiums are below the market rate, and so the program is eternally and consistently short of money.

A 2014 report by the Government Accountability Office found the flood program collected $17 billion less than the market would have required. For all practical purposes, the flood program is insolvent.

Just a few years ago, the flood program owed $30 billion to the taxpayers. Congress later cancelled $16 billion of that debt, but the flood program has not made any progress in repaying the taxpayers. The total now stands that the flood program owes $20 billion to the taxpayers with no way of repaying that money.

Perhaps the greatest insult to the taxpayers, though, is the lack of true limits on this delinquent program. There are no limits on how many claims can be filed or how much money can be received for a policyholder. So it isn't that I have a $3 million flood policy. You could have a $3 trillion policy. There are no limits. There are also no limits on how big your house could be. You could have a $10 million house, a $20 million house, a $50 million house, and the taxpayers subsidize your house.

Rather than encourage people to leave flood-prone areas, this program encourages people to stay and rebuild time and time again. In thousands of instances, the program encourages people to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild.

According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, over 150,000 properties have been rebuilt over and over again. In fact, 25 to 30 percent of flood program claims are made by the policyholders whose properties have flooded time and time again. Over 2,000 properties have flooded more than 10 times. One home in Batchelor, LA, flooded 40 times and received a total of $428,000 of flood insurance payments--40 times. No one should keep rebuilding in a house that floods 40 times. But the record, if you can believe it, isn't Batchelor, LA. It is Virginia, where one home flooded 41 times and received payments of over $600,000, all subsidized by the taxpayer.

Adding insult to injury, the Congressional Budget Office found that the flood program tends to benefit the wealthy and that 23 percent of the subsidized coastal properties were not even policyholders' primary residences.

Realize what this program is doing. It is subsidizing insurance for the rich and famous for their beach houses. There are no limits. It subsidizes people who have $10 million homes to get subsidized government insurance. It is true. The government forces the taxpayers to pay and rebuild the summer homes of the rich. In fact, sometimes it seems that the flood program caters directly to the wealthy. Nearly 80 percent of the National Flood Insurance Program policies are located in counties that rank within the top 20 percent of income.

Enough is enough. It is an insult to rob the taxpayers to give to the rich. This is why I offer an amendment that, if we could come to an agreement today, would require that the Federal program not insure your second house, not insure your beach house. If you live there--it is your only house--it will be included. If it is your second house, your beach house, it is not going to be included.

And we would set a cap on the amount. Who in their right mind thinks we should be subsidizing insurance for $10 million mansions? It is crazy that anybody would think that is what we should do.

I offer a compromise today. Extend the program. Let's keep the program. We will keep the program open. We won't miss a beat. But we will set some limits on the houses.

So what I would like to start with would be a cap of $250,000. Those houses below 250 would be subsidized, would get subsidized insurance. Up to 250, you buy your own.

Also my proposal would not allow you to use the insurance if this is your vacation home--if this is your secondary home.

So, Mr. President, I ask the Senator to modify his request so that the Paul amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the process is similar to what has been described but not exactly as has been described. The bill is sent out, everybody gets a chance to object. People who choose to object can come, that is also announced.

The objections are announced, and we come to the floor. If the Senator wanted to work together on this, this could be modified today and someone else would have to come to object, and that is announced to all 100 Senators and often works that way. But, today, what we have is a situation where I am offering an amendment to reform taxpayer- subsidized insurance, and it is being rejected by one Senator, not by all Senators, not in place of all Senators. They have a chance to come, it has been announced, they can come and object to this if they wanted.

But here is the thing, what I am trying to do is modify a program so that the average ordinary taxpayer does not have to pay for rich people's flood insurance for their beach houses.

About half of the houses that are insured in this program that loses billions of dollars every year, that is $20 billion in the hole, about half the homes are worth $500,000 or more.

Do you know any regular working folk that have $500,000 homes on the beach? No. If you have a $500,000 house on the beach, buy your own damn insurance. The taxpayer should not have to buy your insurance.

So I would ask the Senator--we can do this today; there are other Senators on the floor; they can come running from hither and yon, and they can object to this--but I would ask the Senator, let's modify the program so rich people don't get their houses insured by the government and subsidized by the taxpayer. We can change the limits to $500,000. That would cut out half of the homes in the United States, half of the beach houses, half of the rich people in our country who are getting subsidized insurance.

Make the limit $500,000. If we make it $500,000, the program will be half as big, and it will lose half as much money. Let's modify this program. So I would ask the Senator to modify his proposal with my amendment, and my amendment would say: You can't use the insurance for your second home, only your primary residence, and if you have a half- a-million-dollar mansion on the beach, guess what? You get to buy your own insurance. That is my modification, and I would ask the Senator to accept the Paul amendment that is at the desk.

Reserving the right to object. What I am trying to find here, is there a compromise? Is there some level of rich person that maybe the taxpayer could say: Enough is enough; they ought to pay their own way? Is there some level of rich person's mansion that maybe the average, ordinary taxpayer should not have to subsidize their insurance?

So we have tried a half a million, which is about half the homes the ordinary working class people in our country have to insure, why don't we try--if we can't do a half a million, let's try mansions of $750,000. You would say, well, how many are there? Twenty-five percent of the national Federal subsidized insurance are homes of $750,000 a year. We are not talking about ordinary people now, we are talking about rich, rich, very rich people getting subsidized insurance from a program that loses billions of dollars and has to be bailed out every year. We have a government with a $1.7 trillion deficit. It goes on year after year. Nobody does anything. Just reauthorize it. Today we can make a compromise. So I offer the Senator a compromise: If $500,000 is too cheap and you want to insure half-a-million-dollar mansions, will you, at least, modify it to exclude mansions of $750,000 or more? I think that is the least we can do.

