Military and Federal Employee Protection Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, I came to the floor in support of a bill that we were going to vote on, a motion to proceed called the Shutdown Fairness Act. It is a pretty simple bill. The name pretty well describes exactly what it is. It is trying to be fair during these dysfunctional shutdowns. Any of the Federal workers who are forced to work because they are in our military, they are in Federal law enforcement, they are TSA, or they are air traffic controllers--they are keeping this Nation and Americans safe--if we are going to force them to work, at a minimum, let's make sure we pay them and pay them on time.

I came down in as nonpartisan a manner as I possibly could and literally begged the other side to just join us, vote to proceed to the bill.

They had some objections to it, things that I was willing to address. For example, my bill only addressed workers that were forced to work. They wanted to include furloughed workers. I said on the floor: I am happy to add that as an amendment. I think, working with my conference, I can get the conference to support it as well.

It wasn't quite that easy, but in the end, we overcame objections within our conference to adding furloughed workers.

So we have completely amended the bill now. We have added furloughed workers.

In the meantime, surprising to me, we had Federal employee worker unions reach out to us, asking what they could do to help pass this bill. They are sick and tired of being used as pawns in this political dysfunction here. They are tired of it.

One of the things that definitely appealed to them once I added the furloughed workers was that my bill makes it permanent. My bill says: We will never use you again as a pawn in the political gamesmanship that is being played out right now.

I am happy to report that the Shutdown Fairness Act, as I now amended it by adding furloughed workers, is supported by the American Federation of Government Employees, the Federal Managers Association, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

We tragically had a plane go down early in the week. I am not saying it is because of air traffic control, but we understand the danger. We have to understand the risks we are taking in not paying air traffic controllers so we can fully man our air towers and keep our airspace safe.

The International Association of Fire Fighters supports my bill. The Association of Flight Attendants does.

Again, one of the main reasons they support my bill is, in addition to the fact that we added furloughed workers, my bill makes this permanent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 191, S. 3012. I further ask that the Johnson substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Reserving the right to object, it is important that the American public understand what is going on here.

Again, I came down here 2 weeks ago. I modified my bill quite dramatically. We entered talks immediately with the

Senator from Delaware and the Senator from Michigan. Within those talks--again, 2 weeks ago--they were accusing my bill of giving the President all this additional authority. In discussions staff to staff, they admitted there is no additional authority I am giving to the President in this bill whatsoever.

This bill is completely silent on Presidential authority in terms of who he can furlough. As a matter of fact, everybody is included, every employee is now included. There is no discretion whatsoever in terms of who is furloughed, who gets brought back to work, who gets paid. They all get paid. The Senator from Michigan is well aware of this.

Those discussions, I would say, petered out within a few days. I don't know if they are emboldened; just digging their heels in they are going to continue this shutdown; don't feel they are getting blamed for it; don't have much pressure on them.

Here we are 2 weeks later, and they want to redline the bill. Well, in that 2 weeks, we have had our bill examined exhaustively by our leadership, by OMB, by the unions. Our bill is in a really good place right now. We tried to think of everything. No Federal employee would be excluded from this.

The Senator from Michigan says my bill allows the President to pick and choose. That is total hogwash. Again, every Federal employee, including contractors, gets paid. There is no picking and choosing. That is completely false. Money transfers? What is he talking about? More power? There is no power. It is completely silent in terms of Presidential authority. These are false arguments.

This is further evidence of the gamesmanship the Democrats are playing with people's lives. They are the party of Big Government. They have, in effect, taken a family member hostage.

I see our leader on the floor here. He has been doing everything he possibly can to help Democrats release their own hostage, open up the government.

Once you do that, we are more than happy to talk to you about how do we repair the damage done by ObamaCare and transition to a system that works.

But they are playing politics. They are using Federal employees and, quite honestly, the American public right now, whose flights are being delayed, whose skies are less safe--they are using public employees and the American public as pawns in this grotesque display of partisanship.

My bill is very simple. It is backed by the public sector unions, which generally don't support things I am putting forward.

If the Senator insists on objecting to this, preventing these people, these workers, these people who keep us safe, from getting paid in this round, my guess is that we will take a vote on this to proceed to the bill. The problem with that is it will take much more time.

If we can pass this by unanimous consent right now, we could send it over to the House. The Speaker has already indicated that if we pass the Shutdown Fairness Act, he will bring his people back. They are on 48-hour call. We could have this passed by Monday. Our skies would be safer again. Federal employees would be treated fairly. They would be paid. And they will never ever be used as pawns in this kind of grotesque partisan gamesmanship.

So I will not modify my request.

Absolutely.

In reclaiming my time briefly, let me emphasize the fact that if you pass this now--again, to the Senator from Michigan, I am literally begging him: Do not object. Do not object. It is still going to take a couple of days to actually pass this. If we have to go the route of a motion to proceed and getting on the bill, that is going to take quite some time. Our skies can't remain at this level right now. We can't continue with these airport delays. We can't continue to use public sector employees and the American public as pawns in this partisan gamesmanship.

So, literally, I think the Senator knows me. He knows I am saying this in good faith: Please do not object. Let this bill pass so the House can come back, and the President can sign this into law, and these good people who are being forced to work or who have been furloughed can get the pay they deserve. Again, today, tomorrow, and in the future, they will be assured they will never ever be used like pawns in these partisan games.

Again, I underscore that I will not modify my request.

Will the Senator yield?

Again, let me correct--I hate to say--falsehoods that were presented here in the Chamber.

My bill is completely silent in terms of Presidential authority.

To the Senator from Michigan, I know they want to put language in there to restrict Presidential authority, but the fact of the matter is--and I made him well aware of this--that it is a bill that would never be signed into law.

