Floor Statements

Mr President, I wish to speak briefly about an outstanding candidate nominated to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On June 4, 2013, President Obama nominated Patricia Millett to be a United States Circuit Judge.

Patricia's qualifications to be a United States Circuit Judge are impeccable. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Patricia practiced at Miller & Chevalier and worked as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Tang, on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Following 4 years in the appellate section of the Department of Justice's Civil Division, Patricia served as assistant to the Solicitor General for more than a decade.

After her public service, Patricia joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she heads the firm's Supreme Court practice and is co- leader of its national appellate practice. She has extensive experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court--32 in all and is without question one of the Nation's leading appellate lawyers. Patricia's experience, education, and character have earned her praise from colleagues and clients alike. Following her nomination, the American Bar Association rated her unanimously well qualified to serve as a United States Circuit Judge.

Patricia is also a military spouse, having steadfastly stood by her husband's side as he served his country in uniform for 22 years. As she awaits Senate confirmation, I am proud to say Patricia's nomination is supported by Blue Star Families, by veterans, and active-duty members of the Armed Forces, who today stand with her as she prepares to serve her country once more. Their support is a testament to

Patricia's character and to the integrity with which she will serve as a federal judge.

I rise today to not only speak in strong support of Patricia's nomination, but also to decry the decision by Senate Republicans to once again play politics with President Obama's nominees and to place partisanship above all else.

I rise today because my colleagues in the minority have declared it unnecessary to fill the three vacancies on the DC Circuit, including the seat to which Patricia has been nominated. The Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee propose eliminating the 9th, 10th, and 11th seats on the DC Circuit, rather than confirming nominees put forward by this President. Now, of course, my Republican colleagues dispute any partisan motivation. Instead, they claim a diminished caseload on the DC Circuit simply does not warrant confirmation of President Obama's nominees. This might be a persuasive argument were it not belied by Senate Republicans' confirmation of President Bush's nominees to these same seats and by the fact that the DC Circuit caseload has been consistent over the past decade and has even increased in recent years.

In fact, when John Roberts, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, last held the seat Patricia would occupy, his caseload was lower than the pending caseload Patricia will encounter on her first day as a judge. Let me be clear, the fight over this confirmation has nothing to do with Patricia--instead it has everything to do with the fact that a Democrat, rather than a Republican, now controls the White House. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing everything they can to prevent confirmation of this President's nominees.

Truly, the stakes are too high for this type of political gamesmanship, The DC Circuit is often called the second most important court in the United States, and for good reason. The DC Circuit handles some of the most complicated cases that enter the Federal court system, and its decisions touch the lives of Americans each and every day. From decisions affecting our clean air and water, to decisions having broad implications for labor relations, elections, and how we interpret and apply the Americans with Disabilities Act--decisions by the DC Circuit impact not only the quality of our lives today, but also our children's lives tomorrow.

Most importantly for our men and women in uniform, for our veterans, and for their families, the DC Circuit has jurisdiction over the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Its decisions matter to our servicemembers, to our veterans, and to their families--which is why it is shameful that Senate Republicans would rather play politics than allow a clean up or down vote on Patricia's nomination. The American people expect more from us. They deserve more from us.

I urge my colleagues to set aside partisanship and politics and allow an up or down vote on Patricia's nomination. Through her distinguished career and public service, Patricia Millett has earned not only our admiration and respect, but our support. Join me in supporting this nominee who is eminently qualified to serve as a United States Circuit Judge.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased we have reached an agreement that will reopen the government and allow us to pay our bills and provide a path forward now for bipartisan budget negotiations. As part of this bipartisan deal, I will once again tonight ask unanimous consent to begin a bipartisan budget conference.

The budgets that passed the Senate and the House 6 months ago are very different. Nobody thinks it is going to be easy to get to a deal. But I know I would not have fought so hard for so long to begin bipartisan negotiations if I did not think we could find some common ground and work something out.

I do not think there is anyone in Congress who wants to put the country through the last few weeks again, and I am hopeful we can now work together in a budget conference to end these constant crises and work now toward a balanced and bipartisan deal that the American people expect and deserve.

So I tonight ask unanimous consent that if the Senate passes H.R. 2775, as amended, the Senate then proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution agreed to by the Senate, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the motion for the Senate to insist on its amendment be agreed to; that the Senate request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, with a ratio of 12 Democrats and 10 Republicans; that the conferees be instructed to report back a conference report by December 13, 2013; that if the Senate receives from the House a request to go to conference on S. Con. Res. 8, the agreement be modified so that the Senate agree to the request to go to conference on S. Con. Res. 8, with the remaining provisions related to the conference remaining in effect; further, that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report with respect to H. Con. Res. 25 or S. Con. Res. 8 if it includes reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit; and that all of the above occur with no intervening action or debate; finally, that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, and agreed to, be held at the desk until a message is received from the House relative to H.R. 2775, and if the House fails to concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 2775, this agreement be vitiated.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, when a house is on fire, the reasonable thing to do is put it out and then figure out what happened to prevent the next one.

When a ship is headed toward rocks, the reasonable thing is to steer away and then work on charting a better course.

When a government is shut down and is headed toward a default that economists would say is catastrophic, the reasonable thing to do is end the crisis, steer away from the next one, and work together on a long- term plan to avoid these crises in the future.

We are now in the second week of this absolutely unnecessary government shutdown. Every day we are hearing more and more about the tremendous impact this is having on our families and our communities across the country. It is only going to get worse.

We can end this today. It does not have to continue. We are holding the door open for our Republican colleagues to join us in putting a stop to this madness. All they need to do is come in. Senate Democrats have spent the past 6 months trying to get Republicans to join us at the table in a budget conference. We knew there were two options: conference or crisis--working together toward a bipartisan budget deal or lurching separately into a completely avoidable government shutdown.

