Shutdown Fairness Act

Mr. President, I am sure that those who are following the opening remarks of the Senate today can sense the frustration, bordering on anger, with the current situation, the current status quo. It is shared on both sides of the aisle.

I have had the good fortune of serving in the House of Representatives and the Senate, representing parts of Illinois and then the entire State, for a big part of my life. I have watched these institutions, the House and the Senate, face frustrating, disappointing, challenging situations. I have found that the rule of thumb is, basically, if reasonable people will sit down to the table and put the items on the table and say, ``Let's see if we can find common ground,'' it usually works. It could work here too. We could reopen this government by the end of the day. I believe it. It is going to be even more difficult because the House of Representatives is not in session. I believe it has now been 3 weeks--maybe even 4 weeks--that they have been out of session. They need to be here, doing their job, helping to work to find a solution to this frustrating situation.

What exactly is behind the shutdown of this Federal Government?

Let me tell you. It is a serious issue that affects virtually every American.

Do you have health insurance?

I do. Most of us do.

Is it expensive? Yes.

Do you still need it? God, yes.

Without it, it would be even worse. With one automobile accident, one broken bone, one serious diagnosis, you could wipe out the savings of most American families. That is the reality. So health insurance is critical. People need it.

Do you know what is going to happen soon? I am sorry to say we are going to see a dramatic increase in health insurance premiums.

There was a debate here several months ago on what the President called his big, beautiful budget. The big, beautiful budget did many things, but in addition to some spending decisions, it made the decision that we were going to give a tax break to the wealthiest people in America, people like Elon Musk. His tax break, if I remember correctly--I don't have it written down here--was $230,000 a year. I would say that is a lot of money for most Americans. Mr. Musk, though, is so rich--a multibillionaire--he probably wouldn't even notice it.

But the $230,000 tax break for the wealthiest Americans meant that other programs needed to be cut. One of the programs that President Trump and the Republicans in Congress decided to cut--one was Medicaid.

Medicaid is a pretty universal program that affects millions of Americans and the services that they receive from clinics, from hospitals, even living in nursing homes. Medicaid is an important part.

The Republicans, in order to provide the money for tax cuts for people like Elon Musk, needed to cut $1 trillion out of Medicaid over the next 10 years.

What does it mean in my State? Well, we worry. Will rural hospitals or inner-city hospitals survive if Medicaid is cut? Will the nursing home people be able to stay in the nursing homes? Those are important and critical questions.

The second part of the decision by the Republicans in the big, beautiful budget to provide a tax break for the wealthy was basically to eliminate the tax subsidy that is available for middle-income families under the Affordable Care Act.

What does that mean? Well, for some people, they are going to see the results in the mail in just a matter of days. The target date in Illinois, which I represent, is October 27. Watch for the mail then because on October 27, you will receive a notice about what is going to happen to your health insurance premiums January 1. They are going to go up an average of 114 percent. So take a look at what you are now paying for health insurance and anticipate that it is going to go up. How much? I am not sure, but it could easily double.

For a lot of families who are struggling to survive, that is going to become a difficult challenge. How are we going to pay this premium? These are the same families who come back from the grocery store every Saturday and Sunday and say: I can't believe what has happened to the price of beef. I can't believe what has happened to the price of produce.

Across the board, people see the cost of living going up. And now an essential service--health insurance premiums--we are going to see this dramatic increase.

It is this increase that is going to affect millions of Americans-- over 20 million Americans--that is at the heart of this decision about whether this government is going to reopen.

We have said to the Republicans that we believe the American families need a helping hand and need it now--not something we talk about later but now--so that we can do something to stop these premiums from going up dramatically.

You know what is going to happen. When the premiums go up, some families will say: No problem. Making plenty of money. Hate it, but we can pay it.

Other families are going to say: How in the world are we going to do this? We are going to have to get a health insurance policy which has more copays and deductibles that are paid by us for virtually everything. So we are going to pay through the course of next year for this increase in premiums anyway.

Some will walk away and say: I just can't afford it. Can't make ends meet. Can't pay utility bills. Electric bills are going up and other things that we face, and this health insurance premium too. We are just going to have to drop the insurance and hope for the best.

I am sorry for those people because it not only means that they are facing risks in life without the protection of health insurance--we know statistically that when you don't have health insurance or any basic health insurance, that you forgo treatment and examinations. That is not good, it is not healthy, and it doesn't lead to a good result.

Is that an important issue for your family? I bet it is. It is an important issue for every single family.

That is what is at the heart of this government shutdown--the need for Republicans and Democrats to sit at the table and say: How can we spare American families from this premium increase that they are going to face inevitably--millions are going to face--with bad consequences?

Can we do it? Of course, we can. People of good will can reach a conclusion that they are going to find a way to compromise and see this issue come to an end. We need to do it now--not next week, not the week following, but now. There is too much hardship going on with this government shutdown, and it should not continue.

So my appeal is to the President: Delay your trip overseas.

My appeal to the Republicans in the House: Come back home--I shouldn't say ``home''--come back to Washington. Leave your home, come back to Washington, and go to work with us on a bipartisan basis.

Is that what America wants? You bet it is. To address this issue of health insurance premiums--do it on a bipartisan basis, and end this government shutdown. We can do it today.

There is a lot of furniture in this Capitol--I have seen it over the years--and there are a lot of tables. There are many tables big enough for the leaders in Congress and the President to sit down and reach an agreement. That sitdown ought to happen sooner rather than later.

Illinois

Mr. President, on another issue unrelated, last Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to green-light the deployment of National Guard troops in my home State of Illinois after the lower courts had temporarily blocked the deployment. In her decision, District Court Judge April Perry said the Trump administration has produced ``no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion'' in Illinois. Rather, Judge Perry found that ``the unnecessary deployment of military troops, untrained for local policing, will escalate tensions and undermine the ordinary law enforcement activities of state and local entities.''

Three judges on the Seventh Circuit Appeals Court, including one appointed by President Bush and another appointed by President Trump, considered that decision by the lower court and agreed with Judge Perry. They found that ``the facts do not justify the President's actions in Illinois. . . . Political opposition is not rebellion.'' That panel is right.

Last Saturday, I was part of the No Kings demonstration. We estimate there were 100,000 people in Grant Park at the Petrillo band shell. It was nonviolent. It was orderly. Oh, they were loud once in a while, but no one was involved in any sort of rebellion. They were exercising their constitutional right to express their opinion about the policies of this government.

I have been honored to represent the great State of Illinois for over 40 years in the Senate and the House. And, yes, like every State, Illinois has its challenges, such as addressing crime. But for the last two decades, the murder rate in Illinois has been lower than murder rates in Republican-led States like Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama. Violent crime is down dramatically in the city of Chicago.

We should work together to build on this success and reduce the crime rate even more. But the President's actions in sending in National Guard troops even from the State of Texas to Illinois is not about public safety; it is about politics. His unjustified and unlawful attempts to deploy troops to Chicago and other American cities are a threat to our basic democratic institutions.

The Supreme Court should reject the President's petition to use these troops in America. There is no emergency that justifies bypassing the regular appeals process and resolving this issue on the Court's shadow docket without the full public scrutiny this issue deserves.

Just last week, I received a heartbreaking message from one of my constituents, PO2 Jessica Wendlandt--a hard-working provider at Lake County Health Department in Waukegan, IL. In her letter, Officer Wendlandt mentioned that some of her patients have stopped showing up for their appointments because ICE officers are camping out in front of the facility.

Picture it, if you will: People, families, taking their children in for a doctor's appointment--afraid to go, leave their car, and walk the short distance to the clinic because ICE officials, in their combat uniforms and masks, in unmarked vehicles, were lurking outside the clinic.

She said in what she wrote to me:

My patients have not been able to come to their medical

appointments out of fear of being taken.

These raids are impacting the ability of medical providers to provide basic family treatment.

Jessica also mentioned that she was treating a mother at the health center when the mother ``received several phone calls and messages that ICE [agents] had raided the apartment buildings right behind the facility.'' The patient was so distraught and in tears that treatment could not be completed that day because she needed to rush home to her other children.

Imagine for a moment the fear that a mother must have felt receiving a call from her kids, scared and screaming that masked men are trying to break into their home. Is this America? Can you imagine the confusion and fear those children must have felt seeing those men at their door, wondering who they were and if they were there to help them or hurt them.

It is not just at health centers in Illinois; ICE is camping out in front of city halls, schools, churches, regularly

outside of Home Depot, where they detained a father who was the sole provider for his two children, including a daughter with stage IV cancer.

Do you remember what led us into this situation? You heard it over and over at President Trump's rallies. Rapists, terrorists, murderers, the criminally insane, sexual predators were coming across our border.

Let me tell you, I will sign up with the President. We don't want those people coming into this country. And if they commit a crime while they are here, they should be gone, period.