So if the Senator is serious about actually paying the workers, he will recognize that fact and admit that my bill is completely silent. It does not add and it does not detract from Presidential authority. There is nothing in the bill that does that.

Secondly, we have tried to come to accommodations with a number of Senators on the other side for a couple of weeks, but they have pretty much fallen on deaf ears.

Again, I know it is unfortunate that he objected right now. If we proceed and vote and actually get on the bill--and I hope, at least, we do that--that will take quite some time. So it seems he has already objected.

What I am happy to do--not happy; I am very disappointed I am going to have to do this--is to look at their language. If it is acceptable-- again, if he is doing anything with Presidential authority in the way of adding or detracting, it won't be signed into law; it will be a fruitless exercise. But if we accept their language--we will look at it, and then maybe--maybe--we can come back down here and do another unanimous consent request and pass this today. That is what I hope we can do.

So we will look at the language. It is very unfortunate we didn't pass it right now, but maybe later this afternoon, we can do so.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I came to the floor 2 weeks ago with a completely nonpartisan, very sincere attempt with a bill that we call the Shutdown Fairness Act to simply pay the Federal workers whom we were requiring to work, the finest among us: the members of our military, people in Federal law enforcement, TSA, and air traffic controllers to keep our skies safe.

Now, when I was asking the Senate to proceed to that bill, the Senator from Maryland offered an alternative. He called it the True Shutdown Fairness Act. The main difference is that his was only going to be for 1 year. My bill is permanent--permanently stops using Federal employees and the American public as pawns in these sick partisan games.

The other difference was my bill is focusing on the people we are forcing to work. His bill added furloughed workers. So on the floor 2 weeks ago, I said if you are serious about passing this bill, if you are serious about stopping--he said, he can't punish Federal employees for our dysfunction.

If you are serious about that, I told the Senator from Maryland, vote to get on the bill. I will include that; I will convince our conference to include furloughed workers. Get on the bill. We will amend it. We will get this passed, and we will start paying people.

He rejected that offer. Now, we started having discussions. His staff immediately acknowledged the fact that my bill did not in any way, shape, or form impact the President's authority in terms of determining who was furloughed, who gets included in a reduction in force. It was silent. Even though they falsely accused my bill of giving the President greater authority, it didn't.

I came to the floor again today to pass an amended bill with furloughed workers--by the way, a bill that is now supported by the American Federation of Government Employees--I believe that is the largest public employee union; the Federal Managers Association; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association; the National Air Traffic Controllers Association--and we are going to have the Senator from Texas come down and talk about what is happening with air travel as we speak; the International Association of Firefighters; and the Association of Flight Attendants. These are public sector unions that generally don't support Republican legislation.

What they particularly like about my bill is the fact that it is permanent. It prevents Federal workers and, quite honestly, the broader American public from being used as pawns again in these sick political games being played right now with their lives.

So, in a few minutes, we are going to proceed to vote on a motion to proceed to my original bill. That is how this works. The leader voted no so he can bring it up for reconsideration. So we have to bring that bill up. We already have the language for the substitute amendment, which includes furloughed workers, that has been vetted by, quite honestly, both Democrat and Republican Senate offices, by the Office of Management and Budget, and by the public sector unions, which have come out in support for it.

This is a bill that is ready for prime time. This is a bill that is ready to be passed tonight. Now, it is unfortunate that we couldn't pass it by unanimous consent because had we done that, the House is on a 48-hour callback, and they will come back. The Speaker has already said they will pass this in the House. And we get our military members, air traffic controllers, these Federal workers who keep us safe--we can get them paid.

So again, I am just asking--I am actually pleading with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to please vote to proceed to this bill. We will substitute an amendment that includes furloughed workers. We can pass this tonight. If we vote to proceed, we can then vote for unanimous consent to waive all time agreements, and we could even pass this yet tonight. Make our skies safer.

But I know the Senator from Alaska has a few words to say, and I know the Senator from Texas will as well.

I yield to the Senator from Alaska.

I want to thank the Senator from Alaska. He has been so dedicated. He has been so tenacious in making sure that the finest among us, the men and women of our military, get paid and then, you know, signing on to my effort to broaden this to all Federal employees. Again, as he said, they shouldn't have to go to food banks and they shouldn't have to go to DoorDash to pay their child's tuition or feed their family.

But we had a chilling report from the Senator from Texas, the chair of the Commerce Committee, in terms of what is happening with air traffic control in terms of our skies. But before we turn to the Senator from Texas, the Senator from Wyoming has a few words to speak on this bill.

I appreciate the remarks from the Senator from Wyoming. I know people are coming down here to vote, but there are no time restrictions, and this is extremely important. We have a number of Senators who want to speak to this issue. We should give them time to speak--hopefully, to convince our colleagues on the other side to, again, be fair: Think about what your vote means to people that don't want to be used as pawns.

I believe, again, that the Senator from Texas, our chairman of the Commerce Committee, he has got some pretty, as I said, chilling information to relate to the American public, based on what is happening, if we do not pay air traffic controllers.

The Senator from Texas.

I want to thank Senator Cruz for his sobering remarks.

This Chamber should be full. It would be nice if our Democratic colleagues were here to listen. I hope they are listening on their TVs in their office.

God, I hope it literally doesn't take planes falling out of the sky. Tonight, you can continue your shutdown, but you can vote to pay the air traffic controllers so that is far less likely. If you vote no and, God forbid, it actually happens, can you live with yourself?

I came to the floor 2 weeks ago in as nonpartisan a fashion as I possibly could, begging Democrats to pay people that are forced to work that are keeping our skies safe, that are keeping our Nation safe. Two weeks later, we haven't done it.

This isn't partisan.