A number of Republicans joined us in a push for negotiations, but no matter how many times we tried, we were blocked. We were pushed to this point by a refusal to negotiate, and now the only path forward is for the House to end the crisis and then join us at the table at which we have been waiting to sit for 6 months.

Democrats want to negotiate. We want to have this conversation. We think the only way out of this cycle of constant crisis is for the two sides to work together, to make some compromises and get to a fair and responsible long-term deal. But it does not make sense to do that while our families and our communities are being hurt by this government shutdown and while the threat of a default hangs over their heads.

I served on the supercommittee. I worked with my colleagues to write and pass our budget here in the Senate. I know Democrats and Republicans have some serious differences when it comes to our budget values and our priorities, and I absolutely believe we owe it to the American people to try to

bridge that divide and to find common ground. But are we really going to ask them to wait patiently, continue suffering through this shutdown, keep watching as we cruise toward an economic calamity while another supercommittee gets together and has a conversation? That does not make sense. Let's have those conversations, let's have those negotiations, but let's end this crisis and get to work.

Yesterday I heard something from the Speaker. He said he didn't want to end the shutdown or address the debt limit now because that would be ``unconditional surrender to the President.'' Have we really come to the point where simply allowing the government to open is considered by one party to be a political loss? Are we really in a place where the majority of one Chamber in one branch of government believes allowing the United States of America to pay its bills is a major concession?

I say to my Republican friends who are here today, imagine if our roles were reversed. For example, I have been working very hard this year to write an early childhood education bill that I am passionate about, and I believe it will really help our children and our families. I suspect there are a few people in this Chamber today, including several on the Republican side, who could one day see themselves in the White House. If that day were to come, what would my Republican colleagues do if I said to them that if they did not pass my bill to expand pre-K, I would get all the Democrats together and we would refuse to pass any spending bills until we got what we wanted? And if that led to a government shutdown because they refused to let my bill pass, what would they do if I demanded a supercommittee to discuss ways to invest in our children before I allowed a vote to open the government again? I would humbly suggest that my Republican colleagues would say exactly what Democrats are saying now: This is not a legitimate way to negotiate, and the only path forward is to end this crisis and then have a conversation.

The great American system we hold so dear--our democracy that is the envy of the world--simply cannot work if a minority of Members can threaten to shut down the government or devastate the economy if they do not get their way on an issue--any issue. That is not what Democrats did when we were in the minority, and it is not what we should do should that day come again. Our system was designed to push both sides toward negotiations in a divided government, to encourage negotiation and movement toward common ground. It breaks down when one side refuses to negotiate in advance of a crisis, and it falls apart when a minority refuses to allow the basic functions of our government to perform unless their demands are met.

I know all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, came here to fight for their constituents, to solve problems, to make this country work better. I know there is nobody here today--not a single Senator-- who was sent here to shut the government down or to push this country toward an unprecedented default on our loans. And I know so many of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, are sick of the constant crises. They hate seeing their constituents get hurt.

As my friend the Senator from Arizona said yesterday, I think we should find a way to sit down and find a way out of these dead ends. That is what I am here today to offer--a way out, a path forward. It is not a defeat of one side or the other, it is certainly not any kind of surrender, but it would allow us to get out of this mess that has been created and open a path to negotiations so we can avoid the next one. I am going to ask consent once again to start a budget conference as soon as the current crisis has ended. Democrats have made it clear we want to negotiate. We couldn't have made it more clear. We will sit down and negotiate over anything the Republicans want, and we pledge to work as hard as we can for as long as it takes until we get a fair long-term budget deal to end these constant crises. But first this current crisis needs to end and the threat of the next one needs to be lifted.

Republicans don't need a hostage. There are plenty of things Democrats want out of a long-term deal for which we are very interested in making some compromises. So I urge my Republican colleagues to please consider taking us up on this offer. We can end this today. We can do the right thing for our families and the communities we represent, and we can get back to work helping people, solving problems, and working together.

Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 25

I respectfully ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives a message from the House that they have receded from their amendment and concurred in the amendment of the Senate with respect to H.J. Res. 59, the Senate then proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate proceed to vote on a motion to insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; with all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, let me make one observation, which is that sometimes I think those who have been objecting now 21 times to our request to go to conference have forgotten whom I would be conferencing with, which is the Republican House majority. What they fight so adamantly and strongly for here in the Senate will be well and ably represented in a conference committee. That is the point of a conference committee. That is what our democracy was set up to do in a divided government, where we have the opportunity to do that.

Having a conference committee to work out our budget agreement is exactly what I have asked for, but I will object because what the Senator's request does is simply say: We are going to keep our government closed. We are not going to allow people to do the functions that are so desperately needed. We are going to stay closed, and we are going to hold that hostage.

As I said so clearly when I spoke before, we need to open the government, we need to pay our bills, and we need to negotiate. That is what our request does, that is what the Republican request does not do, and so I object.

Reserving the right to object, we are again seeing a request to fund a small part of our government. This request refers to our National Guard and Reserve. These are amazing members of our American family who have given and sacrificed with great honor and who I find to a one are selfless. Not a one of them would say take care of me but do not take care of any of the other Americans who are home today or whose businesses have been hurt or who don't have the services they need because of this government shutdown. I would think the National Guard and Reserve would stand tall and say: Let's take care of every American. It is what I have sworn my own life to do, and it is what this Federal Government should do.

So instead of just taking a piecemeal approach--again, just asking to take care of the Guard and Reserve--I would say to the Senator that it is easy to do this. We can take up a unanimous consent request that has been offered a number of times on our side to simply open the government for all the functions and not those we pick and choose at the moment or by saying one American is more important than another American or one function is more important than another function. It would be like picking your children. We don't do that in our families and we shouldn't do it in the Senate.