Now let's talk about the others, the 11 million who have been in America working jobs, raising families, going to church, paying their taxes. They are the ones they are targeting. Seventy percent of the people who have been stopped by ICE in the State of Illinois--70 percent of them have no criminal record whatsoever. They are not rapists and murderers and terrorists. They are people who overstayed a visa. And they may be American citizens. The ICE officers obviously don't distinguish any difference there.

When will my colleagues on the other side of the aisle decide that the cruelty and fear tactics of this administration must stop? This is America. When will they choose to put an end to the racial profiling which is going on and the detention of even American citizens, including veterans of children?

This is all supposed to be about violent crime? It is not. Enough. If this was actually about reducing crime, President Trump would not be slashing programs that actually help local law enforcement. This cruelty is all for show.

While Americans continue to pay inflated prices at the grocery store and face the prospect of skyrocketing healthcare premiums, this is what the President is focused on: tearing families apart and separating kids from their parents.

Our country is better than this. It is better than this cruelty and lawlessness. Now is the time for us to stand up for the rule of law and our Constitution.

President Trump's claims of ``invasions,'' ``rebellions,'' or ``emergencies'' to justify calling the military into American cities are shameless attempts to bypass our constitutional checks and balances.

It was the Republican Governor of Oklahoma who said last week that if Governor Pritzker of Illinois tried to send his National Guard troops to Oklahoma, the people of Oklahoma and that Governor, a Republican Governor, would resist it. But that is exactly what is happening in my home State of Illinois. This President, without invitation, is sending National Guard troops in from Texas.

The Supreme Court should stand up to this administration's attempt to cut both Congress and the courts out of decisions squarely given to them by the Constitution.

Political opposition, peaceful protests, and nonviolent civil disobedience are not rebellion; they are the bedrock of our democracy.

Local law enforcement officials have proven they are capable, in Illinois and most places, of handling any unlawful or unruly behavior.

Illinois State Attorney General Kwame Raoul explained to the court:

No protest activity in Illinois has rendered the president

unable to execute federal law.

If the Supreme Court enables President Trump to deploy troops to American cities over the objection of State officials before the courts rule on the legality of the actions, I fear it is going to cause lasting harm to America.

I ask my Republican colleagues: Are you really prepared in your home State for the next President after President Trump to send in troops to your State without permission, without the consent of your government? Are you ready for masked soldiers to grab your constituents from their homes?

My constituents elected me to represent them in this fight. I implore you to do right by your constituents and push back against the President's illegal power grab before your State is the next victim.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think it is time that instead of closing the government down further, we begin to open up government.

What I will offer is legislation that instead of closing government down further, begins to pay those who are working. It pays our soldiers, pays our air traffic controllers, pays everyone who is showing up for work. I think this should become a permanent feature of our government.

I think it is disruptive, I think it is unfair, and I think it is wrong that we don't pay the workers that show up. A better way than isolating different groups and punishing different groups is actually to pay those who are working. I think, if we do this, pass this legislation, this would never be a problem again.

We are going to run into disagreements in the future. We are going to have times when the government shuts down. There is no reason we shouldn't be paying our government workers.

I ask the Senator to modify his request, so, instead, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 191, S. 3012; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I think it is actually not clear at all that the President wouldn't sign a bill to continue paying Federal workers. I think it is actually a universal sentiment among both parties and among the American people, particularly among the soldiers, that we ought to continue to pay the soldiers and continue to pay the workers.

I am, perhaps, the most conservative Member of the Senate. I vote to cut spending on everything--I think we spend way too much--but I am not for cutting the salaries of people who have a contract and who are doing their work. Now, I probably would not hire new people, and I would probably let the Federal Government shrink gradually through attrition because I think we need to be smaller, but if you work for the government and you are doing your job and you have a contract, I think you ought to be paid.

So I don't think it is clear that the President wouldn't support this. I think it is actually quite confusing that this is being objected to by the Democrats, and I think, actually, it would be nice to let the Democrats, you know, have a round at this and explain to us why they don't want to pay the air traffic controllers.

Look, we can have a dispute over spending. I think the Republican proposal spends too much, and I think the Democrat proposal spends too much, but I think we ought to pay the workers while we are working out the debate over what the spending level ought to be.

I think it is actually an untenable position of Democrats to come before

this body and say: Oh, we want to give subsidies to people who make $225,000 a year. That is what they are arguing for. The ObamaCare subsidies are not the basic subsidies. These are add-on subsidies that started 2 years ago. If you make $100,000 a year, the Democrats want to give you $13,000. Meanwhile, people who make $20,000 and are on food stamps are not going to get food stamps, but somebody making $100,000 is going to get $13,000. That doesn't sound like the Democrats are for the working class or for the poor. It sounds like the Democrats are for the people making $200,000 a year to get a subsidy.

But in the midst of all this, with pressure, I think the Democrats could be made to understand and support paying the government workers. I mean, I just think it is something eminently reasonable, and I think it is something very passable. I don't see the President objecting to this. I think the President would sign this in a heartbeat.

So I object.

Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I think the answer is to pay more people and not fewer people and to try to get through shutdowns without having people go without pay who are doing their jobs.

Now, the proposal was made, and I just simply made a proposal that would pay everybody. So the Senator from Louisiana has objected to paying everyone, and I don't quite understand this. We could pay everyone. We could have paid everyone had he agreed to my motion. My motion was to pay everyone--to pay the soldiers; to pay the air traffic controllers; to pay the staff; to pay everybody who is working. Yet there was an objection. So I don't understand what is going on here.

Should the emphasis be to pay fewer people or more people? Why would we try to punish certain groups of people instead of paying all of the people who are working? Why would we not do that?

So I don't understand the process we have gone through here. We just had a chance to pay all of the people. We had a chance to pay the air traffic controllers; we had a chance to pay the soldiers; we had a chance to pay all of the government workers--and then there was an objection. So I don't understand what we are going through here.

I, for one, believe that the workers should be paid. I, for one, believe that we should fix this permanently. The bill that I have presented is not just to pay them one time; it is to pay all workers all the time who are under contract and who show up for work whether there is a shutdown or not. It is a permanent payday for those who do their jobs. That was the fix. It is not a niche bill. It is not to punish one group or the other group. It is to say, if you are working and there is a disagreement on the spending levels, that all workers are paid. I don't understand the objection, and I will continue to support paying all the workers all the time they are at work whether there is a shutdown or not.

I object.

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

Mr. President, for decades, the globalists in Washington have led our country into one disastrous foreign war after another. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now potentially Venezuela, the formula is always the same: Proclaim that the regime of the targeted country poses such a threat to the American way of life that the only thing we can do is go to war. Tell them that our intervention is a noble effort, one that would bring security at home and liberty to foreign lands. Topple the government and declare a new age of freedom. The warmongers have recycled these experiments in regime change again and again. And what has it brought? Instability, chaos, suffering, and resentment.

It is the height of arrogance to think we can forcibly remove the dictatorship in Venezuela and expect a different result. We should learn from history. Liberty cannot be imposed at the point of a foreign bad act. The United States maintains the most formidable military in human history. Of course, we have the capability of overthrowing the Maduro regime, just like we had the power to overthrow Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi.

But what comes next? Is anyone thinking about the potential blowback that such a campaign could entail? Overthrowing the Maduro regime risks creating more regional instability, not less. The breakdown of state authority may create a power vacuum that the very drug cartels the administration is ostensibly trying to destroy could exploit.

Just as our misguided interventions in the Middle East led to the proliferation of terrorist organizations, this could happen in Venezuela, but this time with the proliferation of organized crime. We could swell the ranks of the cartels with new recruits. Remember what happened in Iraq, the de-Baathification of Iraq. Removing all of the previous government soldiers, they had no place to go. They were used to being paid, they wanted money, and they went and worked and became terrorists.

Where do you think the tens of thousands of Venezuelan soldiers and desperate civilians will turn when their livelihood suddenly disappears? It may be the drug cartels. In its hubris, Washington may very well empower the cartels and make the drug problem in our hemisphere worse. Certainly, any war will exacerbate the already precarious humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and lead to mass migration into neighboring countries already struggling under the strain of millions of refugees. And rest assured, many of those who flee the disaster of the war that will come will make their way to the United States.

Most consequentially, any military operation comes with the risk that American servicemembers will be killed or wounded. We owe it to our servicemembers to only send them into harm's way when vital American interests are at stake. Who is in charge of Venezuela does not constitute such an interest.

We have seen chaos emerge from our misguided wars before. We overthrew Saddam Hussein thinking Iraq will be transformed into this great Jeffersonian democracy. Instead, what occurred was an insurgency that led to some of the most brutal sectarian violence in living memory. Washington's foolish invasion empowered radical jihadists and ultimately led to the rise of ISIS, which posed a much greater threat to Americans than Saddam Hussein ever did.

A similar story unfolded in Libya. In 2011, our forces aided the rebels to oust Muammar Qadhafi. The result was a brutal 6-year war that saw the proliferation of jihadist groups and widespread human rights violations, including the resurgence of slavery. Weapons were spread throughout Africa. Our intervention helped spur mass migration into Europe and contributed to widespread instability across Africa as weapons flowed from Libya into the Sahel and Sub-Sahara, where they continued to fuel conflicts and terrorism to this day.