Search your conscience. Ask yourself, honest to God, if a plane, another plane--a plane has fallen out of the sky. I am not saying it is because of air traffic control, but you heard of 500 safety instances. Our air traffic control system is already antiquated. Can you live with yourself if another plane falls out of the sky and more people needlessly die because we are short of air traffic controllers?

I know the Senator from Alaska has a couple more comments. Then we will turn it over to the Senator from Florida.

I thank the Senator from Alaska and yield to the Senator from Florida.

I want to thank the Senator from Florida.

I see the Senator from Michigan. I believe he wants to speak to this bill. We will have the last word.

Mr. President, I am not quite sure what planet the Senator from Michigan comes from, but here on planet Earth, when you read the actual language of the bill, none of these phantom provisions exist in there. But I will go through those point for point before we call for the final vote.

Right now, I think the Senator from Nebraska has a few points he wants to make.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from the Senator from Nebraska.

I think the Senator from Utah would also like to speak to the bill.

I want to thank the Senator from Utah for his remarks.

Mr. President, I don't want to spend time refuting all of the misrepresentations from the Senator from Michigan in terms of what phantom provisions he claims are in my bill. There is no slush fund. It is completely silent on Presidential authority. I know some people want to reduce authority, but that is a bill that won't be signed. If you want to pay the Federal workers, if you want to stop punishing them for our dysfunction, if you want to stop using them as pawns in this political game, that is a demand you have to drop.

The money appropriated in this bill will go to pay workers. That also is a false argument.

But if you are not quite satisfied with the language, which has been out there--and we have been trying to work and get feedback for 2 weeks, and we have gotten excellent feedback from leadership, from discussions on both sides of the aisle, from OMB, trying to perfect this thing--the solution is get on the bill. Get on the bill and offer an amendment. Keep talking to us. Don't close it down.

We heard from a number of our Republican colleagues. We heard from the Senator from Michigan. Obviously, passions are running high. But there is a great deal of frustration, certainly, on our side when the other side simply won't take yes for an answer.

I came down here 2 weeks ago in as nonpartisan a stance as I possibly could be because, as the Senator from Michigan stated, we all agree that these people ought to be paid. So the way to do that is not to offer a bill on unanimous consent that has no chance of being signed into law; the way to do that is to vote to proceed tonight to this bill.

If we could iron out our differences, we could yield back time and get this thing passed that the Speaker of the House has already said he would come back and pass. We are so close.

I realize there may be hard partisans. I know there are liberal unions that have now come out against us. But the bulk of the public sector unions are for it. They prefer my bill over anything else. They may also support it because this is permanent. This ends using the Federal workforce and, quite honestly, the American public as pawns in these partisan games for all time. Again, the American Federation of Government Employees, the Federal Managers Association, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association--again, I hope our Democratic colleagues listened to Senator Cruz's chilling and sobering remarks just a few minutes ago; the International Association of Fire Fighters; and the Association of Flight Attendants.

This bill has support because it makes so much sense. It is fair.

We had three Democrats join us 2 weeks ago. There are two other Democrats who have voted for the House CR. That brings us up to a total of 58. Now, we voted against this because we didn't have furloughed workers. We have added furloughed workers. So hopefully those two will join us.

I have talked to enough Democrat Senators trying to get their input, trying to get this passed. I know there are Democrat Senators who want to vote for this bill, who can vote for this bill.

So putting all partisanship aside, again, I want to appeal to your better

angels. Search your conscience. Sign on to the bill. Vote for a bill that ends using Federal workers and the American public as pawns.

The Senator from Maryland said last week: Let's not punish Federal workers for our dysfunction.

I think my closing argument has to be to go back to what the Senator from Texas was talking about--the air traffic controllers and that situation. Five hundred safety issues were reported recently in our skies.

Search your conscience. Can you imagine--I mean, honestly, think about it. Imagine what the one Democrat staffer said: We are going to cling to this until planes fall out of the sky.

Think about how you would feel if, God forbid, a plane--another plane--fell out of the sky and people died. How could you live with yourself?

Now, again, you can continue the shutdown. I mean, that is your political choice. You can continue to vote against the very reasonable House continuing resolution. But you can still vote to pay Federal workers. You can vote to make sure that air traffic controllers get back to their stations and keep our skies as safe as possible. You can vote to dramatically reduce the chance that a plane will fall out of the sky. We just need two more of you; two more of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are working with, quite honestly, folks on this side, trying to end the shutdown; just two of those whom I spoke to that I thought would vote for this. I am begging you--two more.

Let's get on this bill. Let's pay Federal workers. Let's make our Nation safer. Let's do the fair thing. Let's do the right thing. Let's vote to proceed to this bill and get it passed.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I just want to first start off and say that I deeply appreciate that Senator Johnson has updated his proposal to pay all Federal employees during the shutdown, to include furloughed workers as well as DC employees. I appreciate all his efforts.

I have worked on a number of bills with the Senator from Wisconsin. We would like to continue to work on this bill as well as we go forward. But, unfortunately, I still have some concerns about the way that the bill has been drafted so far. Those are things that I think we can work out and want to work out. We have been going back and forth with our staff.

I am concerned that Senator Johnson's bill still leaves too much discretion up to President Trump. There is too much wiggle room for the administration to basically pick and choose which Federal employees are paid and when.

I am also deeply concerned that this would allow the administration to actually transfer this money to other purposes that are unintended by Congress, which, unfortunately, we have seen happen repeatedly in this administration.

I believe there are ways that we can put in guardrails. There are ways we can get to that, but we are just not there yet. I certainly ask indulgence from my colleague from Wisconsin. We sent another proposal over to his staff. We can work on this quickly and try to figure out how we get there.

In the meantime, I have also introduced a bill that would pay Federal employees just for this shutdown, without the additional powers sent to the administration. It is basically a clean bill--no additional language, no complications, no wondering, what does this actually mean? It is very straightforward.