I ask unanimous consent that an amendment which is at the desk be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; and 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--passed the Senate--and is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government. It is something that is already over in the House and reportedly has the support of a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives. I ask unanimous consent.

Mr. President, because this request doesn't resupply the stocks for our Guard and Reserve, it doesn't buy the tools or spare parts, it doesn't provide the energy and support they need to keep their facilities open, their electric bills can't be paid, their base maintenance can't be paid, they can't get their GI education benefits or mental health programs they need to make the transition home, because I believe--and I think all of us here believe--we should open all of those functions, I object.

Mr. President, what is the order?

I yield 1 minute of my time to the Senator from California.

Mr. President, as we now know, the government has been closed for business for more than a week. Across the country, newspapers are now filled with stories about how the shutdown is costing us jobs and slashing paychecks and interfering with everything from Head Start to the VA claims. This shutdown has already cost American workers and families a lot of pain and its impacts are only going to get worse. That is why what we heard this weekend from Speaker Boehner was so frustrating.

Speaker Boehner said:

The American people expect in Washington when we have a

crisis like this, that the leaders will sit down and have a

conversation.

Listening to Speaker Boehner, you would think a government shutdown fell out of the sky last week and caught everyone by surprise. The truth is it was completely avoidable. Senate Democrats tried to start negotiations to avoid this shutdown 18 times before October 1, and each time an extreme minority of Republicans stood up and said no. Speaker Boehner himself even spoke out in favor of delaying negotiations.

This shutdown did not happen by accident. We did not have to have this crisis. This shutdown happened because tea party Republicans and the Republicans who would not stand up to them chose brinkmanship over negotiations for 6 straight months. Now that we have reached this point, Republicans say they are ready to have a conversation--but only if we allow the government shutdown to continue.

Democrats are more than happy to talk about the budget, but Republican insistence on keeping the government closed during these negotiations makes no sense at all. It suggests that they are not thinking about how this shutdown is impacting our families and our businesses, which cannot afford talk at the expense of action.

I would like to talk about some of those impacts today. At a time when we should be focused on creating jobs and growing our economy, this shutdown is hurting workers and businesses and our recovery. From the sandwich shops that rely on Federal employees who come by for lunch every day to construction companies that cannot get contracts because of all the economic uncertainty to major corporations such as Boeing, that are considering furloughs, it is clear the shutdown is putting both public and private sector jobs at risk. Because Federal workers at agencies such as the IRS and Social Security Administration are out of work, thousands of potential home buyers will be unable to get their mortgages approved, which could damage our housing recovery which has boosted our economy.

Our Nation's veterans deserve our gratitude and our respect and all the support we can offer. But this shutdown is creating uncertainty for these men and women who have heroically served our country.

Veterans make up nearly 30 percent of the Federal workforce--30 percent. They are feeling the effects of furloughs. The shutdown has worsened the backlog in disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and veterans across the country are now watching and waiting for an end to this shutdown because, if it goes long enough, their benefits could be threatened. Nearly 640,000 veterans in my home State of Washington alone are at risk of losing their VA benefits if this shutdown extends past October. It should not have to be said, but they deserve much better. So do the struggling families who are now wondering how much longer they will be able to put food on their table.

This shutdown will stop funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which helps more than 8.9 million struggling moms and young children get healthy food. Many of our States are now scrambling to find money to keep those WIC operations going. The USDA now estimates that we will only be able to continue as usual until the end of October, until their funding runs out.

Other struggling parents wonder where they will send their children while they are at work. More than 7,000 children and their families have lost access to Head Start due to this shutdown. And, by the way, that is on top of the 57,000 slots as a result of the sequestration that has impacted so many.

As much as Republicans may not want to acknowledge it, the effects of this shutdown are far-reaching and severe and, should this government stay closed, it will only get harder for agencies to continue providing services that are so crucial to our families and communities. So when Speaker Boehner says the American people expect their leaders to sit down and have a conversation--you know what. That is what I have been saying for the last 6 months. But what I will not accept and what I strongly believe the American people will not accept is starting a conversation while we are in this shutdown, which is hurting our economy and some of our most vulnerable children and families, and does even more damage. Now is not the time to talk about avoiding a shutdown, it is the time to actually do it.

Speaker Boehner has said there are not votes in the House to pass a clean continuing resolution that will simply keep our government open. If that is the case, I would like him to prove it. Speaker Boehner should bring up the Senate's clean continuing resolution and allow Democrats and Republicans to vote on it. Then he should join Democrats in preventing a default, without delay and without strings attached because, I want to be very clear, a default on U.S. debts would be unprecedented and devastating.

I held a hearing a few weeks ago in our Senate Budget Committee to talk about the impact of brinkmanship and uncertainty on our economy. The economists who joined us warned us that for families in my home State of Washington and across the country, default would mean mortgage rates and student loan costs would rise, making it harder to afford home ownership or even afford tuition; that home prices and stock prices would fall and businesses of all sizes would have trouble financing their activities, which would of course lead to layoffs and surging unemployment.

I am not going to let the tea party cause Washington State families that kind of hardship. But after we have reopened the government, prevented this default, and made sure our families and communities are no longer paying the price for tea party brinkmanship, I would be more than happy to begin the negotiations that Democrats have been out here requesting to have for months. It is clearer every day that there is bipartisan support for those responsible steps. Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much, but I think a lot of us on both sides of this aisle have had enough of tea party brinkmanship and seen enough of governing by crisis.

