Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 12 noon on Wednesday, October 16, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and that following any leader remarks, Senators be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for his outstanding work. He knows this from a business perspective, an economic perspective, and a political perspective, and has been such a strong and vibrant voice about America paying its bills.

I would like to add a couple of things.

We have a group of people in the House and the Senate--not a majority--whom we call debt ceiling deniers. They deny that letting the debt ceiling lapse and going into default could be cataclysmic for America. They are wrong. Every person who has studied this knows it is wrong.

The debt ceiling deniers fall in two camps. Some say: Well, we can pay certain debts and not other debts and that would be all right.

Well, let them choose. Pick Social Security over veterans? Pick payments to pregnant mothers versus payments for food safety? We can't do it.

Then they say: Well, maybe we should just pay Treasurys that come due and not pay Social Security.

Well, let me tell you, as somebody who has consulted experts on the market, the overwhelming view is that if we don't pay any of our bills for the first time in U.S. history, the markets could very well freeze up, tighten, and create huge damage to our country.

The second group of debt ceiling deniers say: Well, we don't know the date.

And we don't. The markets are mystical, but once they come to their own most magical conclusion that the United States is going to default, we will be in trouble. That could be the 17th. It could be a day or two before, importuning us to action as soon as possible. It could be a little bit later. But we don't know when it is. And what a risk.

We are like a blindfolded man walking toward the edge of a cliff. If we keep walking, we will fall off. We can debate whether we fall off in 5 yards, 50 yards, or 500 yards, but we will fall off and we don't know what that line is. Why risk it?

I have one final point. This could be as bad or worse than the 2008 recession. It is the same basic principle. A very important security-- in that case, mortgage securities, and in this case, Treasurys--loses tremendous value, the markets freeze, loans can't be made, interest rates rise, and then all the ensuing economic damage. Auto sales will go down and thousands of autoworkers will be laid off. Home sales will go down and construction workers will be laid off. That is what happened in 2008, and it could well happen again and be worse because this will be worldwide. U.S. Treasurys are probably the most widely held denomination of assets on financial institution books and deeper-- more institutions have more of them than have mortgage securities. So we are playing with fire.

I make a plea to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I know we all have political agendas. I very much would like to see the immigration bill passed. We all have agendas that are very important to us. Please do not hold the debt ceiling and paying our debts hostage to any other condition. Pass the debt ceiling unconditionally, and then we can go back to our business, debate these issues, and see where the political chips fall. But please, for the sake of this country, for the sake of the men and women who labored before us and never let us default, do not play with fire, pass a clean debt ceiling, and let's move on and debate the other issues that so much deserve debate.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to extend the period of morning business for debate only until 5 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that the majority leader be recognized following morning business.

Madam President, I rise today with just 9 days left until the United States hits the debt ceiling. Never before in our history have we failed to pay our bills, but in 9 days that possibility will reach our doorstep.

Even though defaulting on our debt could send our economy into a tailspin, even possibly another Great Depression, there are already those who are denying the impacts of default. The debt ceiling deniers try to claim that this won't be a big deal and that middle-class families won't be hurt. Well, these debt-ceiling deniers need a dose of debt-ceiling reality.

The truth is that failing to pay our bills on time would most probably be worse than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers and AIG went under and the economy went into a tailspin. We still haven't recovered from that debacle. To this day there are people out of work. There are middle-class families whose income is lower than it was then because of what happened in 2008.

Why could it be worse--in all likelihood would be worse? Because just as housing securities had to be marked down because of the Lehman crisis, if government bonds, which are much more widely held, have to be marked down in lower value, we could have a freeze where banks are not able to lend money.

What happened in 2008 was simple. Banks and other financial institutions had all these mortgage securities on their balance sheets. All of a sudden their value seemed to be a lot less, so the banks' balance sheets were in the red. That meant they couldn't lend money, and not just for long-term mortgages and car loans but also for overnight lines of credit. Businesses were shaken. Many businesses couldn't function. Wire transfers weren't allowed to be made, and the whole financial system came to a startling and devastating halt.