Libya is still highly unstable, and the conflict constantly threatens to reignite. Like Saddam and Qadhafi, Maduro is unmistakably a dictator. He

is a bad guy. He suppresses freedom of speech. He controls his people. There is no free voting. He treats people poorly, and that is an understatement.

But there are a lot of bad guys in the world. There are a lot of dictators. There is a lot of socialism leading to starvation. It doesn't mean that the United States should carelessly risk its blood and treasure to go and topple every one of them. As we have seen all too well in recent decades, foreign military interventions often end up making things worse. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Imagine the anarchy that followed our wars in the Middle East. Do we really want to risk creating similar conditions in our own backyard? With over 10,000 U.S. troops, 8 warships, a Virginia-class submarine, and dozens of F-35s already in the Caribbean, the USS Gerald Ford strike group surging toward the region, the stage for folly is set. We are told that only drug dealers are the target of U.S. operations, but the consolidation of the largest U.S. force in the Caribbean in 35 years suggests that regime change may very well be the intended goal.

The use of lethal force and our massive military buildup is an invitation to retaliation. Attacked countries often attack back. It is our soldiers in the field of battle--not the Senators on this floor-- who will bear the brunt of the retaliation. By then, the time for debate will have passed. The Senate will have once again excused itself from the responsibility of governing, and the United States will once again be at war.

Those who argue that small boats in the Caribbean are so dangerous that they warrant being blown out of the water must explain why, when some of the individuals happen to survive, they are not detained. The drugs are not scooped up and tested. The survivors are simply sent back to their country of origin. Wouldn't we ask whom they work for? Wouldn't we detain them? Wouldn't we present evidence to a court and say what should be done with these survivors? We summarily shoot them when we don't know who they are. But once we pick them up, we don't summarily kill them. We don't even try them.

The United States has now repatriated two survivors to Colombia and Ecuador. If, as we are told, these groups constitute a threat to our security equal to al-Qaida, that they are somehow narcoterrorists, then why are we allowing these individuals to go home? The truth is that these arguments are nonsensical. Drug traffickers aren't equivalent to al-Qaida, and the executive branch does not have the authority to kill at will anyone, anywhere, at any time, for any reason.

Repatriating survivors of the strikes suggest that the administration's lawyers are not so confident that their arguments about article II authority will survive legal scrutiny--or perhaps they are not confident that they could even bring drug convictions in a court.

In addition to the strategic malpractice of pursuing regime change in Venezuela, there is also the inconvenient fact that the President simply does not have the authority to unilaterally launch wars. The Founders had the foresight to recognize that the executive branch is the branch most prone to war, and they therefore made it clear in the Constitution that Congress maintains the exclusive power to declare war.

Part of President Trump's broad appeal was his strong contempt for the neocons on the right and the liberal internationalists on the left who never met a war they didn't want someone else's children to fight. He rightfully criticized those in Washington who supported nation- building fantasies throughout the Middle East; yet now certain individuals within the administration seek to lead the President astray.

I would advise President Trump to remember the wise words of his inaugural address, when President Trump said:

[W]e will measure our success by the wars we never get

into.

President Trump, do not allow the warmongers in Washington to drag you into an unnecessary war of choice. Washington has spent decades, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives trying to remake other countries in our image. The American people are sick and tired of their elected representatives in Congress standing idly by saying: Nothing to see here; the President can do whatever he wants, while their sons and daughters are sent to fight wars in distant lands.

As the administration authorizes covert CIA action in Venezuela and surges U.S. forces to the region, including our most advanced aircraft carrier, the risk of imminent involvement in hostilities is evident.

It is time that the first branch of government puts America first. The majority party of this institution should stand by the principles of restraint as espoused by President Trump's promise to the American people. Honor and statesmanship should prevent the Senate from sitting idly by while elements within his administration blunder America into another foreign war. The American soldiers, their families, and the American people deserve a debate and a vote before we send our Armed Forces into war.

If you agree that our soldiers and their families deserve at least this much, vote yes on this resolution.

Mr. President, this weekend, I watched, probably like you, a number of folks go on television and confidently predict that we were going to be out of the shutdown. Some said as early as Wednesday. One confidently predicted Thursday. A couple more said Friday. So when I came back on Monday, I was pretty sanguine about things.

It gives me no joy to say this, but I was wrong. I don't know. As bad as this multiple-vehicle pileup looks from the outside, you ought to see it from the inside. I know you know what I am talking about, Mr. President. The Republicans have voted 14 times to come out of the shutdown. My Democrat friends have voted 14 times to stay shut down. I think it is going to be like that for a while.

I used to have a beagle. I loved him to death. His name was Roger. He was a rascal. Roger would run off. He was a rabbit dog that we picked up as a stray. Roger would run off for 3 days and scare me to death. I was afraid he was going to die. After 3 days, he would come staggering back home, and he always had roadkill in his mouth. He would hide that roadkill under my back porch. Where we are now, in negotiating out of the shutdown, looks like something Roger used to hide under my back porch.

We are supposed to have a vote tomorrow. We don't know what we are voting on, but we have been promised we are going to have a vote. I hope we do. And I hope we are wrong, and I hope we come out of this shutdown very soon. But I am not going to lie to the

American people. I think we are going to be in it for a while.

Now, as everyone knows, folks aren't being paid while we are in a shutdown. Our air traffic controllers are not being paid. In fact, starting tomorrow, the airlines are going to be canceling flights. Our staffs are not being paid. Federal employees are not being paid. These young men and women here, our pages, are not being paid. Our military is only being partially paid.

I am confused about SNAP payments. Some say the payments are being made; some say they aren't. I don't know who is telling the truth. But I do know this: I don't think anybody wants to see anybody hungry in America.

The only people that I can ascertain who are being paid are Members of Congress. I am not being paid. I said I wasn't going to take a salary during the shutdown. Some of my colleagues are, and I am not judging anybody. My purpose is not to judge anybody. I am just saying that it is time that Congress set an example.

I have two bills I am going to offer up today. The first one is called the No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act. This just says that while we are in a shutdown, Members of Congress don't get paid and they don't get backpay.

The second bill is entitled Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act. That bill says that while we are in a shutdown, Members of Congress don't get paid, but they will get paid. They will get their money in arrears after we open the government back up.

I am rather fond of the Constitution, as most people are. I am well aware of the 27th amendment which says:

No law, varying the compensation for the service of the

Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an

election of Representatives shall have intervened.

What that means, of course, is you can't change the pay for a Congressman until after you have had an election.

I think my bills are constitutional for two reasons. No. 1, we are not changing the rate of compensation. We are just saying: You are in a shutdown; you are not going to get your money.

No. 2, there is precedent for this. Back in 2013, President Obama had Congress pass the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013. President Obama's bill said: Look, Congress is about to go into a shutdown. Fine, have at it. Knock yourselves out. Go into a shutdown. But if you don't come out of that shutdown by this particular date, you are not going to get paid.

And do you know what? Members of Congress had an epiphany. They had a Damascene moment. They were born again. They got out of the shutdown in time to be paid.

I am not trying to put down anybody. I am not trying to condemn folks who have been taking their salary. I am not saying they don't earn every bit of it. But I am saying what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I want to offer up these two bills for the Members' consideration, starting with my first bill, which would say Members of Congress can't be paid and don't get backpay even after we end the shutdown. That is called the No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill, that bill which I just described, 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.

I will not, Mr. President.

I would like to explain why.

I understand Senator Paul is making a good point. What he is saying is, rather than saying, as I am, that nobody else is being paid so Members of Congress shouldn't be paid--I think what Senator Paul is saying is let's pay everybody. That is what I understand him to be saying. He wants me to agree to that instead of my bill.

What Senator Paul is proposing is Senator Ron Johnson's ``no shutdown'' act that we voted on several times. I am for it. I voted for it several times.

Here is the problem I have with Senator Paul's proposal, pulling down my bill and going with Senator Johnson's bill--several reasons. No. 1, I am interested in passing something. I am not interested in just putting on a show. My bill will pass the House of Representatives, and my bill will be signed by the President.

Senator Paul's bill, I can assure you, will not pass the House of Representatives, and President Trump will not sign it. I am not saying someone is right or somebody is wrong. President Trump does not consider Senator Paul to be part of his MAGA agenda, and he will veto it. Then we are right back to square one.

So, for that reason, I can't substitute his for mine because his is going to be as dead as fried chicken here in a few days, and mine has a chance to pass.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Now, Mr. President, I need some clarification, a parliamentary inquiry, if you will: Do I understand that Senator Paul has objected to my bill; is that correct?

And his modification, if I might ask, is to substitute his bill for mine?

OK. I have said I will not substitute his bill for mine.

Mr. President, may I ask for a clarification?

I have offered a bill to say that Congress does not get paid like everybody else who is not being paid during a shutdown. There has been a little bit of a back-and-forth.