We are ready, together, to resolve our differences in a way that works for the American people and our economy, and I sincerely hope Speaker Boehner will not let the tea party stand in our way.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my understanding is we were going to go

back and forth, and if the Senator from Texas wishes to go, I will yield to him.

Mr. President, I think there is one thing every one of us can agree on: There are innumerable problems across our country-- families who have been challenged, sad stories that should be taken care of in every part of our country, in each of our States, with families we know who are hurting because of this government shutdown. There is one answer to that, and it is an easy one. It is for the House of Representatives to simply take up the bill that is in the House today and pass it. We know there are enough Members of Congress who can pass that today and every problem we have heard about or haven't heard about yet will be solved. Republicans simply need to end this government shutdown so Americans stop hurting.

Our families also need to know they are not going to be threatened by a catastrophic default. And when that happens, we will be waiting at the table, as we are today, to negotiate a long-term deal in the budget conference that the other side has spent months blocking.

We have been trying to work with Republicans toward a fair, long-term budget deal for years. Since 2011, Democrats from the Senate to the House to the administration have sat in rooms, we have negotiated, we have talked, we have discussed, and we have offered compromise after compromise. We have tried regular committees, we have tried supercommittees. If there was a room where Democrats and Republicans could sit and talk, we found it and we got to work. But no matter

what we did, no matter how much we offered, we were unable to come to a place that we could agree was a fair and balanced approach that the American people deserved.

So this year, our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle asked us to return to regular order. That was the most important thing they said--for us to get to a place where we could find a budget deal that could be agreeable and we could move forward. That is exactly what we did. In the Senate we passed our budget more than 6 months ago. The House of Representatives did the same. Since that time we have asked 19 times to go to conference to work out our differences. Nineteen times we have come to the floor to say let's have regular order, let's work out our differences in a conference committee.

We wanted to get in a room with the House Republicans to sit at a table and do everything possible to bridge the divide between our two budgets. We knew it would not be easy. There are significant differences between the House and Senate budget. But the American people expected us to try and we were committed to doing that. Importantly, we wanted to make sure we had enough time to bridge that divide and get to this difficult deal so we would not be here today where we have lurched into another manufactured crisis.

Republicans rejected our attempts to sit down and negotiate. Every time we asked to go to a budget conference, we were shot down. Democrats came to the floor again and again, along with, I would add, a number of responsible Republicans who agreed. Even though they did not support the budget that was passed here, they agreed we should go to conference with the House Republicans and work out our deals. But each time we asked, a handful of Republicans objected and said: No discussions. They refused to allow us to go to a table. They had no interest in any discussions or negotiations or talk, and they pushed us until they got exactly what those few Republicans here wanted, and that was an avoidable--completely avoidable--government shutdown.

After spending 6 months rejecting talks, causing this crisis, now all of a sudden some of our Republican friends seem desperate to make it look as though they are the ones interested in negotiating. They know it is clear to families across the country the only reason this crisis continues is the House Republicans' refusal to take up the bill and pass it right now--a bill that will get our government open and running again.

And, by the way, they are now trying to do everything they can to distract their constituents from that simple fact. But the American people are smarter than that. They know the world did not begin the day of the government shutdown. They know it is not possible for Republicans to have just discovered negotiations 20 minutes before a shutdown, when all they need to do is take up the bill and vote.

The latest gimmick the House seems to be considering is to start another supercommittee to debate this issue. Instead of simply taking a vote to end this crisis, they want a repeat of 2011. They want another supercommittee. Well, as everyone here knows, I cochaired that supercommittee, the Senator from Montana worked for hours and hours and days on end with me on that committee, and it failed. For reasons that we believe in and they believe in, which could be debated, the supercommitte did not come up with a resolution. I think House Republicans are going to have a lot of trouble explaining to those families who haven't seen a paycheck since this shutdown started that they should wait for another supercommittee to go to work.

Here is what should happen. House Republicans should end this crisis. They should simply allow a vote on our bill to end the shutdown, which would pass with bipartisan support.

They should stop threatening an economic catastrophe if they don't get their way, and we are happy to sit down and negotiate. We know on our side that negotiation on a budget deal is not going to make us happy. We know the House Republicans won't be happy. But that is how a democracy works--by working out our differences. Democrats are here today to say we are willing to negotiate and we are willing to work with our Republican counterparts to find a path forward. Of course we want to negotiate. We have tried to start a budget conference for 6 months.

I know the vast majority of my Republican colleagues came here to help our families and to help our communities. I know they came here to solve problems. The vast majority came here to work across the aisle to make the country better. So I urge our Republican colleagues here in the Senate today to support the unanimous consent we are about to offer to end this crisis, take the threats off the table, and sit down and work with us toward a balanced and bipartisan budget deal that I know so many of us in this room want.

Unanimous Consent Requests--H. Con. Res. 25

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives a message from the House that they have passed H.J. Res. 59, as amended by the Senate, the Senate then proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate proceed to vote on a motion to insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, with all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, responding to the unanimous consent request the Senator from Alabama propounded, I reserve the right to object. We may have just reached the heart of the matter. While we hear day after day that our House Republican friends want to negotiate on the debt limit, the Senator from Alabama asked us now to specifically preclude ourselves from talking about that very subject. I respectfully suggest that perhaps the real problem here isn't that Democrats aren't talking to Republicans; it is that Republicans aren't even talking to each other.

I also would note that this modification the Senator from Alabama is asking would leave us in a shutdown facing hundreds of thousands of families

who would wonder when their next paycheck would come while we do our work.

So I object to the Senator's request, and I renew my unanimous consent.

Madam President, I join with our majority leader who spoke just a moment ago, the majority whip who just spoke so eloquently, as well as our President pro tempore who just spoke, to thank our Capitol Police, Secret Service officers, and all those who responded so courageously yesterday to the situation in the Nation's Capital. We depend on them to be there to do their jobs for all of us. We need to be there to do our jobs as well today.