Now the effects would be worse, in all likelihood, and for this reason: Mortgage securities were widely held but not close to as widely held as U.S. Treasurys are. Imagine on the day of default or, God forbid, even a day or two before default, all of a sudden the markets determine--and they are mystical in some ways--that Treasurys should be written down significantly. There is a very real possibility that could--and not 5 percent but significantly higher than that; I would estimate a 30-, 40-, 50-percent chance--send us into a tailspin that might make the 2008 recession look like child's play.

How would that affect the average family? Well, if the United States defaults, middle-class family paychecks would be raided by higher interest rates on everyday expenses. Already interest rates on short- term Treasury bonds are creeping upward as the possibility of default looms over us. If we default, investors who always considered U.S. debt risk free will demand higher interest rates due to the heightened risk that they might not be paid. For the first time ever investors question whether the U.S. Government would honor its commitments.

The domino effect on interest rates that affect family budgets would be endless and cataclysmic. Credit card interest rates would go up, adding hundreds of dollars to monthly bills. Young families seeking to take out a mortgage on a new home would be faced with thousands of dollars in higher payments over the life of the mortgage. Many might not even buy that home, putting a crimp in one of the bright spots of our economy--the housing market. Someone wanting to take out a loan to buy a new car should prepare to pay hundreds or thousands of

dollars more in higher interest rates. That means car sales would decline and automobile manufacturers could lay off people. Do you have privately held student loans? Prepare for monthly payments to shoot upward. Innocent families, millions of them--tens of millions--would be hit with thousands of dollars in additional bills through no fault of their own if U.S. Treasurys were devalued.

The damage doesn't stop there. If we default on our debt, the dollar loses value, and a trip to the gas station or the grocery store gets more expensive. The dollar won't go as far. Americans will have to shell out more for gas and for milk to feed their kids.

Think of the effect of a default on 10,000 baby boomers who are retiring each day. In 2011 the stock market lost 2,000 points. How much more might it lose now? We gained that back by the beginning of 2012, but that is no comfort to the thousands of people retiring every day. And when you are dealing with U.S. Treasurys--and these are not certainties, but these are possibilities--it could be a lot worse. You can check your 401(k) and see that political brinkmanship took a huge bite out of your retirement savings. Imagine the pain of saving wisely, making smart choices, only to have your retirement account and family budget wrecked by dangerous brinkmanship from tea party Republicans in Washington. If there were ever a governmental action that merited the words ``playing with fire,'' this is it.

The devastation doesn't end there. If we don't raise the debt ceiling, the Federal Government will be faced with impossible choices. Do we pay foreign debts--because if we don't, those countries won't lend to us anymore--or do we pay veterans' benefits? Do we make sure Social Security benefits go out or Medicare? Do we pay our troops? Do we fund border security? What do we pay for education? These are all tough choices.

Make no mistake about it. If the debt ceiling is not lifted, we can't meet all our obligations.

So the chances of this are not 80 percent, but they are close enough to 50 percent that anyone who risks this, particularly for this forlorn goal: we won't raise the debt ceiling unless we repeal ObamaCare--which we know isn't happening--it is madness. Risk the economy of the United States, the possibility of going through worse than what we went through in 2008 because you demand ObamaCare be repealed when we know it won't happen? Wow. I have rarely seen such madness coming out of legislators, but it is coming out of a few.

So the consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling are crystal clear: interest rates on the middle-class expenses such as home mortgages, car loans, and student loans will shoot up. Housing markets, automobile markets, and others decline as many are laid off, and then others are laid off in a cyclical cycle. The dollar will lose its value, making everyday purchases more expensive, and the Federal Government faces terrible choices about who we pay--seniors, veterans, military, creditors. To risk these consequences would be a terrible mistake.

In conclusion, I come here with a simple plea--not to our tea party activist colleagues but to mainstream conservative Republican friends. Please help us avoid the default crash. Please help us avoid an economic apocalypse. We are ready to talk. We are ready to negotiate on anything. But first open the government and pay our bills. Then we can sit down and debate our differences. The future of our financial system, the future of millions of Americans, is at stake. We don't play around with that. We don't hold that hostage.

To my mainstream conservative Republican colleagues, please do the right thing. Let us pay our bills and take the threat of severe economic collapse off the table now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise because we are getting very close to a time of crisis, perhaps one of the greatest economic crises this country has known. I have many good friends on the other side of the aisle. I do not doubt for a moment their motivation, their desire, and their love of country. It is every bit as strong as those of us on this side of the aisle.