As I understand it, Senator Paul has objected to that bill; is that correct?

To my bill to say Congress isn't paid during a shutdown; is that correct?

Mr. President, I want to bring up my second bill. It is called the Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act.

Remember, my first bill that Senator Paul objected to would have said Members of Congress don't get paid, just like our staffs don't get paid, just like air traffic controllers don't get paid, just like the military doesn't get paid. We don't get paid until the shutdown is lifted, and we don't get our money in arrears. In other words, we don't recoup our money once the shutdown is lifted. Perhaps Senator Paul will find my second bill to be more palatable to him and his pocketbook.

The Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act would say, while we are in a shutdown and everyone else is not being paid, Congress would not be paid but that Members of Congress--including Senator Paul, including me, including all Members of Congress--would have the right to get the money back, to be paid, after they are out of the shutdown. In other words, the money would be escrowed, and they would get it once we were to come out of the shutdown.

Again, there is precedent for that, and I talked about what President Obama did back in 2013. For that reason, I am going to ask unanimous consent on that one.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 3057 and that 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, a point of clarification: Has Senator Paul objected to my bill or does he want me to modify it?

Mr. President, I am not done yet. Maybe I wasn't clear. I apologize if I wasn't clear.

I support Rand's bill. It is actually Ron Johnson's bill, but I support his idea.

What I am saying is, if everybody over here isn't being paid, Members of Congress shouldn't be paid, OK? What Rand is saying--what Senator Paul is saying--is let's pay everybody, and he is absolutely right. I support that, but I am going to pass on it.

I am going to pass on it, Senator Durbin. We live in the real world, and my bill is more likely to pass the House and more likely to be signed by the President than Senator Paul's bill. I wish that weren't the case, but it is. I don't think that the House is going to pass Senator Paul's bill. I don't think it is any secret. I am not saying he is right or wrong, but President Trump does not consider Senator Paul to be part of the MAGA agenda. He said that. He has tweeted it about a skillion times.

Am I wrong, Senator Durbin?

I mean, he has tweeted it about a skillion times, and he is going to veto Senator Paul's bill because his name is on it. He is going to knock it to Uranus. He is going to knock it into a new ZIP Code.

Then what have Rand and I done? We have put on a pretty performance. I want to pass something. Now, I have tried to pass my bill preventing Members of Congress from being paid, and you can pretty it up all you want to, but Rand objected. And I am not judging him. I am not judging anybody who is taking their salary. I am not taking mine, but I am not judging anybody. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and you either think Members of Congress ought to be treated like everybody else or you don't. You either think that we are more important and smarter and more virtuous than the American people or you don't, and I think we ought to be treated the same.

Now, having said that, I said I agreed with what Senator Paul said. I am just worried his name on the bill is going to get knocked out of the park, so I am going to put it in my name. It is not Senator Paul's bill; it is Senator Ron Johnson's bill, and what Ron John's--we call him Ron John. I am sorry. He is Senator Ron Johnson from the wonderful State of Wisconsin.

What Senator Johnson has proposed--and I voted for it repeatedly-- says: Look, if you are deemed an essential employee right now, if you are working but you are not being paid, Senator Johnson's bill says we are going to pay you. I voted for that. It also says, if you are furloughed, if you are deemed to be nonessential, then you are not working, but you will get paid once we come out of this shutdown.

Does that make sense? That is what Senator Ron Johnson has proposed.

As I told my good friend Senator Paul, I agree with it. Senator Paul's name is on that bill, and it is going to be vetoed six ways to Sunday. I am going to try to put my name on the bill. Maybe it will get passed, and maybe it won't, but I think I have a better chance than Senator Paul. That is just my personal opinion. It is not meant to be personal.

For that reason, Mr. President, I will try it a third way. It is not my preferred way, but we have got to get out of this mess.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 191, S. 3012. As I have indicated, I think we have got a chance to pass it in the House, and I really don't think President Trump will veto it if I explain to him it is Senator Ron Johnson's bill. 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, look, I get it. You know, this is why we are in a shutdown.

I just proposed a bill--this was my third choice, but it was better than nothing--to say everybody gets paid, and my good friend from Washington State objected.

I don't know what else to do. I voted 14 times to open up the government.

I can't change the election. President Trump was duly elected President of the United States--he was--in a free election, and the American people spoke. Some of my colleagues are upset about that. In fact, they hate the President so much, they have shut down government. They hate him so much that, if President Trump came out in favor of breathing to live, they would hold their breath. It is not rational.

I just don't know what else to do. All I can tell my Democratic friends is: Look, reasonable people disagree, and I get it. But you are just being too emotional. You need to go drink a big ole, cold, tall glass of ``get over it'' and realize that President Trump is the President of the United States. Don't shut the government down because of it.

Mr. President, you have been really patient. Even though the Parliamentarian tried to get you to dodge my questions, you answered them straight up, and I really appreciate it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, over the past 2 months, President Trump has ordered 16 airstrikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing more than 65 people. His administration boasts that they are targeting drug-trafficking organizations. Yet Congress and the American people have received minimal information about the intelligence supporting these strikes, the legal framework governing these strikes, or the strategic objective they are meant to accomplish.

I want to be clear about something at the outset: I have spent years advocating for stronger action against drug cartels that poison our communities. I have consistently voted to provide law enforcement with the resources they need to dismantle these criminal networks. I have supported international cooperation to target these organizations at their source. And like everyone here, I recognize the cartels are a scourge and they must be confronted aggressively and dismantled thoroughly.

But that is not what is happening here. Let me begin with the most fundamental question: What is the operation actually meant to accomplish?

The administration has emphasized fentanyl as the primary justification for these strikes. Yet their own officials have acknowledged that cocaine is the predominant drug trafficked through these Caribbean routes. The fentanyl that is devastating American communities flows overwhelmingly through different routes. So what problem are we actually trying to solve?

And I think it should be obvious you cannot bomb your way out of a drug crisis. The demand that motivates drug trafficking is not found in the Caribbean. It is located in communities across America where people are suffering from addiction, where economic opportunity has dried up, where the social fabric has frayed. Military strikes do nothing to address those root causes.

Indeed, the significant budgetary attacks on Medicaid and other programs--health programs--will further undermine our attempts to control demand and to solve our drug problem. We have been down this road many times before in many parts of the world. We have seen what happens when military force is employed without clear objectives, without defined endpoints, without an honest assessment of what military power can and cannot achieve. The so-called ``war on drugs'' has been waged for decades. It has cost billions of dollars and countless lives, and it has not solved the problem.

As we expand this military operation in South and Central America, we have to ask: What does victory look like? How do we know when this mission is complete?

I know when many of us considered the Iraq war, I think many failed to ask the fundamental question: What happens when we win? Because we won quickly and then found ourselves in a 20-year struggle throughout the region to maintain stability.

As I indicated before, more than 65 people have been killed across 16 strikes. Boats have been blown out of the water in videos released by the administration. But has the flow of fentanyl into America decreased? Has a single trafficking network been dismantled? The administration hasn't provided any evidence that these strikes are achieving anything beyond the destruction they document on camera.

This is not a strategy. This is violence without a strategic objective. The administration's legal justification shifts every week. First, they simply cited the President's article II authority and claimed that these cartels were terrorist organizations.

Then the President decided that America is in a ``non-international armed conflict,'' which is a dubious claim. Now, Secretary Hegseth has begun calling these cartels ``the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,'' and declared open season on them.

But he seems to have forgotten an important fact: After 9/11, Congress passed an authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, to provide the legal basis for using military force against al- Qaida. By Secretary Hegseth's own logic, this current operation requires congressional authorization.

But there is a deeper problem with the administration's analogy to terrorism. Terrorists pursue political objectives. Cartels pursue profit and power. They are criminals, not ideological combatants waging war against the United States. If the White House truly believed that these are terrorist organizations and the Defense Secretary truly thinks Tren de Aragua compares to al-Qaida, the administration should come to Congress and request a AUMF. The fact that they haven't is revealing.

When the legal justification keeps changing, it means that there is no clear mission to begin with. And here is what troubles me the most: the administration's refusal to explain itself, both to Congress and the American people. It suggests that they know this operation does not hold up to scrutiny.

Chairman Wicker and I have sent multiple requests to Secretary Hegseth to submit the basic information Congress is legally entitled to: execute orders, legal justifications, and intelligence underpinning individual strikes.

The Pentagon has taken more than 2 months to provide only some of this information and has refused to answer simple questions regarding the very limited information that has been provided to date.

And this is not a partisan complaint. These are statutory requirements that are being ignored and noticed by both sides of the aisle.

The United Nations has stated that these strikes ``violate international human rights law'' and find ``no justification in international law.'' Legal experts across the political spectrum have been nearly unanimous in denouncing these operations as unlawful. Yet the administration's response has been to withhold information rather than provide justification.

If this operation serves vital American interests, if it can achieve its stated objectives, and if it is legal under domestic and international law, then why won't the administration defend it before Congress and the American people? The obfuscation suggests they don't have genuine answers. The secrecy suggests they know this doesn't make sense.