I thank all of them for doing their jobs, and I plead with our colleagues to do our jobs.

I am so disappointed that we find ourselves again in the morning waking up where the government is shut down, where families and communities across our Nation are feeling the impact today and worried about what the impact will be tomorrow.

I spoke to some small businessmen only a few days ago in my office from the construction industry. The impact on their contracts, lack of contracts or uncertainty about their contracts is affecting their ability--and they are now worried they are going to have to lay off some of their employees because they can't sign contracts when they are so uncertain whether our government is going to be paying our bills in the future.

I met with some Head Start moms a few days ago. I spoke with a young woman who told me this passionate story about being homeless and on the street with a brandnew baby because of an abusive spouse. The Head Start folks in her community found her, found her a shelter, placed her in some education courses about how to be a mom. In 2 years, she is now on her own, working, and back in school because of a government service that was there for her. She didn't plead to me; she pleaded for those other moms or dads who are out there who now face uncertainty and may not have that help in the future.

I have talked to veterans, as the President pro tempore knows, the former chair of the Veterans' Committee, about having worked so hard to make sure our veterans get the services they need as they come home. They are not here pleading for themselves, although they are very worried about whether, as this goes on, they will get the services they need. They are pleading, as veterans always do, so selfless in their service to our Nation, for us to get the government moving again so our country is back on track, this country that they have so proudly fought for and that people are now hurting.

Today, of course, we are hearing news of a storm, a tropical storm that is approaching our Nation as well.

Families across the South are paying attention to that and they are worried about what a government shutdown or impact might be to them as they face that news on their television and radios this morning. Of course FEMA will be there. They have told us they will be able to call back their furloughed workers. They are prepared to respond to this, as our great Nation always must. But we have to be very concerned about what happens in the future if this government remains shut down-- whether there will be reimbursements in a timely fashion, whether cleanup will be able to move forward, and whether there will be an ability to pay for that.

Thousands of members of the National Guard, who have been furloughed, as this approaches us, will need to be called back to get ready for that emergency. Of course, if there is any significant damage--and we all pray there is not, but if there is--cleanup and recovery will likely be impacted because of furloughs at the SBA and at the Department of Transportation. All of our government agencies and government employees who are normally there to respond in a disaster are today not at work, not getting ready, not possibly there in the future, if this shutdown continues.

So I hope for the best for these communities as this storm is threatening. I know our Federal workers will do everything they can to protect these families. We owe it to these communities that are impacted by this storm and to communities across the country to get our government back up and running as quickly as we can, which can happen very fast.

And by the way, Madam President, I will be here later today to talk about the impacts on my State. The impacts of this shutdown are real, and as it continues, so is the uncertainty it produces. Our ability to respond as a Nation to any kind of disaster is a concern for every family.

But I am here today to say it doesn't have to be this way. The answer to this is so simple. As the majority whip just said, there is a bill in the House of Representatives right now, this minute, that is sitting there, and Speaker Boehner can simply bring it up for a vote. We know it has the votes to pass. It will say this government will continue to run until November 15, and it will give us the opportunity to then negotiate and to deal with the broader issues that we all know we need to deal with in terms of our budget. But we cannot hold our communities and the future of this country hostage while we negotiate those bills.

So it is so easy. The Speaker can take up this bill, put people back to

work--our government employees, who need to respond to any kind of emergency. Our National Guard will be back at work. Our veterans will not have to worry about payments coming for them, and this will be the country for our fellow countrymen as we always have been--all that, simply by Speaker Boehner bringing up a bill that would quickly pass. It would then go to the President, and then this would be over.

I know there has been a lot of talk the past few days about a grand bargain. No one on this floor has worked harder than I have to get us to a budget compromise so we have a path in the future to deal not only with our debt and deficit but also with our deficit in terms of transportation and education and our deficit in terms of our investments that we need to make as a country to be strong in the future. We all know what the sides are on that. We all know we need to come to the table and solve that--that is, the differences we as leaders of this Nation need to address.

I have worked extremely hard on that, and it is time for us to do that. As everyone on this floor knows, we were told by our Republican counterparts and told and told and told the Senate needs to pass a budget. I became budget chair at the beginning of this year. We did our job. Our committee passed a budget. We brought it to the floor. We lived through 5 days of amendments. We brought up every amendment possible and voted on over 100 of them and then we passed that budget. That was the time, 6 months ago, when we should have then said, the House has passed a budget, the Senate has passed a budget, let's go to conference and figure out those differences so we don't end up in this crisis today.

That is the expectation people have of a democracy. Unfortunately, we were told time and again: No, we are not going to allow you to go to conference. So here we are in a crisis. Well, let's address this crisis first. First, let's put people back to work. Let's get our country and our economy moving quickly again, and then allow us to go to conference to deal with those issues that are so critical to this Nation in terms of our fiscal responsibilities and the investments and priorities we need to make as a Nation.

So my plea today is to the Speaker to take up the bill, to allow the country to work again, and then for us to take up our responsibility to find solutions to the disagreements we truly do have as a Nation. I urge my colleagues to urge the Speaker to allow the country to get back to work, and then let's get to the table and let's solve this.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the junior Senator from Texas has offered a unanimous consent request that we take care of veterans in this shutdown of government. I would note that there is no Senator or Member of Congress who does not care deeply about making sure our veterans are taken care of, including this Senator from the State of Washington.

As the Presiding Officer knows and our colleagues know, I have spoken often of my own father who was a World War II veteran and who spent most of his life in a wheelchair and received a Purple Heart. I know the sacrifices our veterans make.