And I would ask unanimous consent to accept the Paul motion at the desk that indicates $750,000 as the limit for the insurance.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. It is certainly not my intention to denigrate rich people. I aspire to be one someday. But I don't aspire to ask for free stuff from the government if I ever become a rich person.

Why would we subsidize insurance of rich people? Is there no limit-- is there no limit--is there no possibility of compromise on some mansion that is too large to be in this program?

What about $10 million? We have tried $250,000. That was too little. You know, the insistence is we must insure these homes. We tried a half million. But the insistence is, no, everybody should get it.

I don't think rich people need subsidized insurance. The program loses billions of dollars every year. We have tried 750,000, but apparently there still is this need and this desire to insure rich people's beach houses.

Why don't we try one last time. We will try something that I think anybody could compromise to and anybody would accept, and certainly I wouldn't want to be the one justifying a program that gives people who have $10 million mansions insurance. Why not accept it and make someone on the other side support such a ridiculous policy?

So my final proposal today will be to ask unanimous consent that the Paul amendment at the desk would exclude $10 million mansions from government-subsidized insurance.

I think that is the least we can do. If we can get that compromise, it would bring at least some sense of sanity to this crazy program.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. Let the record show from this discussion today that the Senator has objected to any limits on taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance, any limits: 250,000; 500,000; 750,000, even 10 million.

This is a program that loses billions of dollars every year. This is a program that can't work for the poor people because we have got so many rich people in it.

Half of the homes in the program cost over a half million dollars. So this is a problem. This is a program that loses money every year, and the Senator is unwilling to accept any limits on this.

There is this argument that somehow he is defending all the Democrat Senators who can't come here, but he could easily have said: I am not willing to object to this because these are reasonable proposals and force the Democrats to object to this.

But he has taken this upon himself to defend the status quo, to defend the inclusion of $10 million mansions in this program.

So I do object.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of my friend from Alaska in a plea to sanity and common sense in this body.

We are 3 days away from an impending government shutdown. I believe a shutdown is likely because I believe President Biden and Senator Schumer want a shutdown. I think they believe it benefits them politically to force a shutdown. Whether I am right or wrong on that, everyone acknowledges there is a very significant risk of a shutdown 72 hours from now.

As it stands right now, if we have that government shutdown 72 hours from now, our service men and women will still go to work. Our military will still show up. Even with a shutdown, the military has to do its job and keep this Nation safe. But what will happen is their paychecks will go away.

Last week, Senator Sullivan and I both came to the Senate floor seeking to pass my legislation, the Pay Our Coast Guard Act. That legislation is bipartisan. I am the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee. It was authored by me and cosponsored by Maria Cantwell, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. It was also cosponsored by Senator Sullivan and Senator Tammy Baldwin, the chairman and ranking member of the Coast Guard Subcommittee.

The reason my legislation, last week, was introduced is the last time we had a shutdown in 2019--the Schumer shutdown--the government was shut down for 34 days, and soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines were paid because the Department of Defense appropriations had been passed. But coastguardsmen were not because they are not under DOD; they are under the Department of Homeland Security.

So for 34 days, heroic coastguardsmen guarded our coasts, saved people off the coast of Texas, were there when people needed them in times of disaster, and yet they didn't get a paycheck. That was wrong.

In 2019, Senator Sullivan and I came to the Senate floor then and tried to pass a bill to pay our coastguardsmen in the middle of the Schumer shutdown, and the Democrats objected. Democrat leadership said: No, we will not pay our coastguardsmen.

Well, last week, I tried to say: We have bipartisan legislation. Let's do it right. Let's not hurt brave young men and women who are protecting this country.

Unfortunately, Democrat leadership stood up and uttered two words: I object. In fact, the Senator from Washington had an argument that I found thoroughly curious. She said: Well, this bill that Cruz and Sullivan are trying to pass--it wouldn't technically mandate that coastguardsmen be paid because what the bill provided is they should be paid if soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are paid. So it argued we should treat the military evenly and fairly and not discriminate against the Coast Guard. She said: That is the reason I am objecting-- because it doesn't mandate that it happen.

Well, you know what, what the Senator from Washington asked for is what we are right here now doing. This bill does what she said last week was the reason she was objecting. That is what this bill does.

Ten years ago, this bill passed the Senate 100 to 0. The Presiding Officer and I were both in the Senate. That means the Presiding Officer voted for it, and I voted for it. That means the Senator from Washington voted for it. It means the House passed it unanimously. But in the decade that has passed, I guess common sense has gone out the window.

So I want to say something right now to every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman, every member of the Space Force. If you are a 19-year-old private or corporal stationed at Fort Bliss right now, next week, there is a very good chance your paycheck is going away. We are going to find out in just a few moments whether or not your paycheck is going away.

And just listen very carefully for two words. If we hear two words from the Senator from Washington, the words ``I object,'' those two words uttered on behalf of Democrat leadership will kill this bill.

When your paycheck goes away next week, understand you would have been paid except for the fact that Democrat leadership decided it is in their political interest to hold that 19-year-old hostage. Never mind that you can't pay for groceries for your wife and kid that week. Never mind that you can't pay your rent, you can't pay your bills. Never mind--a marine who is stationed in harm's way--that your paycheck is going to go away. Why? Because partisanship is so rife in this town that the Democrat leadership believes they can hold these young fighting men and women hostage and pay no political price.

I hope the Senator from Washington listens to what I have said and what the Senator from Alaska has said and decides, you know, it is not right to hold these brave men and women hostage, and we are not going to do it. I hope Democrat leadership puts principle above partisan politics, but we are about to find out.