Now the situation grows more dangerous. The USS Gerald R. Ford, our largest and newest aircraft carrier, is headed to the Caribbean, bringing additional warships and thousands of sailors and marines. This is not a limited operation; this is a major military buildup. To what end? The administration will not say. Against what enemy? They won't specify. For how long? They refuse to answer.

These operations risk destabilizing the region and provoking direct confrontation with Venezuela. We could be stumbling into another open- ended conflict without purpose or plan.

If the administration intends to escalate toward conflict with Venezuela, Congress has a constitutional duty to declare and authorize such action. We cannot sleepwalk into another war through incremental escalation while being kept in the dark.

To my Republican colleagues, I know many of you share concerns about endless American wars. I know many of you have questioned open-ended military commitments that lack clear strategic objectives. You have consistently opposed Executive overreach by previous Presidents in the manner of war.

These SOUTHCOM operations look like the beginning of exactly that kind of entanglement, and we are being asked to accept it on faith-- without information, without debate, without authorization.

Which brings me to the matter of constitutional authority. The Constitution is unambiguous. Article I, section 8 vests the power to declare war in Congress, not in the executive branch. This was not an oversight by the Founders; it was a deliberate choice borne from hard experience with monarchs who could commit their nations to war by decree.

The War Powers Resolution exists to give meaning to that constitutional principle. It requires the President to consult with Congress before introducing forces into hostilities and to obtain authorization within 60 days.

The Trump administration delivered its war powers notification to Congress on September 4. The 60-day window to receive congressional authorization closed on Monday without approval being rendered. A law- abiding administration would cease its operation, but the Trump administration continues on.

Incredibly, according to public reporting, the White House is apparently now arguing that these strikes don't constitute ``hostilities'' under the War Powers Act because American servicemembers aren't directly in harm's way while operating standoff weapons and drones. This is ridiculous. Most importantly, it is an insult to the men and women who are risking their lives flying aircraft, operating ships and submarines, and conducting reconnaissance in the region. They are very much in harm's way, and to say that this operation is so safe that it doesn't qualify as ``hostilities'' is embarrassing. Also, it suggests, perhaps, the logic that these really aren't military operations or hostilities; they are premeditated attacks to produce lethal effects on people who may or may not be drug dealers.

This new interpretation creates a dangerous precedent. If standoff weapons exempt military operations from congressional oversight, we have effectively granted the executive branch unlimited authority to wage war anywhere in the world so long as American forces can strike from a distance.

Does this mean that we can fire a long-range missile into another country because we are not in hostilities since there are no servicemembers directly in danger as we launch the missile from our territory? That logic does not hold up. That represents, indeed, a fundamental rewriting of our Constitution--not through amendment or legislation but through one man's decision.

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I ask you to consider what authority you would be comfortable granting to any President--not just this one but the next one and the one after that. The powers we recognize today will be exercised by future administrations. Constitutional principles should not bend with political convenience.

I believe that this is not a political debate; this is about the institution of Congress and the congressional and constitutional limits on Executive power. It is about insisting that before we commit American military forces to combat operations, before we take lives in America's name, we must have clear legal authority, credible justification, and strategic coherence.

If this operation makes strategic sense, let the administration make that case to Congress and the American people. Let them provide the legal justification that they have withheld. Let them explain the endgame. What happens when we win? What does winning mean? What are the limits of this operation?

Let them show us how blowing up boats in the Caribbean solves what the President has repeatedly said--the fentanyl crisis in each and every one of our States. They have not done so, and until they do, this operation does not deserve our support.

I urge my colleagues to hold the Trump administration accountable. The Constitution requires it. The American people deserve it. And we all have taken an oath to the Constitution, not the President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner, and other colleagues who are joining together to support the proposal that we are putting forward today.

But I think we should all say that the best way to make sure that Federal employees--all Federal employees--get paid and that the American people get the benefit of their services is to reopen the Federal Government and do it now, which is why I and my Democratic colleagues have voted seven times now--seven times now--to reopen the government without giving Donald Trump a blank check and while making sure that we prevent a healthcare crisis in this country when people's healthcare premiums and costs go through the roof, because when Republicans passed their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, they extended the tax

breaks for billionaires and very wealthy people. The one tax cut they did not extend was the one that allows middle-class families to afford health insurance. And so they left in place a ticking timebomb that is going off now.

We would like to defuse that timebomb. Instead of negotiating on that, the President has been AWOL. He has been engaged in discussions overseas regarding the Middle East. He has been on the phone a lot with Vladimir Putin. That is all good, but you would think the President of the United States could carve out just a little time to help reopen the government, to have a negotiation on reopening the Federal Government.

Instead, he is bringing down Republican Members of the House and Senate to the White House and wining and dining them and patting them on the back and saying: Good job for keeping this government shut down and not entering into a negotiation to bring it to a close.

And, of course, with our House colleagues, the Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson, has essentially got the House on a 5-week--I don't know if we are on 6 weeks--paid vacation. I mean, they are AWOL here in the middle of this shutdown.

What is the President focused on? He is asking the Justice Department to pay him $230 million for legal bills, right directly into his pocket. He is talking about giving his buddy in Argentina a $20 billion taxpayer bailout, while farmers across the country are getting hit hard because they can't sell their soybeans to China. And he is demolishing the East Wing of the White House, which is a metaphor for what he is doing to the country and people who worked for him to get him elected. He is betraying the very people he said he was going to stand up for when he said he was going to focus on prices and costs, and yet, when it comes to trying to just prevent this huge spike in healthcare costs that people are experiencing, the President doesn't want to talk about it.

So we should not be punishing Federal employees for something they had nothing to do with. They are not responsible. They are innocent bystanders. They all want to get back on the job and provide services to the American people. And I will be putting forth a proposal to say that they should not be punished and they should be paid.

Now, we will hear later today that we are going to be taking up here in the Senate a piece of legislation from Senator Johnson, and that proposal would pay Federal employees who are currently working right now. Our proposal doesn't discriminate among Federal employees.

And here is the really dangerous part, I would argue, about Senator Johnson's proposal. We have a President, President Trump, who, along with Russ Vought, who is his, you know, guy in the cockpit at OMB--this is the guy who said publicly that he wanted to inflict ``trauma''--that is his word not mine--inflict ``trauma'' on the Federal workforce.

If you allow them to decide who they are going to keep on the job in the Federal Government and who they are going to pay, you are giving them also a blank check as to who they are going to send home and who they are going to punish by not paying them.

That is what they have been doing. Much of what they have been doing is illegal, in fact, and we have a Federal court in California that has already said that their layoffs of some of the Federal employees at some of the Agencies are illegal.

But if you just let them decide who is going to get paid and who is not, you weaponize that illegality; you weaponize the Federal Government. And, by the way, I think we all know this: If President Trump gets to keep the folks he wants on the job and pay the folks that he wants who are on the job and nobody else, he will have even less incentive to end the government shutdown. He will have the government he wants, not the one that has been supported on a bipartisan basis by the U.S. Congress.

So giving the President a blank check to decide which Federal employees to punish and which ones not to punish is a very dangerous thing at this moment. That is why the proposal I am putting forward-- and Senator Peters will have an even narrower version that he will be putting forward, if our Republican colleagues don't support the one that I am advancing, along with Senator Warner, Senator Kaine, Senator Alsobrooks, and others--these proposals say that Federal employees should not be punished.

Now, we have already made that decision. We have already made that decision as a Congress in the past. During the first Trump shutdown-- that was the 35-day Trump shutdown. During that shutdown, Senator Cardin and myself and others, we passed a piece of legislation that was signed by the President that says: At the end of a shutdown, Federal employees get fully paid. They are held harmless.

Why did we decide to do that? Because we collectively made the right decision that Federal employees who have nothing to do with the government shutdown should not be the ones punished for something they were not culpable in. That was the right decision.

What my proposal and our proposal will do is based on that idea that no Federal employees should be punished for something they had nothing to do with. And not only should they get repaid at the end of this, but why would we say to them that you can't have enough pay to make your electric bills or pay your water bills or provide for your family? Why should Federal employees be the ones who are punished for the government shutdown? Why should they be the ones that have to overdraft their bank accounts and penalized for that? That is not fair.

So the proposals that we are putting forward say that in this government shutdown, Federal employees and, yes, certain Federal contractors who have nothing to do with this political situation that we face, they should not be the ones to bear the burden, and we certainly shouldn't set up a system where the President of the United States gets to decide what Agencies to shut down, what can stay open, who to pay and who not to pay, who to punish, who not to punish. That just gives him a blank check to put in place political cronies and pay them and send home hard-working civil servants who perform important functions. So that is what our proposal will do.

And for any of our colleagues, regardless of the side of the aisle, who agree that Federal employees should not be the ones who are punished for something they have nothing to do with, I hope we will all agree to support this measure.