So I make a heartfelt plea: We must come together and avoid a default of the United States. Many have said, I heard some even say on the other side, that default does not matter or it does not mean much. Let me explain the danger. There is a very real chance that if we default, there will be a recession greater than what occurred in 2008 and all too real a possibility it could put us into a depression.

Let me explain why. What happened in 2008 was simple. Mortgage securities declined in value immediately--dramatically they declined in value after Lehman and AIG went down. Banks' balance sheets instantly flipped from black to red. Loans were frozen, not only long-term loans but even overnight loans, lines of credit. The economy came to a screeching halt. We had to offer huge rescues or bailouts to overcome that. But even so, interest rates climbed.

If that happened with mortgage securities, the likelihood of it happening with Treasurys is all the more frightening because Treasurys are more widely held, more internationally held, the currency of the land, of the world. If Treasurys were to dramatically drop in value the day we defaulted or, make no mistake about it, it could happen a day or two before, here is what would happen: The economy would decline dramatically. Things would freeze. Interest rates would go way up. The cost of a mortgage, the cost of a car loan, dramatically increasing, hurting every middle-class family. Home sales would decline. Auto sales would decline. Hundreds of thousands, millions would be laid off.

Why risk that? We all have political goals. They differ. That is reasonable. There is a time and a place, as the Scriptures say, ``A season for everything.'' There is a time and a place to debate these things. It is not while our government is shut down and while our debt hangs in the balance, risking default. There is a simple and logical solution which good men and good women on both sides of the aisle can come to.

Let's open the government. Let's pay our bills. Then let's debate every issue you wish to debate. Nothing should be off the table. We are happy to go to a committee, a conference committee. The Senator from Washington has asked, I believe it is 18 times--will ask again in a few minutes. Of course we want a conference committee where we can discuss things but not at the price of keeping the government closed, hurting millions of families in every way, not at the price, even worse, of defaulting on our debt.

I would say, with all due respect to my colleagues in the House, they have it backward: First, go to conference and then decide whether to open the government or default. No one--liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican--could say that is a rational strategy if you care about the country and worry about the risk of doing these things.

I understand the frustration with ObamaCare. We would argue there was an election in 2012. We would argue that every Democratic incumbent had to debate that issue over and over, as did President Obama when Governor Romney made it a major issue. The electorate decided they didn't want to get rid of ObamaCare. But we understand how passionately people feel, and we understand you will continue to try and do that. But again, there is a time and a season, and now is not the time and it is not the season when the government is shut down or default hangs in the balance.

I plead with my colleagues to allow us to come together. We want to negotiate. We want to sit down and talk to you. We are eager to do it. But first let's open the government, pay our bills, and then let's negotiate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I will object, but let me say a couple of things here.

First, in reference to the colloquy the Senator from Texas had with my good friend from Washington State, he noted that the Senator from Washington talks about leaving no man or no woman behind. She does, indeed, and that is one of the reasons so many of us oppose this piecemeal approach. It is leaving lots of people behind.

The bottom line is, the junior Senator from Texas is advocating shutting down the government and now he comes before us and says, Well, why don't we pass the parts of the government I want to open? No one would want to do that. It makes no sense: Let's shut down the government and then I will come to the floor and be magnanimous and offer a few places where the government opens.

I note that no other colleagues are standing here on the floor with him. I note that, at least according to press reports, most of the many conservative colleagues in this body reject this approach. And I note that it makes no sense to pick a few--to shut down the government and then pick a few groups to reopen.

Who wants to shut down the government? In my view, it is the tea party. They have said it all along. They have advocated for it.

There are countless instances where even in 2010 tea party folks said: Let's shut down the government. Then it is said, after the government is shut down, that President Obama or this side or the Senator from Illinois caused it, when we had a bipartisan resolution, with a majority on this side? There was an opportunity. I believe the junior Senator from Texas urged his colleagues to vote against that resolution, but 25 of them did not, and that kept the government open in the Senate.

There were many--everyone on this side. The other side of the aisle opposes ObamaCare, but the majority did not want to use a bludgeon and say: Unless you reject ObamaCare we are going to shut down the government or, for that matter, not raise the debt ceiling.