Mr. President, I am very frequently in complete agreement with my friend and colleague from Alaska. I do disagree with two words he just said. He said this was good, old-fashioned hostage-taking. There is nothing old-fashioned about this. This is brand new. Even the Democrats, as partisan as they have been, they haven't done this before. Ten years ago, every Democrat--even the most leftwing Democrat--agreed we should pay our service men and women. This hostage- taking is brand new. You want to see the face of vicious partisanship in Washington? You just did.

Now, I will point out also two things that are blazingly obvious. No. 1, last week, when the Senator from Washington objected to my legislation to pay our Coast Guard, to treat our coastguardsmen the same as other Active-Duty military, she stood up and gave a speech in which she said she supported that goal but the bill I introduced didn't mandate that it happen; it only said they had to be treated with parity, and that is why she objected. So Senator Sullivan and I came and introduced the bill she asked for that mandated that all of the military be paid.

She didn't explain her change of position, but what she did implicitly is say that every word she said last week was not true, that the reason she gave for objecting to my bill apparently was not the reason she was objecting to the bill because she just objected right here.

I have to say--listen--every Member of this body, every Democrat, when you go home to your State, when you meet with Active-Duty military, when you meet with the veterans, I guarantee you every Member of this body said: I support the troops.

Well, as long as Democrat leadership keeps doing what they just did, it ain't true that you support the troops.

I want to point out right now, there are some Democrats who might try to hide behind the skirts of their leadership and say: We didn't object.

There are no Democrats on this floor. Nobody is here with us. The Senator from Washington didn't even bother to stay and participate in the debate. That is how little she is interested in the merits of this issue. What she said--and I want you to hear the argument she gave. She said, now, the new reason she is objecting is she says she wants everyone to be paid, and if everyone can't be paid, then nobody will be paid.

Understand, she is telling the young marine stationed just a mile from North Korea, facing machine guns, that it is the position of Senate Democrats that they care more about paying IRS agents and EPA regulators and bureaucrats than they do about that young marine. Right now, there is a sailor in a nuclear submarine a mile underwater who may not even know it, but her paycheck is likely to disappear in 3 days. And Senate Democrats have said there is no difference.

You know what, the military is often referred to as the 1 percent. There is a difference--the men and women who put on the uniform and take the oath and defend this Nation. And my hope is that somewhere in the Democratic Party, saner voices will prevail.

I get there is an attraction to ``We have a partisan fight.'' I get that Democrats want to try to stick it to Republicans. But don't scapegoat the military in the process.

I want to speak for the moment to the press. Part of the reason the Democrats are objecting is they are confident CNN will not report on this. They are confident MSNBC will not say a word about this. They are confident, if you turn on the nightly news, NBC, ABC, CBS will not say a word. And they believe that come Monday, when that young soldier, sailor, airman, marine--his or her paycheck disappears, they believe that they will never know it was the Democrats who blocked their paycheck, who objected to it. Well, it is up to the media to decide are they actually journalists, are they going to report on what happened.

If we end up having a shutdown, I can promise you, Senator Sullivan and I will be back. We will be on this floor, and we will see just how many times the Democrats want to object to paying our Active-Duty military.

Mind you, they have to work. They will show up at work regardless. But maybe it is the position of today's Democratic Party that you can show up and work and defend this Nation and keep us safe but Democrats aren't going to pay you. That is really sad. It is unfortunate.

I see my friend the Senator from Virginia has come in on another matter. I hope voices like his will say to his leadership: This is dumb. Don't hold our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen hostage over a political fight in Washington. If politicians can't get their act together by September 30, don't punish the Active-Duty military.

I know the Senator from Virginia cares about those Active-Duty military. It is, right now, his party that is blocking their paychecks.

So my hope is that saner voices prevail in the Democratic Party. I hope we can come back here and do this exact same thing with one minor alteration--that next time we eliminate those two words: ``I object.''

And once the Democrats decide no longer to say the words ``I object,'' this bill will pass, the House will pass it, and our fighting men and women will get the paychecks they have earned--they have earned--with courage and blood. We owe it to them. This body needs to do the right thing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, unless something significant changes, 35 hours from now, the Federal Government will shut down. At 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, the paychecks will stop for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every member of the Space Force, and every coastguardsman. That is not right.

The good news is, we can prevent it. We can prevent it right now. The bill Senator Sullivan and I are trying to pass says that at 12:01 a.m., our Active-Duty military will be paid; that if Washington is dysfunctional, if politicians will bicker throughout the night, that is not their fault, and we are not going to hold them hostage to the partisan demands of politicians.

Right now at home, there are people watching this debate on C-SPAN, and they may be wondering: When did the Senate get this dysfunctional? Did this institution ever operate?

Senator Sullivan pointed to a time when it at least operated a little better than it does now.

In 2013, this identical legislation was before the Senate. There was a Democrat majority. Harry Reid was the majority leader. This identical legislation passed 100 to nothing, and it passed unanimously in the House.

In 2013, Senate Democrats realized: Fine, we will have a fight, but we are not holding our Active-Duty military hostage.

In 2013, Senator Durbin, who is sitting on the floor, voted yes to fund our military. In 2013, Senator Whitehouse, who is sitting on the floor, voted yes to fund our military. In 2013, Senator Murray, who I believe is getting ready to stand up and block this bill, in 2013, she voted yes to fund our military. Have we really gone that far in a decade that Democrats now are perfectly happy to take away the paychecks from the young men and women who are risking their lives to keep us safe?

The Presiding Officer spent years in the Active-Duty military. The Presiding Officer is a proud Navy veteran. The Presiding Officer knows men and women who are serving right now in Active Duty, and I feel quite confident the Presiding Officer doesn't want to go home and look them in the eyes and say: It was my party, the Democratic Party, that took your paycheck away.