Now, I don't know if Senator Peters wants to talk at all on this particular proposal. He is going to be talking on the next proposal.

I know that some of my colleagues are on the way to the floor, as we speak--Senator Kaine and others--and when they arrive, I will return the floor to them to have them say their piece.

But, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3039, introduced earlier today; 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.

If you are yielding the floor?

The short answer is, we do want to pay all Federal employees because none of them should be punished, but we also don't want them to be fired and RIF'd during this period of time. You said, in the private sector, people don't like to fire employees.

I know, Senator, you have read the remarks of Russ Vought, the head of OMB. He wants to visit ``trauma'' on Federal employees, and he wants to fire a lot of them. He has said so.

But that is an important piece here, right, because--

Let me speak.

Thank you. Look, it would be great to work this out because there seems to be some agreement that Federal employees should not be the ones to bear the burden of a decision they had nothing to do with.

I see the Republican leader is here with us on the floor.

I think the best way to proceed would be to delay moving forward on the cloture vote on the motion to proceed on your bill and let's sit down and let's talk about whether or not we can find that common ground. We may not be that far apart.

I will just say to the Senator. I will say to the Senator that if you give the President the authority, as your proposal currently does, to decide who to send home and furlough and punish--but it sounds like you are willing to change that--but here is the scenario I am worried about.

If you listen to Russ Vought and the President, they would just fire those people during the shutdown. That is what they are doing. In fact, they are illegally firing people during the shutdown.

OK. Why don't we sit down together.

I would love to see that.

Let me just say, Mr. President, just to say to Senator Johnson: I am more than happy to sit down with you. I think we should do that maybe later today, get our teams together and see if we can resolve some of these points because if we have the shared view that, No. 1, no Federal employee should be punished for something they had nothing to do with--and then, at least for the period of the shutdown, the President should not be able to fire additional people, which is, I think you well know--and this was partly considered by the Federal court already--the President actually has less authority to do it in a shutdown than when the government is open.

But I don't want to debate these issues on the floor right now.

I am more than happy to sit down with your team and try to resolve this.

As I said to the Senator from Wisconsin, I am happy to sit down with him and his team to see if we can put together a proposal based on the principle that no Federal employee should have to bear the burden and the pain of a decision they had nothing to do with as well as many of these Federal contractors who are also involved. So I welcome the chance to sit down with the Senator from Wisconsin.

I also hope that the President of the United States will sit down with Democrats to resolve the overall issue and open the government. That way we wouldn't even have to go through this exercise right now.

With that, I want to yield the floor to my colleague from Maryland Senator Alsobrooks.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum calls with respect to cloture on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 191, S. 3012, and the Taibleson nomination.

Mr. President, today is day 23 of the Schumer shutdown of the government, and we just heard the minority leader--right here on the floor--continue to practice the politics of pain, and it is pain felt by the American people.

Remember, Senator Schumer is the one who said to the press:

Every day gets better for us.

I don't know who ``us'' is. It is not the American people, not the people who come to work all across the country and the Wyoming National Guard, the people all around America, the people in the Presiding Officer's State and mine, the people who aren't going to get paid.

Senator Schumer said: Can't we do anything about it?

Yes. You could vote to open the government.

Yesterday, they decided, once again, to vote to keep the government shut.

Tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Federal workers are going to miss their paychecks because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats will not vote to open the government. They won't do it. They haven't done it for 23 days. Democrats have now set the record for the longest full-time government shutdown in American history.

In previous shutdowns, some of the Agencies stayed open--not now. This is the longest shutdown in the history of the entire U.S. Government because, this time, no one is getting paid, not the Capitol Police officers who had to come in during the so-called filibuster by the Senator from Oregon, Senator Merkley; none of the people at the desk; none of the people who were working around the Capitol; none of the Democrats' staff or the Republicans' staff who were here as Senator Merkley droned on and on and on through the night, reading the same poem four times, to no avail. It was rubbish--all of it.

The Democrats have shut down this government, and they are punishing the American people as a result. They are more concerned about playing politics than they are about protecting working families. It is a big game that they are playing as American families suffer. And they don't seem to care that families are suffering. They are actually bragging about the fact that families are suffering.

This is the Democrat whip in the House of Representatives. What did she say this week? It wasn't just some slip of the tongue. She was in an interview. There is a video of her on television--I saw it early this morning--saying, of course, there are going to be families who are going to suffer. Of course, she says, there is going to be suffering-- almost gleefully--because it is one of the few leverage times we have.

That is the Democrat whip of the House of Representatives. The Presiding Officer may have served with her when he served in the House before coming to the Senate. He knows this individual.

This is the politics of pain, practiced by the Democrats, and, apparently, they don't believe that withholding paychecks or stamps or funding to feed women and infants and children is a problem. They think it is leverage. They think it is a big game. Leverage for what--to give taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal immigrants? That is one of the demands that we got from Chuck Schumer in the letter of demand to open the government.

Lay it all out there. What do they want? Lots of things, including healthcare--free, paid for by taxpayers--for illegal immigrants. They want $1.5 trillion in permanent new spending added to the debt because whom are they trying to impress? The radical wing of the Democrat Party, their radical leftwing.

That is what the Democrats are trying to do. That is what Chuck Schumer is trying to do. He doesn't care. He is standing here, talking. He is only talking to one group. It is the radical wing of the party-- the people in New York who have nominated Mamdani to be the mayor of that city. The Democrats are willing to cause the American people to suffer because they want to continue to pass liberal policies that Americans don't want and never voted for but that are being demanded by that radical wing of the Democrat Party.

So what have we done as Republicans?

We have proposed a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution to reopen the government and that pays the workers who have been working for weeks without pay so they don't miss their paychecks.

Democrats have rejected it and have continued to reject it not once, not twice--12 times. It is a cycle of obstruction.

Democrats have voted for clean continuing resolutions, as I have heard the Presiding Officer say, a number of times. I have heard him say it on television. The Democrats voted for it 13 different times when Joe Biden was President. Now they oppose it. Why? Because President Trump is in the White House, and they don't even like the White House. They just had a picture of some of the improvements that the President is doing at the White House. They don't like that either. They don't like the fact that he is in the White House. They don't like the fact that he is improving the White House. They don't like the fact that he is going to continue to be in the White House.

Speaking of the President, just days ago, he told the Democrats that he was happy to meet. I agree, and we were there when he said it. He said he was happy to meet once they reopened the government, but since the Democrats continue to refuse to reopen the government, the Senate is going to try to do the next best thing. Today, this body is going to move to begin debate on Senator Johnson's Shutdown Fairness Act. So let's talk about it.

There is not a single good argument that I have heard against passing it immediately because this bill ensures that the men and women who keep our Nation safe receive their pay during this Schumer, Democrat- caused shutdown as they play politics. We have got

to pay the people who are keeping our Nation safe. It pays our troops who are protecting our Nation at home and abroad. It pays the Coast Guard as they continue to patrol our waters. It pays the Border Patrol. They defend our southern border. It pays members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they round up and deport illegal immigrant criminals. It pays the air traffic controllers who guide flights safely to their destinations. It pays the TSA agents who screen the passengers at every airport in America. It pays the Capitol Police officers who have worked for weeks here without pay.

It applies back to the very first day of the Schumer shutdown, and that means employees will get their full pay. It applies to this shutdown, and it applies to future shutdowns. I think that is very important as we cannot allow the Democrats to continue to painfully treat the people and use the American people as what the Democrat whip calls, in the House, ``leverage,'' hurting the American people for leverage. No. So it is not just for this shutdown but for future shutdowns to provide stability and predictability to those who keep us safe.

Would I prefer a clean continuing resolution that fully reopens the government today? Immediately? Absolutely, but Democrats have blocked a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution every single time we have offered them.

It has been reported that Democrats are going to filibuster this bill, today, too. So, when Democrats stand up here today and criticize the bill, remember this: The Democrats have a choice to pay the essential workers who are working right now and are working here without a paycheck or to send them into the weekend with empty bank accounts and bills they cannot pay. If Democrats vote no, it won't be about fairness. It is all going to be about politics. It is a dangerous game of politics they are playing.

Remember what the House Democrat whip told the press. She said: Of course families are going to suffer.

This is a Democrat.

Of course, she says, families are going to suffer, and this is one of the few times--the few leverage times--we have.

That is not about helping the American people. It is about taking advantage and using the American people maliciously, terribly, disgustingly, disgracefully. If the Democrats vote no, it is all going to be about leverage rather than paying the American people.

It is time to reopen the government. It truly is.

Border Wall Football Game

Mr. President, on a separate matter, on Saturday, the annual Border Wall football game comes to Laramie, WY.

For the 117th time, the Wyoming Cowboys will play Colorado State University. The winner of the game gets something called the Bronze Boot. This year, the Pokes are going to play in special Cowboy and Coal jerseys, and uniformed coal miners from all around Wyoming will lead the Cowboys onto the field. This is a fantastic way to celebrate Wyoming's proud history and heritage.