As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee previously, I fought to make sure every veteran had what they need, to make sure we said more than just thank you but provided them what they need. So I know our veterans well.

What I also know about our veterans is that they, above everyone else, are suffering. They went to serve our country and said we will take care of the rest of you at our own personal sacrifice. They would be the last to come before us and say, Take care of me before everyone else. They would say to

us, Take care of our fellow man and leave no one behind.

So I am going to ask that the Senator modify his request and do what our military has always asked their fellow man to do and leave no one behind. Our request will ensure that everyone who fights for our country, takes care of our country, works for our country in emergencies, depends on our country to make sure they have the opportunity every one of us has here is able to have that opportunity and they are not held hostage to a government shutdown, so we can get back to work and solve our country's problems. We need to end this tea party shutdown and we can do it with the request I will ask right now.

I have a modification to suggest to the request of the junior Senator from Texas. I ask unanimous consent that this request be modified as follows: That an amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the joint resolution, as amended, then be read a third time and passed; and 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 it is a clean continuing resolution for the entire government and is something that is already over in the House and reportedly now has the support of the majority of the Members of the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I object on behalf of all Americans who should not be left behind.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her very emotional response and her great statement. I hope all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol listen to what she just said to us. She represents a State that is probably impacted as much, if not more, than any other State because of the number of Federal employees who work at FDA and NIH and our other Federal agencies. But she did not come to the floor and say: Open all of the jobs in my State and make sure my State is taken care of. She came to say: Open the Federal Government so every American in every State in every part of our country is taken care of.

And she is right. I share her vision for the end of the day, not that we take a few here and a few there--whatever one individual decides is important here today--but that our entire country gets back to work. And I really share her vision that Speaker Boehner simply take up the bill that is at his desk. Allow it to pass. It has the votes. And at the end of the day, we can be proud our country is back to work. So I thank the Senator from Maryland for her very well-stated remarks.

I wanted to speak today about what is going on. Representative Marlin Stutzman said something that I think sums up the House Republican position perfectly. He said yesterday: We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this, and I don't know what that even is.

We have to get something out of this--the Republicans in the House. I think that statement makes it very clear. First of all, House Republicans have exactly one set of interests in their mind: Their own. And secondly, they couldn't be more removed from the impacts of the shutdown being felt across the country. Every day Speaker Boehner refuses to reopen the government is another day of inconvenience and stress and uncertainty for families and communities we all serve. And because House Republicans clearly aren't getting the message yet, today I want to describe some of what my constituents in Washington State-- over 2,000 miles away from here--are saying about the effects of a shutdown.

The families I talk to in Washington State aren't interested in the partisan, political strategizing that goes on in Washington, DC. They have a lot more important issues on their minds right now. Every day they are reading about how the government shutdown is affecting their community. Many are feeling the impacts themselves.

There are about 50,000 Federal employees in Washington State. Thousands are being sent home without pay. The shutdown is going to put a serious burden on many of these workers' families, but the consequences reach even further. This week, the Seattle Times spoke to a deli owner, whose job happens to be in downtown Seattle. She gets about 30 percent of her sales from Federal workers in the building that is across the street from her.

Without their business now, they are all home. And without knowing how long this shutdown is going to last, she is concerned about how she is going to pay her rent and pay her employees. She says, ``I don't think [Congress] is thinking of people like us.'' Well, it is hard to disagree with that. The shutdown is affecting so many. In fact, it is affecting other crucial parts of my home State of Washington. Our national parks are closed--campers and hikers have been asked to leave. And if the government doesn't open soon, participants in the Bering Sea king crab fishery--about which my colleague from Alaska spoke earlier this morning when I was on the floor--many of them are based in Washington State, and they are going to face significant economic losses. Why? Because NOAA employees are needed to process and issue their quotas. They have all been furloughed. There is no one to do the work they need to do their job.

I spoke to some of my constituents in the Washington State construction industry. They told me their business is slow because of all of the uncertainty about where our economy is going because of the shutdown and because of the looming guidelines. And there is so much more.

While our active duty military will continue to get paid, some of those who have heroically served our country are being affected. Furloughs in Washington State and across our country have forced our veterans to stay home and lose pay. As the shutdown continues, veterans are watching, and they are waiting, because if this government doesn't open soon, VA benefits--which many of our veterans rely on just to make ends meet--and support from the GI bill is going to stop.

Our veterans should not under any circumstances be burdened by partisan games. But unfortunately, the longer this shutdown goes on, the more they are having to sacrifice. And this shutdown is affecting the dedicated civilian employees who support our military. We have as many as 8,000 civilian employees at Joint Base Lewis-McChord who have been impacted. Some are going to work without pay and some have been sent home without pay, without any sense or idea of when they are going to be able to return. And, by the way, many of those workers are veterans--and many have already been victims of the gridlock and brinkmanship here in our Nation's capital.

A Washington State news station spoke with Joint Base Lewis-McChord employee Matthew Hines earlier this week, and he said his family already lost $1,300 because of the sequestration furloughs this summer. They are struggling to pay their bills and had to refinance their mortgage. This week, Matthew and his family were left wondering whether they would face more lost pay and more uncertainty.

The shutdown is creating uncertainty for struggling families as well those who depend on nutrition assistance programs. The Spokesman-Review

in Spokane, WA, talked with Rosa Chavira, the mother of an 11-month-old girl. Rosa gets support--because she needs it right now--from the Women, Infants, and Children Program, WIC. It helps her to put food on the table. We are now hearing that the Washington State Department of Health is estimating that WIC funds would be threatened as early as next month if this continues. So next month, just a few weeks away, if we are still in a shutdown, Rosa might take her vouchers to the grocery store and be unable to buy any food for her family. As Rosa told the Spokesman-Review, that is a scary situation.