Well, it doesn't have to happen.

Everyone at home, I want you to listen to what is going to happen in a moment, because there are two magic words. If you hear two magic words from the Senator from Washington--``I object''--if you hear those words, understand what will have happened. It is the same thing that happened just a couple of days ago, which is that Democrat leadership said to our Active-Duty military: We don't give a damn about you, and we are going to cut off your paycheck Sunday at 12:01 a.m.

That doesn't have to happen.

By the way, I would point out not only is it the fault of every Democrat--and I am sorry, Mr. President--it is the fault of every Democrat because there are no Democrats here supporting us. The Presiding Officer, in his heart, knows we are right, so I am going to invite the Presiding Officer, when we do this again--because we are going to keep doing it and keep doing it. I would invite the Presiding Officer to come join us because the Presiding Officer knows this is the right thing to do. And there are more of your colleagues on the Democrat side who know this is the right thing to do.

Some 19-year-old marine right now in the DMZ facing North Korean machineguns is being told that the U.S. Senate doesn't care enough about his or her service to pay them. That is just wrong. It is stupid.

And this body used to know enough to say: Hey, we have political disagreements here, but we support our troops.

I guarantee you, every Democrat Senator in this Chamber goes home and tells your constituents: I support the troops.

You know what? Talk is cheap. If you support the troops, stand up next to us and say: Let's pay the troops.

And by the way, if you support the troops, go to your leadership and say: Stop this garbage.

Was Harry Reid a rightwing kook? Because Harry Reid signed off on paying the troops. And I will tell you why today's Democrat leadership believes they can get away with it--because in 2013, we had something of a functioning media. They actually reported on what was happening. If you look up in the Gallery, there are a total of zero reporters there. There is not one.

The corrupt corporate media doesn't intend to tell the citizens of Washington State or the citizens of Illinois or the citizens of Rhode Island or the citizens of Arizona--they don't intend to tell them: Your Democrat Senator is why Active-Duty military isn't being paid.

So every reporter yesterday--I had reporters running after me, going: Oh,

isn't this Republican shutdown terrible?

And I said: Those are great talking points. Have you written a single story about the fact that the reason our military is not going to be paid is because Democrat leadership is objecting?

No. Because none of them have written that story. Every one of you knows what the right thing to do is. And so my hope is there is a tiny, still voice inside of some Democrat Senators that will stand up and go to your leadership and say: We can fight all day long on partisan issues, but we are not going to take our troops hostage.

That is the right thing to do, and every Member of this body knows it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, at the opening of her remarks, the Senator from Washington said: I agree with the objective of this bill; I agree with what Senator Sullivan and Senator Cruz are trying to accomplish. Then she talked for a while, and then she

blocked the entirety of the bill. Everything in between, saying, ``I agree with this bill,'' and the two magic words at the end of her remarks, ``I object,'' I have to admit brought me back to Saturday morning cartoons and watching ``Peanuts'' and the teacher going: ``Wah wah wah wah'' because they were words, but they didn't mean anything.

This is a binary choice. At 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, are soldiers going to get paid, yes or no? Are sailors going to get paid, yes or no? Are airmen going to get paid, yes or no? Are marines going to get paid, yes or no? Are members of the Space Force going to get paid, yes or no? Are coastguardsmen going to get paid, yes or no?

A decade ago, every Member of this body voted to pay them. Since this debate began, the Presiding Officer had been Senator Kelly and has now been replaced by Senator Murphy from Connecticut. I would point out, Senator Murphy voted yes to pay our Active-Duty military in 2013. And yet now the Democrats are blocking those paychecks.

The Senator from Washington said: Well, gosh, the Democrats had a CR that you could have voted for. The Senator from Washington knows fully well that the bill drafted by Democrat leadership is not going to pass the House of Representatives. She knows that. The result is going to be a shutdown. And what has changed from 2013 to now? From to 2013 to now, the Democrat leadership is perfectly willing to hold a young man or woman in the military--to hold their paychecks hostage.

Well, something interesting is going to happen at 12:01 a.m., 35 hours from now. Paychecks of every Federal employee will stop. The paychecks of the stenographer who is recording my words will stop. The paychecks of the clerks sitting down front will stop.

But, you know what, Mr. President? There are 535 people whose paychecks will not stop. Under the Constitution, Members of this body, Senators and Members of the House, their paychecks can't stop even during a shutdown, which means at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, every Democrat Senator will keep drawing their paycheck, while the people risking their lives to defend us will not.

Well, I will tell you, I have in writing instructed the Senate that I will not accept a paycheck so long as our Active-Duty military is not being paid.

It is wrong. Senators are paid $174,000 a year, by law. The Democrat leadership, who stands up and says, ``I object,'' is telling a 19-year- old woman in a nuclear sub right now, defending our Nation, that her paycheck doesn't matter anymore.

There is, right now, a mom in tennis shoes serving in the military who is discovering that her mortgage payment--she doesn't know how to pay.

And so I am going to suggest to the reporters who aren't here and aren't covering this that so long as Democrat leadership keeps blocking what has been bipartisan and unanimous legislation previously, that every Democrat Senator ought to be asked: Are you taking a paycheck come 12:01 a.m. on Sunday? They are the ones objecting. They are the ones stopping. Every soldier needs to understand: Why are you not being paid? Because the Democrat objected. Every sailor needs to understand: Because the Democrats objected. Every airman, marine, coastguardsman, every member of the Space Force, when your paycheck goes away 35 hours from now, it is because of two magic words the Democrat leadership has said. Let's be clear, it is not just the Senator from Washington. She is doing it on instruction from the Democrat leadership. They could change it like that.