We are not in an ``Alice in Wonderland'' world, where those who advocate shutting down the government then accuse others of shutting down the government. That is not washing with the American people, and it will not wash in this body with the vast majority of Members on both sides of the aisle.

So I would say to my colleague, if he wishes to have debate on what parts of the government should be funded and at what level, it is wrong, in my opinion, to say: Shut down the government and then we will decide piece by piece which we open. That is ``Alice in Wonderland,'' in my judgment.

It makes much more sense to have the government open and then have the debate in the proper place--a conference committee that decides future funding, in an omnibus appropriations bill--what level of funding, if any, each part of the government should get.

So to first deprive our national parks of dollars by advocating shutting down the government and then accuse others who do not want to leave 98 percent of the government behind and the people who work there behind and the American people who depend on so many other programs, whether it is student loans or feeding the hungry, is wrong.

So I ask consent that the request be modified as follows: that an amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. This amendment is the text that passed the Senate and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government, actually leaving no man or woman behind, and is something that is already over in the House and has the support reportedly of a majority of the Members of the House, including Members of both parties.

Would the Senator agree to modify his request?

Reserving the right to object, and I will be brief----

I just want to make this point: The junior Senator from Texas has said it is President Obama and the Democrats who are shutting the government down. My modification, which he just objected to, would open the entire government. We put it on the floor. We are all for it. He objected to it. Therefore, I object to the proposal of the junior Senator from Texas.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 4 p.m. and that all provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mr. President, my good friend the Senator from Alabama has graciously agreed to let us flip the order, so I am going to now, before he does, ask unanimous consent that be done and that it not change the alternating pattern, Republican and Democrat.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about an aspect of the tea party government shutdown that has not gotten the attention it deserves. Sadly, the effects of this tea party shutdown do not stop at our water's edge. The shutdown is putting our national security at risk. The senior Senator from California, the chair of the Intelligence Committee, has talked to us about how 72 percent of our intelligence employees are not working. They are not all useless or laggards or slackers. In fact, there is a high degree of professionalism in the CIA, NSA, and like agencies. To have close to three-quarters of them not on the job puts every American at risk.

There is another area that is putting us at risk. We all know that the greatest threat to our national security and to that of Israel--or one of the greatest threats to our national security and the greatest threat to Israel is a nuclear Iran. In order to punish Iran for their pursuit of nuclear weapons, Republicans and Democrats, in a bipartisan way, led in many instances by two of my good friends here, the Democratic senior Senator from New Jersey Mr. Menendez and the Republican senior Senator from South Carolina Mr. Graham--they have come together to pass tough sanctions that would have a crippling effect on Iran's economy, and this body in a bipartisan way and the other body in a bipartisan way have passed those.

Just last week we saw some of the first results and progress, as President Ruhani said he was open to talks on the nuclear program. Iran had been intransigent before that. We don't even know if they really want to give up nuclear weapons or whether this is a feint, but we certainly know the sanctions are having a dramatic effect. What has changed Iran's mind? Have they suddenly had a change of heart out of the blue? No. The only thing that changed their minds is the sanctions, and that is why they are at least acting differently than they have acted in the past. Who knows. Hopefully they may actually do something real if the sanctions continue. We know that these tough sanctions are a huge weight around the ankles of the Iranian economy.

But right now, when Iran feels cornered for the first time, the shutdown of our government could well take that pressure off the Iranians, and it comes at exactly the wrong time. That is because the shutdown and its concomitant furloughs are preventing us from fully enforcing the sanctions, allowing the companies that are trying to do business with Iran to escape punishment and allowing the Iranian economy to expand faster than it normally would have. There are many companies that try to evade these sanctions, but the Federal Government has cops on the beat who have been, by and large, overwhelmingly successful in making sure nobody can slip through the cracks and do business with Iran. But now, because of the government shutdown and furloughs, those offices are greatly weakened.

Two of the major offices in the Treasury Department that enforce sanctions--the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network--have only 30 of their 345 employees. Let me repeat that. Two of the most important offices that enforce sanctions have less than 10 percent of their employees. Ninety percent-plus are on furlough. They cannot work.

The Office of Terrorist Financing and Intelligence--a vital part of our enforcing tough sanctions against Iran--is usually staffed by 10 people. Right now they just have one--10 percent.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control--the primary office responsible for enforcing these sanctions and punishing those who violate them--is also operating with a skeleton staff.