What I just talked about are a few of the examples we are seeing in my home State of Washington, but I know that families and communities across this country could tell a lot of similar stories. This is beyond frustrating for me. It is beyond frustrating for my fellow Democrats and many Republicans--including, by the way, at least 20 in the House of Representatives, so far, who see absolutely no reason why this shutdown has to continue. We may not agree on much, but there does seem to be bipartisan agreement that the shutdown has to end. And once it does, we should begin the negotiations that many of us, including myself, have been calling for on the floor since March and work toward a bipartisan agreement that ends the brinkmanship, ends the manufactured crises that are so harmful to our workers and to the economy.

I know Speaker Boehner and the tea party aren't on the same page as the rest of us about that yet. But as we continue to hear from thousands of Americans--from fishermen to small business owners to struggling moms--who are being hurt as this shutdown occurs, I hope they will at least stop standing in the way of those of us who are ready to get to work.

I will close by quoting Kirsten Watts from Tacoma, WA. She works with the Bonneville Power Administration in Seattle, and she told the Seattle Times:

It's just sad that the government is playing games with

people's livelihoods.

Kirsten said that workers at her agency would still be coming in, but she is worried about the others who will not be. She was thinking about how this shutdown will impact others.

I think Speaker Boehner and the tea party--who, according to Representative Stutzman, are laser-focused on what is in it for them-- could learn a lot from that approach.

So I say today to Speaker Boehner: Open the government. Let everybody go back to work. Stop hurting our economy.

All that it requires is bringing the Senate-passed continuing resolution up for a vote on the House floor so that the Democrats and Republicans who want the government to reopen can pass it. Once the government is open, we would be more than happy to sit down and work out our longer-term budget agreement. But we are not going to do it with our families, workers, and small businesses being held hostage.

This is not the time to talk about opening the government. It is time to actually do it. The entire country is watching and wondering how we got to this point. Let's do the right thing and show them we can work together and fulfill the basic responsibilities we were elected to do.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for reminding all of us of the many people and communities and the economy in this country that are being hurt today because of the tea party's insistence, in the House of Representatives, that this government remain shut until ObamaCare is defunded or eliminated. I am frustrated, as is every American today, thinking why can't our government work? Why can't people come together?

As chair of the Budget Committee, I have been out here 19 times since last March saying: Let's go to conference committee and resolve our differences, and 19 times Members of the Republican Party have said no. They have not allowed us to go talk.

Now we find ourselves in a mess. The government is shut down. Families are hurting and communities are hurting and our economy is hurting. What is the response now of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and here on the floor? Oops, we didn't mean to hurt everybody. We have a few friends we are going to take care of.

I have listened to the debate this morning where our Republican colleagues came out and asked unanimous consent to take care of a few of their favorite parts of government so that they can say they helped. I am as passionate as anyone about our veterans. There is not one Member of this Senate who does not fully support our military and our veterans. No one questions that, but I take a backseat to no one in advocating for our veterans--as the former chair of the veterans' committee, as the daughter of a World War II veteran who earned a Purple Heart and was one of the first soldiers in Okinawa.

As a young woman myself during the Vietnam war, I worked in the Seattle veterans hospital with men and women my age who were coming home from the Vietnam war. I have done so much work on this floor, as well as worked with hundreds of thousands of our veterans who are coming home from the current conflicts, and helped to pass legislation to make sure they have what they need, so we don't just say thank you, but we serve them well.

I take a backseat to no one on veterans. I can tell you one thing about our military and our veterans that everyone here knows: They are the least selfish among us. They have volunteered to serve our country. They have given up for every American, and they have a motto that they leave no one behind. I can't imagine that our veterans are out there today saying: Take care of me with this small amendment and leave behind the children who are in our Head Start programs or the moms and dads who are dependent on nutrition programs in this country or the 800,000 employees who are sitting at home today scared to death about how they are going to pay their bills because this government is shut down.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to solve the problems in front of us. They are widespread in terms of our differences with our Republican colleagues, but we don't do them any favors by shutting off, closing our arms and saying: We are not going to talk about it. We do it by going to conference, and we do it by working together. We don't do it by shutting out the lights across this country on our government.

In front of the House today is a solution. It is the Senate-passed bill that is supported by a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate as well and would pass today if it were brought up. With that vote, we could open our government, put people back to work, and then we would go to conference, work out our agreements in the way our children expect us to do.

Let's be an example as adults to families and young people across this country that when there is a disagreement, all parties involved work together at a conference table and set aside their differences and find a solution for the country. It cannot be done by saying: I'm not going to let anybody go to work until I get my way, which is what the House of Representatives is doing.

We can get this done. As I talked about yesterday, I am a former preschool teacher, and I have seen this kind of activity before. We have all seen our kids make a mess in their room, and then say: Gosh. How did that happen? That is what we are hearing from the other side today: Well, gee, how come we haven't passed any appropriations bills? Wow, if we had a budget done, we wouldn't be here.

Why has that happened? Because time after time--and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee is here--when we have tried to get our work done, we have been blocked by the very same tea party Republicans who today have put us into this shutdown and said: My way or the highway; either repeal ObamaCare or this country hurts.

That is not what we should be doing. Let's tell our veterans, our military, our Head Start moms, our 800,000 employees, and everybody in this country: We are a country that can work. We are at work. Let's open our doors, pass legislation in the House, and then we will work out our disagreements. As hard as it is, we can do that.

I hope that is the focus we have today. I say to Speaker Boehner: Bring up the bill, pass it, and allow us to get back to work.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I woke up this morning feeling like I think most Americans feel today--pretty disappointed in the antics of Washington, DC.