I can tell you this. Senator Sullivan and I are going to keep coming back over and over again because there is not a Member of this body who wants to go home to your State--even a State like Connecticut. You don't want to be at home looking at Active-Duty military and saying: Yes, my party took away your paycheck. That is too cynical even for this body. I pray that common sense comes back.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, right now we are working through a bipartisan proposal to keep the government open and operating, at least for the next several months. But those who study the Constitution might ask: Why is the Senate beginning debate on a continuing resolution? Isn't it the responsibility, constitutionally, of the House to begin debates on spending measures?

That is true. But the reason the Senate is using certain procedural maneuvers to begin the debate on the continuing resolution is because the House refuses to do its job. The House of Representatives is currently pretending like the government isn't shutting down in 3 days.

Instead of doing their job, House Republicans are spending the week impeaching Joe Biden, even though they admit they have no grounds to do it. They are setting this country on a course toward ruin. Shutdowns cost the economy billions of dollars. Starting on Saturday night, our military won't get paid; Head Start teachers won't get paid; our wildfire firefighters won't get paid; Federal prison guards won't get paid; NIH and CDC scientists won't get paid; border agents won't get paid. And yet the House is pretending that this isn't happening.

So we are attempting--the Senate--to come together, Republicans and Democrats, to solve this problem. But it is absolutely extraordinary-- extraordinary--that the House is refusing to do their job. And the reason for that is that there is this cabal of Republicans in the House who want the government to shut down, who hate the government so much that they want to burn it to the ground. And they are willing to compromise the safety of this country. They are willing to put hard- working Federal employees out of work. They are willing to force our military and our Border Patrol to forgo their paychecks. They are willing to lose $10 billion in revenue to the economy.

So this is a pretty sad moment. The Senate is going to try to come together, Republicans and Democrats, to do our job; but House Republicans are causing this shutdown. They admit it. They go on TV every day--House Republicans go on TV every day and admit that it is their caucus that is causing this shutdown. And, hopefully, sometime between now and this weekend, those arsonists in the House of Representatives will come to their senses and put this country above their politics, above their hatred of government, above their hatred of Joe Biden. The consequences are pretty enormous otherwise.

Gun Control

Madam President, this past February, a woman by the name of Maria Zapata Escamilla was startled out of her sleep in her home in a relatively small city in Mexico. She was startled out of her sleep because a band of men armed with powerful weapons and wearing military fatigues broke into her family's home. They looked like soldiers, but they weren't soldiers. They were, in fact, drug cartel members. That night they dragged her husband away, and they dragged her 14-year-old son, still in his pajamas, out of the house.

Two weeks later, 10 bodies were found in this town, all dead at the hands of the cartel. One of them was Maria's husband. She still, to this day, has no idea where her 14-year-old son is, but she presumes that he is dead. Maria's story is the norm in this city, Fresnillo, which, for much of this year, has been a war zone between Mexico's two biggest cartels as they battle for space to make and transport drugs to the United States.

Maria says:

Every day there are kidnappings, every day there are

shootouts, every day there are deaths. It's terror.

These cartels act with impunity in Mexico because they buy off local officials and police because of endemic

corruption inside Mexico but, also, because these cartels are very often more heavily armed than the police. And this ability of the cartels to control so much space inside of Mexico because of corruption but also because they are often carrying more firepower than law enforcement, this is not just a nightmare for Mexico; this is a nightmare for the United States of America. There is a straight through line between the power of the cartels and the fentanyl trade that is killing American citizens.

Fentanyl is a plague in my community in Connecticut, in my colleagues' communities. And it is not enough for us just to tell Mexico to do better. No doubt, Mexico does not have clean hands. Mexico needs to get in the game to take on these cartels.

But on this question of heavily armed cartels, Mexico has actually acted. It surprises many people to know that there is one single gun store in all of Mexico. Mexico has essentially eliminated the commercial trade of firearms. You can't buy a firearm in the commercial market, for all intents and purposes, in Mexico today.

So why on Earth is Mexico flooded with weapons? Why on Earth do the cartels trade weapons like water? It is because somewhere between 70 to 90 percent of the guns that are found in crime scenes--mostly crime scenes connected to the cartel business--in Mexico can be traced back to the United States.

This is absolutely stunning. It is U.S. guns bought here in the United States, transited to Mexico that is fueling the violence that ends up in fentanyl being made, produced, and transported freely into the United States.

So it is time for the United States to recognize that if we want to do something about fentanyl coming into the United States, if we want to save our citizens from ruin, then we have to do something about the guns that move from the United States into Mexico.

Now why is this happening? Why have the cartels been able to get their hands on these weapons?

Well, there is a handful of reasons. First, without a universal background check law in the United States, these cartel members, most of whom have criminal records, can easily buy guns at gun shows and online, even though they are criminals, because in those settings there are not background checks applied in many of our States. So the cartel members go into these gun shows in places like Texas; they buy the guns; and they bring them to Mexico.

Second, there is no comprehensive effort to stop the trafficking. It is largely Americans that are doing the trafficking--dual citizens, often. We do lots of checks of cars and trucks going from Mexico to the United States, but we don't do significant serious checks on vehicles going from the United States to Mexico. And so the guns, along with the cash, move freely north to south.

And so as long as this gun trade continues, the Mexican authorities, even if they clean up their act, have very little chance to stop these cartels. And what is so maddening is that this is just a choice. We know what to do to stop these guns from being trafficked to the cartels in Mexico, but we choose not to do it.

So for those of us that have relationships with leaders in the Mexican government, we have very few good answers when the Mexican government looks us in the eye and says: Do your part. Stop these guns from moving into Mexico.