Just at a time when we need the sanctions to continue to bite, this government shutdown is making it a lot easier for rogue actors to sell oil and trade with the Iranian regime. We all know that those who try to avoid sanctions find the weakest place. Now, with so few of our people on the job because of the shutdown, it is going to be a lot easier for them. New sanctions designations will halt. We will not be able to investigate sanction violations. We cannot punish those who have violated the sanctions. The government shutdown sends a dramatic and strong signal to those who seek to violate the sanctions and give the Iranian regime hope that they can continue to keep nuclear weapons. It could not come at a worse time. The Iranian sanctions have been our best pressure point, and the shutdown is letting the pressure off Iran at exactly the wrong time.

We have seen a pattern over the last few days, and I have a feeling I know what the response from the other side of the aisle--particularly the junior Senator from Texas--will be. He will say: OK, Democrats, that is a good point. Let's fund the sanctions, and maybe tomorrow or the next day we will have a bill on the floor to restore those offices in the Treasury Department. Then maybe we will point out that the government shutdown is hurting middle-class students from getting college loans. Again, that was something that had bipartisan support. Then maybe the junior Senator from Texas or House Republicans will say: OK. Let's fund it too. After a while, it gets a little ridiculous.

The House Republicans, and their seeming acquiescence to the junior Senator from Texas, have given the junior Senator from Texas a veto power over which parts of the Federal Government are funded and which are not. At the request of the junior Senator from Texas--who has fervently and passionately said don't fund the government unless ObamaCare is

eliminated--the House Republicans have shut down government. Those actions are not a surprise. After all, the junior Senator from Texas said 10 months ago that he and the tea party ``have to be prepared to go as far as to shut the government down.'' It is not a surprise.

Anyway, the Republicans have shuttered the entire Federal Government and they say they are willing to reopen it a piece at a time provided that piece is blessed by the junior Senator from Texas. To allow any one person to pick and choose which parts of the government can reopen is a cynical and ultimately extremely damaging way to run government. It is dangerous for the country, and it is obvious it will not succeed.

I have one final point. It seems today's talking point from my Republican colleagues is: Let's talk. It is obvious they feel the pressure because America sees the intransigence of shutting down the government unless our colleagues in the House get 100 percent of what they want. But it is obvious when their talking point is ``let's talk,'' they left out a key point at the beginning of their new talking point. Because to only talk while the government is shut down does huge damage to millions of innocent people and to our country's economy. They forgot to say: Let's vote. Then let's talk. Their motto should be modified.

Our motto is: Just vote. Vote to let government stay open. It will take a single vote in the House of Representatives, and then let's talk. To say ``let's talk'' while the government is shut down prolongs the devastation to our colleagues.

I say to my Republican colleagues who have come up with this talking point ``let's talk,'' they forgot the first part of their talking point: Just vote, and then let's talk.

I yield the floor and thank my colleague from Alabama for his courtesy.

Would the leader yield for a question?

I simply wanted to follow up on what he said.

If we were to go along with these individual UC requests----

My good friend, whom I saw in the gym this morning, sometimes stretches credulity. Who shut down the government? Was it Harry Reid? No. He kept passing messages to keep the government going. Was it Barack Obama? No. We all know who it was. It was the small band of tea party people in the House. It was his junior colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz, who had the idea of shutting down the government.

As Leader Reid said yesterday, we are not in 1984. Truth has some degree of credulity. For my colleague from Texas to get up and say: Harry Reid and Barack Obama open the government, when his junior colleague led the charge to shut it down, when the cries of the tea party are ``shut it down,'' and we are desperately trying to keep it open makes no sense and it is not going to wash.

One of the amazing things about our politics is how rhetoric has become so detached from reality, and then we have talk radio and some of the networks, FOX News, that repeat it. I saw a cartoon in the New York Post yesterday saying that Senators and Congressmen are exempt from ObamaCare. That is just not true. We are part of ObamaCare, and we will join the exchange--I will and so will my colleagues--because that is what they have to do.

But that doesn't even matter. The hard right is so angry at ObamaCare and, frankly, at President Obama and the fact he just trounced them in 2012 in an election that was run on their issues. They are so angry and white hot that their rhetoric just becomes totally detached from reality and totally detached from the truth.