My Military and Federal Employee Protection Act would ensure that all Federal employees receive the pay they certainly deserve, allowing them to pay their bills on time this month.

I have asked Senator Johnson to support my very simple proposal, which I think accomplishes most everything he wants to do, with the exception of things about giving the administration more power. I think we can agree on that. We can pay our troops and our Federal employees, period. That would be my goal.

I will continue to work to this end and to work to end this government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis, but in the meantime, we must protect our hard-working Federal employees.

My bill is very straightforward. We could agree to that right now, and it is done. Federal employees are going to get paid without all the other extraneous language in the Senator's bill.

Therefore, I ask that the Senator modify his request so that, instead, the Appropriations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3043 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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.

Madam President, to the Senator from Wisconsin, I know he and I have worked on a lot of issues. That is not in question here. We do have questions with some of the language in this bill just to make sure that we have guardrails.

I want to pay Federal employees. That is why I have the bill that is on the floor right now that I am trying to

move. It will pay Federal employees. It will pay contractors as well. The Senator's is not doing that, I understand. But everybody who is being shorted right now should be paid, and that is what my legislation does. So we could do that.

You know, I am happy if the Senator wants to take my legislation and put his name on it. I will support it, and we will pass it right now and send it there, and people are going to get paid. So if the Senator really wants to do that, we could do that today.

Does the Senator want me just to put his name on this bill and then we will pass it? It would be fine to do that.

Excuse me.

In reclaiming my time, we can make that happen, and if the Senator puts it on the floor later, we will go through the process. I would hope that he and I, during that process, can work on language to perhaps address some of the concerns that I have. It is not that we pay people. That is not my concern. I wouldn't be offering this legislation here today if I were concerned about that. I want to pay them. Labor unions support my bill too--no surprise. They are getting paid. And that is why I have introduced this.

This is not a political game. I hope we get this shutdown open. I hope we are able to find common ground and say that we want to lower the cost so Americans have affordable healthcare, and we don't want to see their premiums go up and people lose insurance. I hope we can do that. It is not a game. I don't see this as leverage.

Now, a President who refuses to release SNAP funds to feed people-- now, that is what is irresponsible and reprehensible leverage. Money is available to feed people right now, and this President is saying no. The court has ordered him to put that money into food, and he says: I am going to appeal it.

That is absolutely despicable, that the President of the United States wants to starve children in order to get his way.

We have to move beyond that. We have to find common ground. I hope we can find common ground in this bill. My bill is just plain, simple, clean, no games, no other language. We know we have to have guardrails when we have a lawless President. We had better put some guardrails in. He walks over Congress all the time. My colleagues on the Republican side just let him walk over Congress all the time.

I don't know why you ran for office if you just want to be run over by a President. We are a coequal branch of government. We are here to represent the people of our States. So let's work together and be thoughtful about this and understand that if Congress puts this law forward, it actually goes the way we want, and we don't have a President who basically thumbs his nose at Members of the Senate and the House and does what he wants, and he knows the Republicans will say: Oh, well. That is fine. We are just here to rubberstamp. That is what we are here for.

So let's hope we can work together to get this right and pay employees. They should be. They have a right to that. I think we can do this, and we can get together and get beyond the rhetoric and games from the leader, that I heard. It is also on this side as well.

So let's work together. Let's open up this government. Let's end this shutdown. Let's make sure people have affordable healthcare in this country. Let's make sure our own employees get paid. Let's do all of that this weekend. I am on board for all of that. Hopefully, we can get that done.

Madam President, Republicans have repeatedly said that they will not negotiate reforms to the healthcare law credits until the government reopens.

I will tell you right now that all my colleagues on this side of the aisle definitely want to open government, and we want to do it as soon as possible. We are also willing to respect Leader Thune's desire to negotiate after the shutdown.

So Democrats are offering today a very simple, straightforward compromise, and if Republicans accept this, we could open the government today. Wouldn't that be fabulous--show that we can come together with a commonsense, bipartisan compromise and open government.

All we have to do is have a 1-year extension of the existing law dealing with tax credits; and over the next year, we can figure out a long-term solution to the healthcare challenge that we are facing as a country.

This proposal opens the government and ensures that families who are shopping right now for their healthcare can get immediate financial relief at a time when costs are driving families to make incredibly difficult financial decisions.

And we believe that, while we are trying to figure out a long-term solution to the healthcare crisis, people should not be penalized, people should not be suffering. Give the relief that they need now, and over the next year we will work together to find a more comprehensive solution.

We know that right now our Nation has experienced a healthcare crisis where costs are skyrocketing and too many Americans are risking losing their coverage. Too many Americans are struggling to choose between food or gas or healthcare. And it is not just Americans in blue States; let's be clear. Families in every State across the country are paying these prices. Every one of us has families that are experiencing this now in our States. But we can take action today to give our constituents some immediate financial relief and prevent them from being priced out of the insurance market.

We all want to end the shutdown. We want to ensure that government services can continue, and we want to ensure our hard-working Federal employees get the pay that they have earned. But Democrats have made clear since day one that in order to get the votes that Republicans need, we must address the healthcare crisis--because the American people have made it clear they want Congress to take action on this issue. It is literally life or death for far too many American families.

I know many of my Republican colleagues want to work on this issue too. I have had conversations with so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who want to try to figure out how we fix this. But they have said repeatedly, ``We won't negotiate until government reopens.'' Leader Thune has said:

[G]ive us the votes to open up the government. Then we will

have a conversation about some of these issues that you want

to discuss. And I think health care is certainly something

that we are anxious to talk about.

And perhaps, most importantly, even President Trump has said he would be happy to work with Democrats on healthcare policies but only once the government is reopened.