The things we can do are all politically popular. Universal background checks are supported by 95 percent of Americans, first and foremost because it will cut down on crime in the United States. But 41 percent of the guns that go into Mexico come from Texas; 15 percent come from Arizona; the lion's share of these weapons comes from States that don't have universal background check laws on the books and so they have all of these loopholes and these ways for criminals to buy guns and transfer them to Mexico.

Second, we can fund DHS to actually do the checks on the cars and the vehicles that are moving into Mexico. Last year, for the first time, because of an initiative that I pushed, we funded 200 more CBP officers to do these outbound inspections. Yet we are still only doing the inspections at a handful of ports of entry, and we should be doing them all across the border. That is something that Republicans and Democrats can come together on.

Last year, we did make progress. With the help of Senator Cornyn and others, we made gun trafficking a crime in this country. It is amazing that it wasn't. We made straw purchasing a crime, which makes it a little bit harder for the traffickers to move weapons from north to south, but it is just a start.

It is really important for us to own the mistakes we have made that have allowed for these cartels to get so big and so powerful. There is no doubt that the lion's share of work lands squarely with the Mexican Government. The corruption there that is endemic is the biggest gift to the cartels.

Second to the corruption is the flow of weapons that the United States has permitted and, at times, facilitated. We need a massive, laser-focused effort to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. It is killing thousands of Americans. In my State, there have been 10,000 overdose deaths just in the last 10 years.

We can't just lecture the Mexican Government to do better; we need to do our part. So I am here on the floor today to ask my colleagues to join me in taking some big, bold steps to stop the flow of these weapons from the United States to the Mexican drug cartels.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am going to speak about a really important bill that I am hoping we are going to pass right here on the Senate floor. It was passed, by the way, previously. It is called the Pay Our Military Act.

It is pretty simple. In the event of a shutdown--and right now, we are all working hard to make sure we avoid it--we need to make sure that the men and women who protect us get paid. That is it, simple-- really, really simple.

I know back home in the great State of Alaska, there is a lot of frustration with our government. It seems like every day the Biden administration has another order to shut down Alaska, lock up our lands, put people out of work. There are skyrocketing prices on everything from gas to food. Interest rates are at 40-year highs. Illegal immigration, which is just flooding across the southern border, is a literal invasion happening right now. A lot of people are frustrated with what is happening. The potential of a government shutdown is not going to help any of that, in my view.

But this is something that every Member of the Senate should agree on. If there is a shutdown--a lot of us are working hard to avoid that--we need an insurance policy for our military personnel. The brave men and women who are serving on the frontlines right now, at home and abroad--dangerous work to keep us safe--they need nothing less than the unwavering support of the U.S. Senate. For the men and women who protect us, often at great personal sacrifice, the least we can do as their representatives is to ensure that they receive their hard-earned pay, regardless of the political circumstances that may unfold.

My Pay Our Military Act is not about partisan politics. It is not about ideological differences. It is about fulfilling the solemn obligation to our troops and their families, and it is about providing them the stability and peace of mind that they need to do their jobs.

Regardless of what happens here, they will continue to serve, to deploy, to train. We have seen, in the last couple of weeks, that training can also be very dangerous. We had some marines recently killed down in Australia in an Osprey accident. The last thing these men and women need to worry about is whether or not they are going to get a paycheck next week, whether or not they are going to be able to support their families next week in the event there is a government shutdown.

I want to emphasize again that I hope this bill is unnecessary, but the fact remains that this certainly could happen, a government shutdown, and, if it does, we need to pay our military right now.

There is precedent--very strong precedent--on this very bill, this commonsense bill that has historically received the strong support from both sides of the aisle and in both Houses.

Let me be specific. Facing an imminent government shutdown in 2013, which ended up lasting 16 days, this bill, the Pay Our Military Act, was passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and unanimously by the U.S. House and signed by the President. Congress recognized then the importance of uninterrupted military pay for our military members and their families.

The political makeup, actually, was the same. You had a Democrat in the White House. You had a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a Republican-controlled House. So it is simple.

While I urge my colleagues to put aside their differences and come together in a spirit of unity to support this bill, I am a little concerned. My colleague and friend Senator Cruz and I came down to the floor last week to pass another related bill. This would have guaranteed Coast Guard members got paid in a government shutdown. We did that because, in 2019, the only branch of the military services that didn't get paid when there was a government shutdown was the Coast Guard. Everybody else got paid. The Coast Guard didn't. Senator Cruz and I came down here last week and said: Hey, in the event of a shutdown, we have to make sure the Coast Guard gets paid.

Well, it was blocked. It was blocked. I still don't know what my colleague from Washington State was talking about when she blocked it-- something about, well, the authority of the Appropriations Committee. What? Nobody cares about that. Do you support our troops or not?

This bill is even more simple. Our bill, the Pay Our Military Act, covers all branches, including the Coast Guard and civilians that the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security believe are necessary also to pay. Again, I hope that, like in 2013, this is going to pass unanimously.

As I mentioned, last week, my colleague from Washington State objected to the Pay Our Coast Guard bill. It was confounding, particularly because she was a cosponsor of the exact same bill in 2019. As a matter of fact, here is what she wrote in 2019, when there was a government shutdown and we were trying to pay the Coast Guard:

It's absolutely unacceptable--

This is the Senator from Washington State--

that our Coast Guard families went without their paychecks

during the shutdown. We need to make sure President Trump

doesn't put them through this again.

Whoa. That was the Senator from Washington State during the last shutdown. I wish she would have said that last week.

So I am very hopeful that what happened in 2013--the Senate and the House unanimously came together when there was an imminent shutdown and said: Hey, we might not be able to figure out how to keep the government open, but here is one darn thing we are going to do; we are going to pay our military. I sure hope that we can do that again, and I sure hope people who want to try to use the military as political pawns leading up to a shutdown are not going to be tempted to object to this bipartisan, much needed bill that 10 years ago had the support of everyone.