I feel badly for the veterans who couldn't get to the memorial. But why was the government shut down? Because Speaker Boehner and the House wouldn't keep it open. Senator Cornyn and many other Republicans paved the way for us to open the government with a vote to allow us to go forward. That got 25 Republicans, even though Ted Cruz, his junior colleague, was urging him not to vote that way. That was the right vote. We know that. He knew, Senator Cornyn did, to his credit, that shutting down the government was bad. So on the one procedural vote that mattered, where he could have had the Senate say shut down the government, he voted the other way.

The real onus here is on Speaker Boehner. The entire focus of this debate should be on Speaker Boehner. Some might say it should be on Mr. Cruz, the Senator from Texas. Some might say it should be on the 30 or 40 hard-line tea party people in the House. But in my view it is the Speaker of the House who has the responsibility not to listen to a small faction of his party when so much is at stake. Instead, Speaker Boehner seems to be listening to the junior Senator from Texas. The junior Senator from Texas has become the de facto Speaker of the House. If he says jump, the House jumps.

The junior Senator wanted the House to embark on a crusade to defund ObamaCare, so the Speaker, Speaker Boehner, did it. The junior Senator from Texas told the House to delay ObamaCare for 1 year, so the Speaker, Speaker Boehner, did it. Now this junior Senator from Texas is telling the House to pass piecemeal bills in a cynical attempt to pit important programs against each other, and now the Speaker is trying to do just that.

Senator Cruz has driven Speaker Boehner to pit kids who should be enrolled in Head Start against kids who should be enrolled in cancer trials. He has driven the Speaker to pick families who want to visit the Statue of Liberty against families who own a small business and need help from the SBA. He has pitted research and cancer against health care for our veterans.

It is a cynical strategy. Similar to all the others they have sent us and that have failed, as these will fail today, it has one purpose: not to get anything done but to try and wiggle out of this view that they have shut down the government. Senator Cornyn's rhetoric will not work. It is too far detached from reality.

So Speaker Boehner tries to come up with these gizmos, these gimmicks, these legislative ploys to say: Hey, I am trying to do something. At the same time he is in the vice grip of the tea party members of the House who are taking their orders from the junior Senator from Texas.

There is a simple way to open the government, I would say to my friend--and he is my friend, Senator Cornyn of Texas--and my other colleagues on the Republican side in the House.

There is a bill sitting there waiting for a vote. It will open NIH, it will open the Veterans' Administration, it will open the World War II memorial, it will open the Statue of Liberty so the guy with the little sandwich shop right by the Statue of Liberty can get some business back. Make no mistake about it: This crisis doesn't just hurt the Federal Government. It doesn't even just hurt 800,000 families who aren't getting the paychecks on which they depend. This is not abstract. It hurts lots of private sector people as well, whether they be construction workers building a road using Federal dollars or the veteran waiting for that disability claim to come through or the guy with the sandwich shop next to the closed Statue of Liberty who is making those sandwiches. It is not abstract. I get a little resentful when I hear my colleagues talk about the Federal Government as if it is some big ogre; shut it down.

If you watched Rachel Maddow the other night, she had a variety of tea party congressmen who were running for the Congress in 2010 who said they were going to shut the government down. I think it was Congressman Mulvaney of South Carolina who said: When I get to Congress, I am going to shut the government down. And the tea party audience cheered and said ``shut it down'' before they even had a plan because they hate the Federal Government so much. That is the goal, to shut it down. ObamaCare is an excuse.

Mainstream Republicans know that shutting the government down is a bad thing and know that they are indeed paying a political price. So Speaker Boehner should follow the majority and stop being scared of the tea party. He will face them down easily in a challenge for Speaker. Speaker Boehner knows, as the ``National Review'' said this morning, that more than 100 House Republicans would vote for our bill to reopen the government if he put it on the floor. Instead, Republicans are wasting time on political stunts in asking to go to conference on a short-term CR.

The Republicans have this exactly backward. They say: Let's talk, and then maybe we will open the government. They ought to say: We will open the government, and then we can talk. If Republicans would simply switch all the lights back on, allow hundreds of thousands of furloughed Federal employees to go back to work, allow cancer research to continue, veterans to get their disability claims, kids to go back into Head Start, we could have a discussion about the budget, which they rejected 18 times.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield for a clarification?