Well, I agree with my Republican colleagues: It is not realistic to reform a major policy, major healthcare policy, in just a few days. It is not going to happen. And I respect Leader Thune and President Trump's desire to work on this when the government has reopened. I am willing to compromise on that. My colleagues are willing to compromise on this. It is something that can be done today if we need to. But our Republican colleagues have to be willing to compromise too. Compromise is a two-way street.

We want them to show us that these are not just empty words, that they really are willing to compromise and they do want to take action. So that is why we put forward this very simple proposal: Extend the tax credits for 1 year. We are not asking to make any major changes to the current law; just extend that and protect people who are suffering right now and are hurting. We are just asking to keep the credits in place for 1 year so that families can see some immediate financial relief from the costs that are going through the roof, so that they can make important decisions about buying their healthcare right now--right now--during open enrollment.

This is live. People are dealing with this situation as we speak. We can fix this. If we care about making sure families can afford their healthcare, we should all agree on that. We should get 100 votes here for people to say: We are going to do everything we can to protect healthcare for Americans. And we can do that right now, and we can open up government right now. We can pay employees. We can move this country forward if we do that. All we need is a very simple extension of a law that has already existed for some time.

We know from the start that any deal will ultimately have to be a compromise. It doesn't have to be unanimous. There will be likely folks on both sides that may feel uncomfortable with this, and I get that. That is the way this place works.

But our proposal would try to work in a bipartisan way by creating a bipartisan committee that will continue negotiations on reforms ahead of next year's enrollment process so we are not pulling the rug out from underneath families. We are going to do it ahead of time so folks know exactly what to expect going forward.

I am telling the Presiding Officer now, if we vote for this compromise today, we could open up government. This could all be behind us. Families could get some certainty for their future, for the next year, while we look at long-term solutions; the government can open. But it takes all of us just to say: We are willing to compromise for the good of the country.

My colleagues are standing here saying: We are willing to compromise for the good of the country.

I just hope my Republican colleagues agree.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me first say that there is something we all agree on, Democrats and Republicans, here in this Chamber. We want Federal employees to be paid. It is simply unacceptable that they have to work and come to work every day, do their job, and not get paid. That is why we have to end this shutdown as quickly as possible, and we are focused on doing that.

But that is not really exactly the total story behind the Johnson bill. I have legislation to pay Federal employees. We could vote on that now. I offered it in a UC request to my colleague from Wisconsin that said we have a bill to pay all Federal employees right now, no strings attached, no language that gives the President more power, more flexibility to do things that we should not want him to do.

But my Republican colleagues don't want to have that bill.

Senator Van Hollen, another colleague of mine, has a bill to pay them that has complete support of Democrats. Let's pay them. We have two bills that if we put them on the floor right now, we could pass. If my Republican friends want to do it, we could pass with 100 votes.

It is my bill, but any of you can sign it. I offer it to my colleague from Wisconsin. It could be your bill. Do it. I don't need any authorship of it. But it is a bill that does exactly what my colleagues across the aisle are saying: just pay Federal employees. That is what it would do, but it was rejected.

Why?

There is a little bit more in this bill. The Johnson bill before us actually creates an unlimited and permanent slush fund for President Trump to use. You are not going to get support here from us to transfer what should be congressional power to be able to determine when we want money spent, and it actually gets spent the way it should be.

It is not about passing a slush fund to the President. The President could justify the transfer of this money elsewhere. This is something, clearly, the administration wants because it will give the White House more power. The bill adds Presidential authority by omitting--it omits the regular safeguards that we include in normal funding bills to ensure that money actually goes where Congress intends.

We have been seeing a lot of that. The President, basically, is just thumbing his nose at Congress every day. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues say that is OK. If the President doesn't want to listen to the Congress, that is OK with them.

We are a coequal branch of government. We are elected by the people back home to represent our people as Senators. We are not here just to rubberstamp a President.

A lot of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, I am surprised at, because there are a lot of really great people that I have a lot of respect for. And yet we see the President constantly run over Congress, and it is crickets on the other side. There is no pushback from my Republican colleagues, either here in the Senate or in the House.

There is actually, in this bill, there is no explicit guarantee or requirement to actually pay out this money. The administration could sit on this appropriation. We are just a blank-check appropriation for employees, but the administration could just sit on it for some particular programs they don't like.

That is why, in a normal appropriations bill, we put in language to prevent that. Granted, the President has been ignoring Congress, but at least we put it in saying these are the rules.

Congress has the power of the purse. It is article I of the Constitution, and yet a lot of my colleagues don't seem to take that to heart.

Most approps bills, including the House's continuing resolution proposal, actually include restrictions on how funding should be used. The Johnson bill includes no restrictions--no restrictions.

We know that Trump has shown that he will abuse the budget process in

very novel ways. He has said that he will refuse to pay backpay to workers even when Congress has explicitly set it. This bill, hopefully, does address that. He has transferred money illegally to pay for his political priorities, and he impounds money whenever he finds any kind of wiggle room to do that.

In a sense, this bill is a Trojan horse. It says that we are going to help Federal employees, but it is really continued power for the President.

I have heard my colleagues say that Federal employees are being used as pawns. That is what this bill does. It is using Federal employees as pawns to give the OMB and the President a whole lot more power to use a slush fund of money in any way he chooses.

We know OMB Director Russ Vought likes this bill. We know what Russ Vought is about. In fact, I think there was a leaked speech that Russ Vought had, and we mentioned this in the committee.

I appreciate my colleagues saying how wonderful Federal workers are, but this is what the OMB Director said, who says this is a really good bill, that the Johnson bill is a really good bill. He said that he wants the bureaucrats to be affected by trauma.