National Coal Week

Mr. President, in Wyoming, we have world-class coal. Wyoming's Powder River Basin provides nearly half of all the coal produced in America. It is clean coal. It is low-sulfur coal. We have enough coal to power America for at least the next 100 years.

Here in the Senate, Republicans are also celebrating this vital industry.

Senate Republicans introduced a resolution earlier this week to designate this week as National Coal Week.

I want to thank and congratulate Senator Cynthia Lummis for leading this important effort.

No one knows better than our home State of Wyoming how important coal is to keeping the lights on. Coal is the most affordable, available, reliable source of energy on the planet. National security, of course, starts with energy security. Coal means freedom. That is why coal is such an important part of the Republicans' agenda to unleash American energy. We are cutting redtape. We are opening up 13 million acres of Federal land for mining. Coal production is up more than 6 percent since last year.

The coal renaissance that we are seeing today is part of the broader American energy revival. It was even reported this week that the price of gasoline has fallen to below $3 for the first time in 4 years. You didn't see this when Joe Biden was in the White House, and they were fighting American energy and making us desperate for energy. Oh, no. We are now heading into an energy-dominant time for America.

Across the country, families are feeling the financial relief that comes from returning to commonsense energy policies. Republicans know you can protect the environment without punishing the economy. Democrats never understood that. And, in Wyoming, we know better than anyone else. America is an energy superpower. Wyoming is America's energy breadbasket. We have the resources; we have the workers; and now we are acting like it.

So, as we mark National Coal Week, I want to thank the great men and women of our coal industry in Wyoming and across the Nation for helping make America energy dominant once again.

I yield the floor.

I thank Senator Johnson.

It is day 38 of the Schumer shutdown--the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States.

Now, Senator Schumer told the world:

Every day gets better for us.

Senator Sullivan asked: Who is the ``us''?

I will tell you who the ``us'' is.

This is a partisan political show. It happened because, in March, the Democrats decided to be reasonable and allow the government to stay open. And the extreme-left wing of the Democrat party got furious, and Senator Schumer nearly lost his job.

And now the government is shut down because the Democrats want to show the radical-left wing in their base that they really, really, really hate Donald Trump.

Now, on the Democrat side of the aisle, there is a talking point--a talking point we actually had in the Commerce Committee yesterday. One of our Democrat colleagues said: There is a Republican President. There is a Republican Senate. There is a Republican House. This is the Republicans' shutdown.

And I don't know who actually produces those talking points for Democrats, but every one of them, word for word, said the identical thing.

Well, I tell you, I spoke shortly thereafter, and I said: You know, every witness in a court of law, before they testify, they are sworn in, and they are asked that their testimony will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I said: What my Democrat colleague just did there failed part No. 2, the whole truth.

You are right; there is a Republican President. You are right; there is a Republican House. And you are right; there is a Republican Senate. What the Democrats also know is that, under the Senate rules, it takes 60 Senators to vote to fund the government. They all know that. That is not something they don't know, and it is not an accident that they don't mention it.

Why do we have a shutdown? Well, let's count. There are 53 desks on this side of the Senate floor. There are 53 Republicans, which means the government cannot be funded until at least 7 Democrats decide we are going to fund the government.

By the way, this is not a new development. When Joe Biden was President, 13 separate times we passed a clean continuing resolution. What does that mean? We had a 60-vote threshold then too. That means Republicans could have done this garbage any of the 13 times under Joe Biden, but we did not. They didn't have 60 votes. What was different when Joe Biden was President is Republicans voted with the Democrats to allow the government to stay open.

And, by the way, in March, the Democrats knew that was the responsible thing to do. It does not take much on the magic Google machine to get video of every one of these Democrats saying on TV: Government shutdowns are reckless. They are irresponsible. They are wrong.

They all know that. But you know what they are counting on? I look up, and the press gallery is virtually empty. They are counting on ABC, NBC, and CBS lying to the American people. They are counting on CNN lying to the American people. They are counting on MSNBC lying to the American people.

This is not complicated. Fourteen times the Republicans on this side of the floor have voted to open the government, and 14 times Democrats have voted to keep the government closed.

And then, after they vote to keep the government closed, the Democrats walk out to the reporters and say: Gosh, I can't believe the Republicans closed the government. That is when a reporter is actually supposed to do something really radical. It is called ``report.'' The person telling me he or she is upset at the government shutdown, why did you vote 14 times to keep the government shut down?

Now, there are lots of aspects of this that are painful, but there is one in particular that has impacted American families all over the country, which is any family that is traveling--traveling for work, traveling to visit a sick relative, traveling to go to a funeral in a family, traveling to go on a family vacation. There are, right now, over 50,000 TSA agents. Many of them are going to work. They are not getting paid. They missed their paycheck.

There are, right now, more than 14,000 air traffic controllers. Many of them are going to work. None of them are getting paid.

That means they are trying to figure out--their last paycheck didn't come. They are trying to figure out: How do I pay my mortgage? How do I pay my rent? How do I pay my food? How do I feed my kids? How do I take care of medical bills?

You know what the answer from the Democrats is?

Every day gets better for us.

If you are hurting and not getting a paycheck, Senator Schumer's answer--I do appreciate his doing the Mr. Burns tent with his hands. I wish he had started off with ``excellent.'' But that is, in fact, his quote:

Every day gets better for us.

On Wednesday, there were over 15,000 flight delays. On Wednesday, there were over 600 canceled flights.

Delta Airlines has called on the Democrats: Vote to reopen the government.

United Airlines has called on the Democrats: Vote to reopen the government.

Southwest Airlines has called on the Democrats: Vote to reopen the government.

American Airlines has called on the Democrats: Vote to reopen the government.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has called on the Democrats: Vote to reopen the government.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with the Administrator of the FAA. It was chilling. As everyone knows, the FAA announced that it is putting in place a mandatory 10-percent reduction in flights in the 40 largest airports in America. What the Administrator of the FAA told me yesterday on the phone was why, and here is what Administrator Bedford said. He said: Last Friday, which was Halloween, half of the busiest 30 air traffic control facilities were short-staffed. That includes New York, Austin, Newark, Phoenix, Washington, Nashville, Dallas, and Denver.

I want you to listen to this next statistic.

Nearly 80 percent of the air traffic controllers in New York City called out. They did not show up to work--nearly 80 percent. Senator Schumer represents New York City. Nearly 80 percent of the controllers called out on Halloween.

There were rampant delays. The FAA said the aggregate data, the whole national air space system, looked OK. But then they deaggregated the data. Looking at the 40 biggest airports, in particular, painted a very different picture.

Here is what the Administrator of the FAA told me: Pilots filed more than 500 voluntary safety reports about air traffic control problems they were encountering--air traffic controllers that were fatigued, that were tired, that were making mistakes.

And what is the Democrats' view? Well, there is an old line that a gaff is when someone in Washington accidentally tells the truth. You heard Chuck Schumer say:

Every day gets better for us.

Here is what one Democrat aide told CNN.

Another senior Democrat aide said as long as public perception is in their favor, the party will not concede short of ``planes falling out of the sky.''

That is out of the words of the Democrats themselves.

Let me tell you, as chairman of the Commerce Committee, part of our responsibility is to oversee the FAA and to do everything possible to ensure safety.

Turning to my Democrat colleagues, saying: This is not a joke.

First of all, the shutdown happened because Senator Schumer had to demonstrate he was tough so he didn't get primaried by AOC in New York.

Then the next threshold was the No Kings rallies. They had to show they were tough enough that, when radicals were marching in cities across the country, they were as angry as the blue-haired, angry radicals.

Then we had election day. They were going to keep everything shut down until election day because it energized their base. And then Democrats won elections in the very blue State of New Jersey, the very blue State of Virginia, and the insanely blue city of New York City. And, suddenly, Democrats said: Holy cow. Our really leftwing voters like it when we shut the government down.

Are there any Democrats on that side of the aisle for whom responsibility matters? Or is every one of them proud to say: We will keep it shut down until planes fall out of the sky.

God forbid that comes to pass. Over 500 voluntary safety reports about air traffic controllers. You have got air traffic controllers driving Uber to pay their bills.

And here is the good news. We can resolve it right now. Senator Johnson's bill, that we will vote on in just a few minutes, is very simple. It says: Any Federal worker that goes to work will be paid. If you have to work--if you are a soldier, if you are manning the wall, keeping this country safe, you are being forced to work, you will be paid. If you are a Border Patrol agent, if you are an FBI agent, if you are a TSA agent, and you have to work, you will be paid.

And if you are an air traffic controller and your job is literally keeping, Mr. President, your children and my children safe when they get on an airplane, you will be paid.

And to those in the media who persist in repeating Democrat talking points, understand this: The vote right now, if we vote yes, the air traffic controllers will be paid. If we vote no, the air traffic controllers will not be paid. So every Democrat who votes no is saying: We will not pay the air traffic controllers.