I yield to my colleague from Texas.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2835 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, as my colleague Senator Cruz just mentioned, every member of the military just heard ``I object,'' and the Senator from Washington State just said, ``Let's be real.'' ``Let's be real.'' There is nothing more real than putting your life on the line for the country you love and nothing more important than defending those who defend us. Let's be real. I am having a hard time with ``Let's be real.''

What she just mentioned had nothing to do with the bill. Again, 10 years ago, when there was an imminent shutdown just like there is today, which I certainly don't want, the Senate and House and White House came together and said: All right. We know there is a risk, but there are some special people who serve in our government--and, mind you, very special people--who deserve to be taken care of; that is, the men and women and their families who are serving right now overseas, all over the country, protecting Americans.

It is an outrage. It is an outrage to utter those two words: ``I object.'' It is an outrage. And if it happens next week, as Senator Cruz mentioned that there are young men and women around the world protecting us without getting paid and having to worry where they are going to buy or how they are going to buy groceries, I hope they remember the Senator from Washington State's two words: ``I object.'' That was good, old-fashioned hostage-taking, making a marine lance corporal all of a sudden subject to the political whims of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It didn't happen in 2013.

I have no idea, truthfully--no idea--why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would not support this Pay Our Military bill.

I am going to keep coming down here all week to get this passed, and hopefully they will have a change of heart.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am on the floor again with my colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, trying once again to pass our Pay Our Military Act.

I am not going to spend a lot of time explaining what we are trying to do here since 48 hours ago we tried to do the same thing. We are, in our conference, right now trying to get to a compromise, working through things to make sure we don't have a government shutdown. It may or may not happen. It is looking more likely, though.

As we get closer to that moment, the idea that we would leave the men and women who protect this country uncertain about whether they are going to get paid even though they are still going to deploy, they are still going to be fighting all over the world, protecting this Nation-- so we are going to leave them out hanging, right?

So all we are trying to do is the most commonsense thing you could do if you cared one bit about the troops of the United States, and that is to say: Hey, we know you are worried. We know you are probably deployed. We know your wife or spouse is back home worried about whether you are going to get paid next week. You have a dangerous mission you are going on tonight somewhere in the world. So we are going to take that worry away from you because we care about you.

Now, granted, my colleagues might say: Well, what about the IRS worker? What about the Department of the Interior worker?

No offense--there is a little bit of a difference, OK. There is a little bit of a difference. We all know it. We should know it.

So as we get closer, this is the bipartisan solution that we all need to undertake.

Here is the thing: As I said last week, when we had the identical situation in 2013, 10 years ago--identical: a Democrat-controlled Senate, a Republican-controlled House, a Democrat-controlled White House--it was looking like there was going to be a shutdown. What did everybody unanimously agree to? Hey, let's take the troops out of this. Let's make sure the men and women who serve in our military are not worried. Let's unanimously pass the Pay Our Military Act.

So, 10 years ago, we did that. I wasn't here, but I applaud everybody who did that. Simple. Identical. Identical. So what has changed? I have no idea what has changed.

It looks like my Democratic colleague is going to come down and object and make some gobbledygook argument about appropriations or ``Let's keep trying.'' The government is going to shut down tomorrow evening. We are going to keep trying. But let's take one group of Americans and say: Hey, we know you sacrifice more than anybody. We are going to take that worry away from you. We did it 10 years ago in a bipartisan way, so we are going to do it again.

The Presiding Officer knows. I guarantee you the Presiding Officer agrees with this bill, as a veteran of almost 30 years, a naval aviator. The Presiding Officer knows what it is like.

There are guys on aircraft carriers right now and women on aircraft carriers flying F-18s, and their spouses back home are going: Hey, honey, guess what. I don't think I am going to have money to buy groceries next week.

That guy is getting ready to take off on some carrier in the INDOPACOM region, and he has to worry about that? He has to worry about that? She has to worry about that?

We can fix that right now--right now. We have done it before, and I can't imagine my Democratic colleagues are going to come up and object to this bill. I am starting to get mad. We don't want a government shutdown, but we can protect certain people, for goodness' sake. If we are not going to protect our troops and their families, I don't know whom we should protect.

So maybe my colleagues are on the floor getting ready to say: You know what, gee, Senator Sullivan, Senator Cruz, we relent. These are good ideas. And you know why we know these are good ideas? Because we all did this 10 years ago.

I have no idea why we didn't do it now.

I yield the floor and recognize my colleague from Texas.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations be discharged from further consideration of S. 2835 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I am going to try to keep this short because the issues that we are debating here are not that complicated.

I agree with my colleague from Washington State. We are working around the clock. We are in our conference right now trying to get an amendment to bolster border security, that the whole country, by the way, wants--Democrats, Republicans--the whole country wants that. So we are working around the clock too.

And my colleague did misstate something. I actually voted to get on this bill. I voted to get on this bill. So her statement about my vote, she needs to check my vote the other day.

But be that as it may, once again, she says there is only one serious solution. Well, this body has done this before. The Senator from Washington State has done this before. On the eve of a shutdown in 2013, the Senator from Washington State voted for this bill. Every Senator voted for this bill.

So when she keeps saying, ``Let's get real,'' I agree, let's get real. Go look at your vote from 2013. You voted for this on the eve of a shutdown.

I will remind my colleague from Washington State, in 2019, when there was a partial government shutdown, focused on the Coast Guard which wasn't getting paid and the Democrats blocked my bill to pay the Coast Guard, she actually stated:

It is absolutely unacceptable that our Coast Guard families

went without their paychecks during the shutdown. We need to

make sure President Trump doesn't put them through this

again.