When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want

to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the

villains. . . . We want to put them in trauma.

I hope my Republican colleagues called out Mr. Vought when he said that because you care so much about our employees. I appreciate that.

But when folks in the administration say things like this, please say that is wrong; that we really do care about you--not when you are trying to put a bill forward that is going to give the President an unlimited slush fund.

Let's be real. If you want to pay employees, which I hope you do, and if you want to move forward, then take a bill that we know has the kind of guardrails that our appropriations bills normally do to make sure the money is actually spent as we intend in Congress, which is the way it is supposed to work under article I of the Constitution.

I still believe in the Constitution. I still believe that we are a coequal branch of government, that we are not simply a rubberstamp for the President. If we don't change that way, that is how you lose the checks and balances that our Founders cared so deeply about.

You know, as our Founders were debating the Constitution, they didn't trust any of us. They knew; they were politicians too. They knew you couldn't trust anybody. So they figured: We are going to have three branches. We are going to have the judiciary check the Congress and the President. The Congress will check the Presidential power.

Article I is the Congress. They thought the Congress was the most important one. But they kind of assumed that the Congress would actually exercise its power and check Presidential power, not just hand more to him with a smile and then use a false pretext in order to give that money. So that is what this bill is about.

You know, I have tried to work with Senator Johnson, and I will always want to work with him. We have worked on a number of bills together. We have language.

Again, of the bills we have that I have introduced, which is the Military and Federal Employee Protection Act--a straight, clean bill. They talk about union support. Every union has supported my legislation. Every union has supported Senator Van Hollen's.

We are now getting unions. Unions are starting to read the fine print on this bill right now. We have AFSCME that has now come out against it. We have the SEIU that has just come out against it. We have the AFL-CIO that has just come out against it. We have the IFPTE that is just coming out. I guess our union friends are going to read the language of this bill and are going to be like: Oh, we should have read the fine print.

Like, yes, it is really important to read the fine print.

So we can't support this bill. We can support a bill that pays all of our employees, but it has got to be one that has the types of protections we have in every other appropriations bill we try to pass out of this body.

So I am going to oppose this, but hopefully we can find a way to work together. We have two bills ready to go that we could pass today, but with this bill, we are going to object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have come here today on the floor in good faith. I have come here not to argue. I have come here trying to find agreement. And I have listened to the Senator from Virginia, now the Senator from Maryland, and I have to say, I don't know exactly what percentage, but probably 95, 98 percent of what they have said, I agree with.

I do have to point out, and this would be the most--I would say this is a partisan comment. We have voted now 12 times on a measure that would open up the government. It is what the House passed as a clean CR, similar, if not identical, to what happened 13 times during the Biden administration--just a clean CR to open up the government at President Biden's levels, funding levels that Democrats voted for.

By the way, you know, House Republicans could have come to the table with a CR with $1.5 trillion of spending reductions to match the $1.5 trillion of spending increase the Democrats wanted, and now there would be areas of compromise.

But the House Republicans basically said here is the deal: Let's not shut

down the government. Let's not make Federal Government workers pay for our dysfunction. So pass a clean CR at President Biden's funding levels.

So, again, that has been voted down 12 times, regrettably. But let me set that aside.

I found out about the Senator from Maryland's proposal last May. I got the language this morning. I have got the bill here. And, you know, first of all, I kind of chuckled because the name of the bill is--I have actually got the true Warren Buffet tax, and we ought to talk about that later on. You might find that interesting. So he has taken my bill, the Shutdown Fairness Act, and now this is his bill, the True Shutdown Fairness Act.

And, again, I haven't done a word comparison, but it is probably like 95 percent of the Shutdown Fairness Act. That is a good thing. That shows there are a lot of areas of agreement.

I come from the private sector. You don't get a whole lot accomplished arguing all the time. It is all about finding areas of agreement. I have got a product; you want to buy it. Now, we will haggle over the price.

I have got a product; you want to buy it. Now, we need to haggle over the price.

Now, the three areas of--the differences in these bills--I think I have got this right. I would ask the Senator from Maryland to confirm that. Your bill is only for this fiscal year. My bill would just end this punishing Federal workers for our dysfunction forever. I mean, I think we should make it permanent.

The Senator from Maryland's bill includes furloughed employees. Now, the fact of the matter is, when all this is said and done, when we finally end this dysfunction, we fund the government through an appropriation, and because of the 2019 Government Fair Treatment Act, they will get paid anyway.

So my bill is obviously targeted to the people we are forcing to work, but I am not necessarily opposed to paying furloughed workers as well. That is something we can talk about.

The last difference is, it limits reduction in force. And I come from the private sector. Nobody likes to terminate employees--nobody.

But in the private sector when a business is facing bankruptcy, sometimes business owners are forced do that to preserve the other jobs.

The Federal Government is $38 trillion in debt. I don't think we should limit the President's ability, the Chief Executive's ability, to properly manage the Federal Government and make the tough decisions, sometimes, to reduce the workforce, cut out some government functions.

Again, that is something we can talk about.

So, again, I think, in fairness to the more than 2 million Federal employees that are now being forced to work because--the term is ``excepted,'' but that means they are essential--they are protecting our Nation; they are protecting our safety and security; they are writing Social Security checks. We need to see that they get their paycheck so they don't have to work Door Dash, so they don't have to go to food banks, so they are not under that stress.

I am asking in good faith, let's figure out how to get that done.

Now, I mean, I could propose--I will change the name of mine, by the way, if you want to call it ``true'' because I think it is the True Shutdown Fairness Act.

Today, right now, I would be willing to add furloughed workers because we are going to pay them anyway.