What does that mean? There are roughly 45,000 commercial flights a day in the United States. The 10-percent reduction that the FAA has put in place will be roughly 5,000 flights a day that will be canceled. Now, if you assume 100 passengers are on each flight--I am a lawyer, not a mathematician. So I am going to make the math simple. So 100 passengers, 500 flights a day, that is more than 500,000 Americans who will have their flight canceled each and every day the Schumer shutdown continues--more than 500,000. And millions more will have their flights delayed.

So it is a simple choice. It is a simple choice. Do you want to pay the air traffic controllers or not?

But I have got to tell you, you had better be ready to talk to your constituents who said: Why was my plane canceled when I was going to see my sick mother?

Well, because I, Democrat, voted against paying air traffic controllers. That is the answer.

You won't like getting that answer, but I tell you what, that is a lot better answer than if you have to look in the eyes of someone whose family was killed because the Democrats get what they are explicitly asking for, which is planes falling from the sky.

The Schumer shutdown--you are a leftwing, partisan Democrat, you say:

Every day gets better for us.

I will tell you who ``us'' ain't. It ain't the American people.

So do the right thing because every one of you knows it is the right thing. Vote yes. Pay the air traffic controllers, and end this ridiculous shutdown.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are here tonight because our Republican colleagues have introduced a budget resolution. It is a budget resolution that unlocks the reconciliation process.

But before we examine this next reconciliation bill, let's recognize that it has been just 10 months since we passed the last one. That was the one that was known as H.R. 1, or in Trump lingo: One Big Beautiful Bill. Of course, most of the Nation called it ``One Big Ugly Betrayal'' because that was a more accurate describer of what it did to families across our Nation.

It slashed a trillion dollars from healthcare programs--a trillion dollars from healthcare programs--for families. It kicked 15 million Americans off health insurance. That certainly doesn't help American families.

It took food off the plates of more than 3 million families with kids. You know, kids can't really do well in school if they are hungry; making them deliberately hungry--what were you thinking?

What were you thinking in destroying healthcare by a trillion dollars for 15 million Americans, taking food off the plates of 3 million families with kids, and to do it to fund tax breaks for billionaires? Wow. That is all about government by and for the powerful.

But you know why I love this country? Because it is all about government by and for the people. That is the vision our Nation was founded on. That is the beauty of a democratic republic.

But what did we get last year? We got the opposite. We got the opposite--the type of policy that comes out of a strongman state, the type of policy that comes out when the powerful exercise tyranny over the people--the type of tyranny our Founders revolted against when they created our Nation. That is what we saw 10 months ago: families lose and billionaires won.

And that is not all that bill did. It also gave 65 billion to Customs and Border Protection and 75 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. And that amount of money was about seven times a normal annual appropriation.

We can see here in this chart 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, all less than 10 billion; 2025, and there we are. So much more. The annual appropriation, plus this extra for ICE of an additional $75 billion.

And anyone looking at the chart goes: Wow. They already prefunded, for multiple years, ICE. They did exactly the same thing for Customs and Border Protection--CBP.

So we heard a few moments ago from my colleague at the head of the Budget Committee that ICE is out of money. Oh, really? Not true. That CBP is out of money. Not true.

In fact, the President's Office of Management and Budget puts out a monthly report, so go look it up yourself. They are sitting on $103 billion of unobligated funds.

So they already have funds for this year and next year and the year after. So the entire premise of this bill is completely false-- completely false. They don't need more money. What they do need are reforms about their conduct across America because they have been terrorizing our communities across our country because this administration said: No longer will you use

the standard practices of ordinary enforcement that have been the standard in our Republic and democratic republics across the land. Instead, we are going to start violating those standards. We are going to put on face masks. We are going to rip the ID off the uniform so you can't tell who we are. We are going to use vans that have no label on them, and we are going to sometimes even strip the license plate off in order to disguise who we are, not because we are under cover but because we don't want people to be able to say: Can you believe what happened when those CBP agents came to town or those ICE agents came to town? Hard to say that when they are not identified.

But those standards exist because there is accountability to the citizens of the country. Again, government by and for the people, not by and for the powerful.

There are things called civil rights that this administration has forgotten about. They proceeded to say: We don't need warrants to break into people's homes. Are you kidding me? Every sixth grader in America has heard about the Bill of Rights and that we have the sanctity of our homes, and the government can't break in without a warrant. But this majority party, led by Trump, said: Yes, you can. Forget the Bill of Rights. Forget the Fourth Amendment.

And then when we detain people, you have another right, and that is to contact a lawyer. But we are going to detain you and not let you contact a lawyer. We are going to detain you and not let you contact family.

And when family says: Where did my family member go that you-all swept off the street? We are going say: We don't know. We moved them. We don't know where. That is not conduct acceptable in a democratic republic with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights.

Well, since ICE and CBP have already been prefunded, since they are sitting on $103 billion of unobligated funds, what is this all about? It is about the majority saying: We want to drive home the point that we are just fine with the way ICE is conducting themselves. We are so fine that we won't reform any of those violations of civil rights or constitutional rights in order to have a normal budget process regarding CBP or regarding ICE.

Well, if we are going to have a special reconciliation process when ICE and CBP have already been prefunded, how about we actually address issues that America cares about because that extra money isn't going to help with the border because they are already funded.

It isn't going to help improve security because they are already funded.

But you know what is not adequately funded? Healthcare is not adequately funded. There isn't a dime in this bill for healthcare. That is important to the American people.

There is not a dime in this bill to help with the rising grocery prices that have gone up, up, up under Trump's stewardship--a whole lot of it impacted by his tariffs, which were themselves unconstitutional.

There is not a dime in this bill to address the gas prices, which are over $5 a gallon in my State, and diesel is over $6 a gallon. Go talk to a farmer across America and see if they are happy and ask yourselves: If we are doing a special budget process, why not address some help to our farmers who are impacted not just by the high cost of diesel for their tractors, they are being extraordinarily impacted by the tariffs as well. Why not help them?

Why not reduce the debt? This bill increases the debt. It is unpaid for just like the Republican war in Afghanistan was unpaid for, the Republican war in Iraq, going after nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, was unpaid for. They launched wars that undermine our security and cost the American Treasury $8 trillion of debt because they wouldn't pay for it, and now that debt is coming home to roost. And it means more interest payments, and it means paying higher interest. It means less money for those fundamentals for families, like healthcare and housing and education--the foundations for families to thrive.

So there is not a dime for working families, not a dime to improve affordability, not a dime to reduce a deficit or the debt; but there is, in this bill, the instructions to two committees to spend up to $70 billion apiece.

Now, my colleague clarified that they are not really going to ask for $140 billion but, more likely, $70 billion. OK. Well, $70 billion, that is a lot of money. What could $70 billion buy for America's families? Well, it could, every year for 3 years, pay the entire salary of 330,000 teachers across America. Wow. What an impact that would have on classroom size in our Nation--a real investment in our children for the next generation. Or that same $70 billion could hire 200,000 police officers every year for 3 years. What an investment in public safety for communities across this Nation. Or--we have been watching the dream of home ownership die. Back in 2020, the median age for buying a first home was about 33 years of age. Six years later, the median age for buying a home: 40 years. In 5 years, the median age has gone up 7 years because nobody is able to buy a home in America--in part because private equity is buying up all the houses and driving up the prices, and because our economy for the rich billionaires is not providing the type of wages for middle-class America it provided before.

So how about downpayment assistance to help people become homeowners? That same $70 billion, that would provide 7 million American families with a $10,000 downpayment grant to help them become a homeowner.

So 330,000 teachers a year for 3 years, 200,000 police officers a year for 3 years, 7 million families getting $10,000 downpayment grants. I make these examples to point out how large this sum is and how much need there is in America for us actually to invest in families--not tax breaks for billionaires but in families, in housing, in healthcare, in public safety, in education.

That bill 10 months ago--that bill was families lose, billionaires win. Families lost healthcare. They lost nutrition. Billionaires got massive tax breaks. And to help fund those tax breaks for the billionaires, their bill added--get this--$30 trillion to the national debt over the next 30 years. And if interest rates are 1 percent higher than the interest rate used in the Congressional Budget Office's model, it is $50 trillion in additional debt over the next 30 years.

So bankrupting America, failing to invest in families, going through this charade for two organizations that are already sitting on $103 billion and obviously pre-funded, that is not about building a better America. That is about families lose and billionaires win. That is about undermining the future for the next generation rather than building a better future for the next generation.

There is a better vision for America than families lose and billionaires win. It is families thrive; and billionaires, they pay their fair share. Families thrive; billionaires pay their fair share. Investing in education helps families thrive. Investing in healthcare helps families thrive. Investing in housing and home ownership helps families thrive. Investing in infrastructure helps build the physical infrastructure for the next generation.

But this bill says to hell with all of that; we are going to, instead, create this false story about unfunded Agencies that are already sitting on $103 billion.

Let's reject this vision that is designed for families lose and billionaires win and instead adopt the vision of families thrive and billionaires pay their fair share.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, time to get this show on the road, so I yield back all remaining time on the Democratic side.