Well, I am going to put the Senator from Washington State's words back at her: It is absolutely unacceptable that Coast Guard and other family members went without paychecks during the shutdown. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again. So vote for our bill.

Every time they object, the arguments of why they are objecting to something they already agreed to 10 years ago get more tangled up. We are all working to avoid a shutdown, but if it doesn't happen, let's make sure the men and women who are risking their lives for our country and their families know that they are going to get paid. That is all we are asking. That is all we are asking.

And everybody in this body 10 years ago did this, including the Senator from Washington State. And it is just beyond comprehension that they are coming up with arguments now to not do this.

This isn't about politics. This is about supporting our troops at the moment they really need it. And they are not doing it.

I yield the floor to my colleague from Texas.

Madam President, I am standing here at the desk next to the desk of our fallen colleague, Senator Dianne Feinstein. It seems enormously strange that instead of being able to sit here and have her next to me, her desk is covered with a black cloth and a crystal bowl of white roses.

We come from the west coast where our States sit side by side, so perhaps it was fitting that we sat side by side here on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

One thing, in particular, that Senator Feinstein liked to do was share with me pictures of her dog Kirby, whom she absolutely loved. And she had a lot of pictures on her phone to show Kirby in different moments of delight. And I must say, for me, this was kind of a powerful, personal connection because I enjoyed showing her pictures of my dogs, Roxy and Lila, whom I love dearly.

So even as we work on the great issues of international affairs or the

big challenges of America, sometimes it is just the personal connections, simple connections in life that can bond people to each other.

Very few people's lives are as full of as much history and consequence as Senator Dianne Feinstein's: the first woman to serve as mayor of San Francisco; the first woman to serve as a Senator from California; the longest serving Senator not only from California, the longest serving woman in the Senate ever at just over 30 years.

In 2009, during my first year in the Senate, she made a point to invite me as a freshman Senator to meet her friend the Dalai Lama. I had a chance to previously meet the Dalai Lama when I was head of the World Affairs Council in Oregon, and I had invited him to speak to the people of Oregon. But this was in a different context of the connection, the foreign relations, in which we were striving to elevate concerns about the treatment of the Tibetan people. She was a passionate supporter of Tibetan people.

She had met him 30 years before in India. She had welcomed him on his first visit to the United States, as the mayor of San Francisco. She never let up on the importance of that challenge and her concerns about the mistreatment of the Tibetan people.

In fact, I also had the opportunity to work with her on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which strived to shine a light on many human rights issues, but one of which, certainly, was defending the Tibetan people's human rights and culture from the repression of the Chinese Government.

She was also a powerful partner as we worked together to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act here on the Senate floor, which we did in 2013, and then to strive to elevate the Equality Act, the gold standard for ending discrimination against our LGBTQ community--an act that we have not yet passed on this Senate floor but absolutely should. I hope someday we will have the votes to do that.

She just believed that nobody should face discrimination, everybody should have an equal opportunity to thrive here in the United States of America.

We also served together for many years on the Appropriations Committee and the Rules Committee. She was a persistent voice in this last couple of years, time and time again, calling for better pay for our Federal wildland firefighters. Now, that particular issue is so essential because of the fires we are facing in the West, and no one raised it as often or as passionately as she did. As a result, we won that pay raise. I know that she would be insisting, if she was here today, to make sure that pay raise is sustained in any continuing resolution that we might pass in the next couple of days.

She knew how essential that was out West, that we have wildland firefighters who can work year-round and be paid decently so we are actually there on the job.

I was proud to cosponsor her legislation this year, the West Coast Ocean Protection Act, to prohibit the exploration, development, and production of oil off the west coast, a mutual concern of those of the west coast that our coast and our multiple fisheries--our crabbing, our whiting, our shrimp, our salmon, our groundfish--are not damaged by oil, that our shoreline is not damaged by oil.

It was essential, she felt, that we preserve the health of our oceans against the potential damage of drilling off the coast. In fact, she was a strong voice in this modern conversation about climate change. She understood climate chaos and how the changing temperatures are affecting us in so many different ways.

At one point when we were serving on the Appropriations Committee together, I had a simple amendment that supported our international obligation to help fund an intergovernmental panel on climate change, and we had a deal between legislators on both sides of the aisle that we would simply hold a voice vote because legislators across the aisle felt it should be passed. But they knew anything that related to climate was so controversial, and they didn't want to bring that controversy into the discussion about honoring a treaty obligation. So the agreement was to pass it by voice vote.

When I proposed the amendment, Senator Dianne Feinstein spoke up--I hadn't filled her in on the background--and she said: This issue is about climate. It is so important we should hold a recorded vote.

I probably went a little bit pale because I wasn't sure that, as a recorded vote, we could vote to honor our international agreement. But, fortunately, and just by a single vote, we did. It worked out. But it just shows her commitment to having a public discussion, public votes, public accountability to take on this incredibly significant challenge that we have faced with the changing climate.

Senator Feinstein helped open the doors of the Senate to so many other women legislators. She took weapons off the street. She believed torture was un-American and unacceptable, and those who are responsible must be held accountable.

She raised vehicle emissions standards and protected so many of California's and America's beautiful outdoor spaces for future generations, including the interest she had in protecting Lake Tahoe.

Yesterday, Senator Feinstein, who did so much to open this government to so many, cast her final vote in the U.S. Senate. It was a vote to keep this government open, keep the American Government serving the American people.

She lived an exceptional life--a life dedicated to public service. She has left behind an enormous public legacy--a legacy of tenacity, a legacy of and willingness to build bridges across the aisle to solve problems. I hope that many of us can just hope to do as well.

My thoughts are with her daughter Katherine and her granddaughter Eileen. It was an honor and privilege to serve with Senator Dianne Feinstein here in the U.S. Senate.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.