I am just asking: Would you substitute your bill; take my bill, substitute it in? I have actually got my staff to write the language to do this. It is probably not ready for prime time. You really need to get through leg counsel and that kind of stuff. But you would take my bill, add furloughed workers, and say it is a done deal? Is that something you would accept here today?

Yes, yes.

Again, I--

Again, I am trying to keep this--let's not argue. OK? Let's focus on areas of agreement.

So reduction in force, again, I think we probably have a philosophical disagreement there. I am not associating myself with anybody else's remarks. That is something that I think reasonable people can disagree with, and I think reasonable people can come to an accommodation.

Again, we are talking about making sure that 2.8--I think is about the number, 2.8--million Federal employees aren't worried about getting their next paycheck. That so overwhelms, quite honestly, the smaller differences about the length of the bill or what reduction in force.

Again, I am willing to come a long way in terms of--

I am willing to come a long way in terms of including furloughed workers. So, again, what I am suggesting is the way to do it--by the way, this could be a wonderful example for this body, working on a piece of legislation that, again, you bring it to the floor. We filed it--it got rule XIV'd, but we are doing it the right way. We are going to ask for a cloture vote on it, get it on the floor, open it up to amendments--perfect it. See what the body of the Senate wants to do with this piece of legislation that, again, we probably agree on 95 percent of it or higher.

The way to do it is, when I offer my bill and we vote on cloture, vote for cloture. Let's get on the bill. Let's start discussing today. I mean, maybe if we are so successful, we find the differences are so slight, we can pass it by UC later in the day.

But we do need to take this back to our conferences. We do need to go to the leg staff. We do need to perfect this. It will probably take it more time.

Passing it by unanimous consent is not the way to do it. I appreciate the attempt. I appreciate the dialogue.

That is not what I am asking. In all sincerity, for the benefit of those 2.8 million workers--our military, our law enforcement--let's take that burden off them today. Let's give them some hope to know this body is going to finally do something in a nonpartisan--I call it nonpartisan--way that we all agree on. We are going to iron out our differences the way you would generally do it, the way it used to be done: By getting onto a bill, voting for cloture, having the will to work its way, and then hopefully pass it early next week. That would be my suggestion.

I would be willing to do it today. I don't think we could probably handle that. There are things to discuss. That is all I am asking.

Would you like to respond?

Like I said, I really didn't want to come and argue.

I have to dispute that because even the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, which has endorsed my bill, says

that the bill does not single out favored political functions over its favored ones.

You understand, under the Antideficiency Act, opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel, ``excepted employees,'' it is pretty well standard. There may be some tweaks back and forth, which is what you give latitude to the executive branch.

Again, I am willing to sit down. I am sure the Republican conference is willing to sit down and say: OK. What should we do?

I think Congress has given way too much authority to the executive branch. I don't mind dialing that back a little bit. But, again, the way to approach that is let's get on the bill; let's talk about it; let's offer amendments--amendments that pass by voice vote--and let's get it done.

There is a lot of pressure on all of us. We all want to get this done.

But, again, passing by unanimous consent is not the way to get it done. The way to get it done is the way the process should work. I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful to actually see the process work in the Senate?

You know, again, I realize you don't like--

Let's get on the bill. And then let's sit down in good faith. Let's hammer out amendments, and let's get the thing passed next week. Let's do that. That is all I am asking.

I honestly hate to object to this. I don't want to. OK? But, again, this is not the way to pass it.

So, again, I will speak to my bill. I know we have got to get to votes and that kind of stuff. But again, truthfully, in as good of faith as I possibly can be, we have to get this done, and the way to do that is vote to get on the bill. Let's sit down and talk in good faith, and let's hammer out--it might be pretty minor differences when all is all said and done.

With that, Mr. President--

Sure.

Let me address that. I think this brinkmanship has got to end. I have been here 15 years. We should have passed 180 appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year. We passed six. A lot of people worked in good faith to do that. OK.

It is obviously broken. We have got to start working on appropriations and budget reform. We have to start working on that together. OK?

But my guess is, part of what has happened with the reduction in force is that brinkmanship, trying to get you folks to just agree to what you have done 13 times. Just open up the government, and then we will talk. OK? We are more than open to talk.

But anyway, again, I am literally begging you, please, when we vote on cloture, vote to get on the bill, and then let's go through the amendment process, and let's get it done quickly.

Again, there is not that big of difference. We can get this done.

Again, I hate to do this, but with that, I will object and just, again, beg you.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, again, I will condense my remarks because so much of what I want to say I already said to the Senator from Maryland.

I think it is interesting that the Senator from Michigan supports the Senator from Maryland's bill, which is a more comprehensive bill, I think. I only saw this now and hope I get it right. But I think yours is just limited to the time period from the shutdown until the bill is passed, and then we are in the same situation: The shutdown continues.

Hopefully, it won't. You know there is a way of doing it. Just vote for the clean CR.

But, again, I really don't want to object to these bills, but in this case, I understand the way to pass this into law--as I was speaking to the Senator from Maryland today, as he exited the Chamber: Wouldn't this be a wonderful demonstration for the Senate, the Congress, for America of how you pass a piece of legislation? If you take the bill--I realize you don't 100-percent agree with my Shutdown Fairness Act. Fine. I think we are 90-plus percent in agreement on it.

You vote for cloture to get on the bill. Then you work in good faith on the areas of disagreement. Let the Senate work its will through the Member process.

This is a small piece of legislation. It is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It is incredibly important because we all agree that we don't want to make Federal employees pay for the dysfunction of this body.

Let's first demonstrate that this body can actually function the way it is intended to function, which is to write a bill, get it filed, have the leader file cloture on it, and have the body vote to proceed to the bill with 60 votes.

We don't need all of you. We need about seven of you, eight of you. OK? Have eight of you agree to get on the bill. Then we will work in good faith and make sure that we don't make Federal employees pay for our dysfunction.