Your request that we go to conference would be while the government is shut down. It doesn't matter in your request whether the government is shut down or not; is that correct?

While the government is shut down?

I know my colleague from Pennsylvania has gone. Let's clarify a few things because obfuscation is the rule of the day when you are not holding many cards.

First, the Senator from Pennsylvania said they have asked to open the government--they have asked, rather, to go to conference three times and open the government. Yes, they have--if ObamaCare is repealed, if ObamaCare is delayed for 1 year, and if the individual mandate is delayed for 1 year. That is not a request to go to conference. That is saying: Unless I get my way on ObamaCare--which has been voted on by these Chambers, which has been litigated in the election--I am going to shut the government down. Their position hasn't changed. The bottom line is very simple. The bottom line now is very simple. The bottom line now is, oh, let's go to conference. All of a sudden--sure. Let's go to conference while cancer treatments are being refused. The more we delay, the worse that is. Let's go to conference while veterans' benefits can't be processed, and the more we delay, the more veterans will be hurt. Let's go to conference before 800,000 people get their paychecks, which they need to feed their families. Let's go to conference while the Statue of Liberty is closed and my little sandwich shop nearby is not making any revenue.

Please, I say to my colleague, what the Senator wants to do is use a bludgeon since a small group of tea party fanatics, as they are called, has Speaker Boehner in the palm of their hand and they have the power not to fund the government. They say: Until you do what we want, we won't fund the government. So nothing has changed, and there is no concession or willingness to negotiate on a fair basis by the other side--no.

Let me repeat to my colleague from Pennsylvania, you have it backward. You are saying: Let's negotiate, and then we might open the government. The right way to do it is by the resolution offered by the chairwoman of the Budget Committee. Let's open the government, and then we will be happy to sit down and negotiate. That is the fundamental difference here.

On whose side are the American people? Ours--70 to 22. On whose side is every Democrat at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue? Ours, of course. If you look at the quotations in the House and Senate, a large number of votes from the other side of the aisle are on our side too. But because a small number of irresponsible members of the tea party have Speaker Boehner in their control right now, we can't succeed. So the tea party shutdown, the shutdown, originated, engineered, and put into place by the tea party with Speaker Boehner's fearful acquiescence, is still the law of the day. It will not be for much longer. The pressure from the public, on the economy, and the pressure from Members on the other side of the aisle will increase, and I believe in a short while-- in a short while--the other side will have to say: OK, we will fund the government; now let's sit down and talk. That is what Leader Reid and Chairwoman Murray have simply asked for today. It will just take a few days more, but it will happen.

I wish the other side would acquiesce now because so many innocent millions are being held hostage and being hurt.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the latest Republican proposal is a cynical one that pits important priorities against each other. People should not have to choose between health for our veterans and cancer research. We should not have to choose between keeping our highway projects going and cleaning up toxic waste areas. We should not have to choose between visiting our national parks and enrolling our kids in Head Start.

As we said a thousand times, we are happy to discuss how to fund the government but not with a gun to our head. Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion.

You know, it gets a little tiresome. It is game after game, gambit after gambit from the other side of the aisle. They keep trying new things, new tricks. Some of them have to do with ObamaCare, and some of them are unrelated to ObamaCare. They are trying as they might, Speaker Boehner, to wriggle out--Speaker Boehner is trying to wriggle out of the box in which he has put himself. On the one hand, he knows shutting down the government is highly unpopular and hurts America. On the other, he is so used to giving obeisance to the hard right that he is afraid not to. He is betwixt and between.

But I will tell you, today was a bad day for Speaker Boehner and those who want to shut the government down. Polling data is overwhelming. Americans 3 to 1 support opening the government even if it means keeping ObamaCare going.

Americans think that the Republican Party is being irresponsible and not living up to what it should be doing. Americans are telling Republicans in the House: Vote now. Open the government by putting a clean continuing resolution funding bill on the floor.

They will have new games, but we are not going to go for them. Sooner or later, they are going to have to say: OK, we will fund the government. Then we will discuss things, but--as has been said over and over--not with a gun to our heads.

Democratic unity is as strong as ever, from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to just about every Member of the House of Representatives and to all 54 Members of this united Democratic Caucus. This is great because it means that there is hope.

The bad news about today is, of course, that many innocent people were hurt. There are 800,000 Federal workers who depend on paychecks to feed their families and they were told they can't come in to work. They are dedicated to their jobs. They want to come in to work. They can't and, of course, they are not getting paid.

Millions more are affected as well. We had furloughs at the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in Buffalo of defense employees, many of them civilian. We fought hard to keep that base open. Now we are telling the people: Go home, you can't work today--as important as that base is to the security of America.

Senator Feinstein was here earlier. Three-quarters of our intelligence people at the NSA are not working. That is an abstract concept, but it relates to every single one of us and our security.

The idea of shutting this government down may sound good to the hard right in the abstract, but even when their constituents learn of what specifically it means, they are going to run away from that concept.

To my colleagues, particularly from Texas, the junior Senator from Texas, who has evidently come up with this new plan, face it. The Senator is not going to get us to give in to extortion. The Senator is not going to take as hostage millions of innocent Americans and succeed in getting us to do something that he wants but we don't and they don't.

I saw in the Salt Lake City paper that the junior Senator from Utah said: Maybe we should forget about ObamaCare and look to spending cuts.

Well, good morning. That is what we have been saying all along. We may not like the spending cuts in certain areas that they proposed, but we are willing to discuss them. That is how a budget works, how appropriations works, and how our government is run. But to take an extraneous issue and to say unless we get rid of it, they are going to shut down the government, no way.

I wish to tell my colleagues if they think they are having a rough time here on shutting down the government in terms of the politics, in terms of where people are, and in terms of their base of support, wait until they try to shut down the debt ceiling.

Senator Cruz, Senator Lee, it is going to be 10 times worse. The dangers are even greater to America. The pressure on all of us will be even more severe, and that will not work either.

I have a simple suggestion. Let's in one fell swoop fund the government, allow the government to pay its bills, and begin debating the spending issues that we should justly debate instead of putting America through these paroxysms because they know, we know, and the American people know they will not succeed.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I sort of feel sorry for Speaker Boehner. He has this hard-right tea party group that is adamant about shutting the government down. Many of them talked about shutting the government down in their 2010 campaigns. There are clips where they go to the audience: We will shut the government down if we win back the House. And the audience of tea party faithful cheers.

Here we are. Speaker Boehner, who has not been able, not been strong enough, frankly, to stand up to the tea party, realizes he is in a real dilemma. They want to shut the government down and he knows that the American people do not want that. CNN came out with a poll today. What should we do, end ObamaCare or keep the government going? Sixty percent said, keep the government going. Only 30 percent--or 34 percent, I believe it was--said end ObamaCare. The closer we get to this fateful hour--and we are only an hour away from a government shutdown--the more people will understand what the Republicans have done.

There is only one answer, and that is for the House to pass the clean CR bill that we have sent them, that they have. They keep coming up with new diversions. They send us a message that says this. They send us a message that says that. Some of it is related to ObamaCare. Some of it is related to contraception. Now they say we want to go to conference. As the leader said, we want to resolve issues. We would like to get a nice omnibus for a whole year, for the remainder of the fiscal year. We realize we have to do that with both Houses. But not with a gun to everybody's head. Let's go to conference? While they shut down the government and hurt millions of innocent people? Speaker Boehner is not going to get away with this subterfuge, as he has not gotten away with the previous ones. People will see through it.

It is a way to take the focus off what they really are doing, shutting the government down and trying to get people to follow the diversion. This time it is let's go to conference. Again, there is nothing wrong with a conference, but not, absolutely not when they are shutting the government down in an hour. All the talking in conference will not help the Federal worker who is not getting a paycheck, the highway construction worker whose job uses Federal

funds to build that highway, the veteran who is waiting for a disability claim. A conference is not going to solve that. There is one way to solve it: Pass the clean CR and then have a conference that talks about the issues for the whole year. Resolving funding makes sense but only after they pass our clean CR bill.

Speaker Boehner, no more games. We are in the final hours. Pass the clean CR. Don't send us another one of these little gizmos that is simply meant to take attention off the fact that you do not have the courage to keep the government funded. Pass the clean CR and then we can talk about conference.

I yield the floor.