Again, I do have to object. But, again, I am urging--I am begging-- colleagues from the other side of the aisle to vote for cloture, and let's iron out these differences and make the Federal employees whole.

I object.

So now we will proceed to the cloture vote on the Shutdown Fairness Act.

In response to this, quickly. It is unrealistic to expect almost any piece of legislation to pass by unanimous consent, a bill that has just been introduced that exact morning. No matter how simple it is, there are going to be people who are going to object. So that is why the process is to file a bill, to file for cloture, and to proceed to get on the bill, to have the amendment process, and to go through the process. It can go very quickly, but doing this by unanimous consent is just unreasonable. So that is unfortunate. Again, the solution here is to vote for cloture to get on the bill, the Shutdown Fairness Act.

Now, I will try and keep my remarks reasonably short. I was allotted 20 minutes, but I know people are already here on the floor to vote, so I am mindful of that, but this is just a quick, little history of my experience since I got here in 2011.

This is our fourth shutdown now, and we are on the 23rd day. We have had 55 continuing resolutions. Again, I didn't vote for all of them, but I voted for many of them. You know, other colleagues on both sides have voted for those. I mean, generally, the fight is over. Let's just have a clean CR; let's not junk it up with policies. That is the loggerhead here. One side refuses to just do a clean CR. We have had 12 either increases or suspensions of the debt ceiling, and we have just surpassed $38 trillion in debt.

I realize people work in good faith on the budget process. I am on the Budget Committee and have been on the Appropriations Committee. I see the former chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee on the floor here. The sad fact is, since I have been here, we should have passed 180 appropriations bills prior to the end of the fiscal year that we are going to fund, but we have only passed 6. That is a 96.7-percent failure rate. It is clearly broken. The budget and appropriations process is broken.

Rather than spending weeks arguing over how do you get the government back open, I would much rather sit down in a nonpartisan way and go, How can we fix this? Can we go to 2-year appropriations cycles? I mean, what can we do to the budget process? I mean, I would much rather talk about that.

I understand that there is a lot of bipartisan agreement on proposals, but we will never get to that if we are literally mired down. Last year, it took us 6 months to finally fund the government with a continuing resolution. This is beyond ridiculous. So, again, this is a bipartisan problem here. I am not placing blame anywhere. It is just a bipartisan problem.

Unfortunately, we haven't passed any appropriations. I have pointed out before that the Democrats voted 13 times during the Biden administration for a clean CR at Biden's spending levels. Now they are saying, no, they won't.

Of course, their leader, in doing that on January 16, 2024, said:

Passing a clean CR this week is important for two main

reasons: First, passing the CR will avert a harmful and

unnecessary government shutdown. No reasonable Member of

either side, Democrat or Republican, wants a government

shutdown.

That was not Leader Thune saying that. That was then-Leader Schumer saying that, and now he has, obviously, completely changed his tune.

I did point this out, and this is important to understand because the other side is saying: Look, why don't you sit down and negotiate and compromise?

The House could have passed a CR with $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to match the CR proposed by the Democrats of $1.5 trillion in new spending. OK. There you go. Now you have got something to compromise on. That is not what the House did. The House said: Well, let's do what we did 13 times under the Biden administration. Let's just pass a clean CR at Biden's level and really beg the Democrats to say yes, but they haven't been willing to do that.

Again, I know people are waiting to vote, and I am not going to talk about the issue: you know, the fact that ObamaCare is causing premiums to skyrocket and what they are demanding, in terms of extending the enhanced

subsidies that were supposed to be temporary. They set the expiration date. It is ObamaCare that is causing premiums to be unaffordable, and they want those enhanced premiums to mask the failure of ObamaCare, but I won't get into detail on that.

I will talk about--this is day 23. We are forcing about 2.8 million Federal workers to work--military, law enforcement, people who write Social Security checks, and air traffic controllers who are keeping our skies safe--but we are not paying them. That is absurd. What is even more absurd is they will get paid. Whether they are working or furloughed, they will get paid because of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019. Once this ends--I am assuming it will end with an appropriation--they will get paid.

With the Shutdown Fairness Act, all it asks--all it does--is to recognize that reality. It shouldn't cost a dime. The CBO has an alternate universe score on this. There is a zero score. This doesn't cost the Federal Government a dime. It just pays the workers who are being forced to work. Pay them now and not later. It makes incredible common sense.

I will end with a surprising support letter I got from the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association that pretty well battens down all the arguments against this bill. It doesn't change the government's obligation to pay furloughed employees. They will get paid. It does not single out favored political functions over disfavored ones. Again, President Trump is, by and large, honoring the past opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel's Antideficiency Act.

They say that they don't believe that it is empowering the administration to pick and choose what activities it carries out. It includes to say that the American public relies on the full scope of Federal Agency missions that are funded via appropriations, and political pressures that exist to advance appropriations bills will remain to encourage resolution.

No, we are not there yet. I am sorry. I will conclude quickly.

The bottom line is, as I talk to the Senator from Maryland, the way to pass this law--the way to protect Federal workers--isn't with the unanimous consent request of a bill nobody has ever seen; it is to vote for cloture on the Shutdown Fairness Act. Let's work out the differences. We agree on 95 percent of it. Let's work out those differences and vote for cloture. We can get this passed, I think, early next week. With that, I will conclude my remarks on that.

Nomination of Rebecca L. Taibleson

Mr. President, I should be speaking for about 5 minutes on the wonderful nomination of Rebecca Taibleson, but I know everybody wants to vote.

She did a wonderful job in Judiciary. She is a highly qualified lawyer. She will make a wonderful judge for the Seventh Circuit. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for cloture on her nomination.

With that, I yield the floor.

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, 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.