As my colleague from New York just pointed out, we all know why we are here: Speaker Boehner and the Republicans in the House demanded a ransom in order to keep our government open, and their ransom was to repeal a law they do not support--ObamaCare. They made it very clear that the government was going to shut down. My constituents in Washington State who were supposed to go to work today--thousands of them--aren't going to get their paychecks because of that ransom. They made it very clear that they were not going to open the government over a policy about which they care passionately.

I have to say that I started my morning this morning talking to a number of businesspeople involved in the construction industry in the State of Washington. They told me that this uncertainty, this crisis, this shutdown of government is impacting their small businesses at home in the State of Washington because who is going to sign a contract to build something new when it is so unclear where our economy is going to be as a result of this shutdown and the looming debt ceiling crisis. So they are seeing a real retraction of their own businesses right now-- not because of the government funding of a program or anything else that is ongoing or in dispute but because of this shutdown today.

Just a few minutes ago, on the other end of a spectrum, I talked to some moms and dads in Head Start from my home State of Washington. A young mom from Bremerton, WA, who has a 2-year-old daughter, told us that a few years ago she was on the streets, homeless, a victim of an abusive partner, and because of Head Start and the wraparound services they provide, they found her a place to stay and got her and her child involved in early childhood education. Because of that support and an early Head Start program, now 2 years later she is back at school working on her degree, her daughter is doing well, and she is back on track.

Thousands of moms and dads such as her exist across the country today, with a helping hand at the right moment from the right program. But because of sequestration and now because of the government shutdown, we are telling moms and dads such as her: Sorry, we are not going to be there for you.

I happen to be a very passionate advocate for early childhood education. I was a former preschool teacher. I am using my skills as a preschool teacher right now. I think all of our colleagues could learn a lot from those kinds of skills. No bullying; it is my turn to talk; be reasonable; teach our children to play well in the sandbox. Those are lessons we teach in preschool. I think we could all learn from that.

I think about that, and I think about those Head Start kids and the children whom I taught before and who are not being taught now because of the sequestration. What lesson are we giving them--that if I don't get my way right now about a bill I fought against and voted against and an election was run and won on, but I lost, and I am so mad that I am not going to let you have anything else because I am just so entrenched in that. That is not a lesson we should teach our kids.

Let's look at the other side of that argument. What if I came out here and said: I am so passionate about funding early childhood education because I know the research and what a difference it makes and I know what that investment will do for our country not just for today but for 10 or 20 years, and if I don't get my way to make sure every child in this country has that start, this government is going to shut down. That is not the way we run a country. I adamantly and passionately fight for any cause I believe in. Any legislator here can. But the way you get your way isn't to hold the country hostage.

We have a country that is counting on us to be responsible adults and to come to the table and work out our disagreements between each other. And they are large, there is no doubt about that, but you don't do it by hurting every family, every neighborhood, every community, every part of this country by holding this country hostage.

We have a responsibility. It is to pass a clean continuing resolution. It is to get our government working again. It is to tell people they are going to get their paychecks. We are going to responsibly do that, and then we, as Members of Congress, are going to take our differences to a negotiating table and hammer them out. I may want $1 million for something. My House counterparts may say no. We may meet in the middle. I may say: I didn't get my way; OK, you got yours. That is what you do in a conference committee. You don't do it by holding your country hostage.

So we say to Speaker Boehner today: Open the government. Let everybody go back to work. Don't hold our economy hostage. And we will then sit down with you and work out our disagreements, as the Presiding Officer knows we have asked 18 times now to do and have been told, no, we are not going to let you go to that negotiating table, we are not going to let you talk--by the same people who want this government shutdown.

I find myself in a very odd place where we have a country that is closed for business. We are sending a very bad message and lesson to the children of this country that we can't work and play well together, that we can't even disagree together in an admirable way. And we are doing it while people are getting hurt.

Speaker Boehner, open the country again, open our economy again and agree to work out our differences the way responsible adults should do.

My understanding is, after trying all kinds of different ways to appease some of his Members with all kinds of different proposals, the latest proposal is

to send us over piecemeal pieces of legislation. Well, OK. We feel bad about the veterans--and we all do. I am the biggest veterans advocate in here. We will take care of them now. And, oh gosh, some of our constituents are mad because they have flown out here and the national museums aren't open, so we will open those, and on and on, whatever the cause of the day is. I guarantee that if we began to pass those piecemeal pieces of legislation, my moms and dads in Head Start would be at the end of the line and would never get funded. I am standing up for them today and saying: You are first in line too.

We are all in this together. We need the government open--all of our agencies. Everybody gets a chance and an opportunity in this country. And we are going to stick together and say to Speaker Boehner: Pass a clean CR, and then allow this country and this government and the American way of life to function as our forefathers said--by sitting down at a negotiating table and working out our differences. That is what I have asked for as chair of the Budget Committee 18 times now. It is what we need to say we are going to do again but not while our country is shut down, not while my families in Head Start are held hostage, not while our small businesses are held hostage, not while everybody in this country is looking at us, wondering how we ever got to this.

Open the government, and let's be responsible legislators. That is what I came here to do. I certainly know it is what the Presiding Officer came to do. And let's tell the kids in this country who are watching us today that this country can function, we can work as adults, and we have a responsibility to do that--here and abroad.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, Democrats and Republicans have some serious differences when it comes to our policies and our values and our priorities. But one thing we should be able to agree on--the bare minimum expected of us in Congress--is that we should not actively allow our constituents to be hurt.

That is why Senate Democrats will be here today with a clear message to Republicans: Open the government. End the shutdown. Allow the government to open, make sure our families and communities that we represent do not have to pay the price for the disagreements we have and then come back to the table and work with us on a long-term budget deal to avoid these constant crises.

Majority Leader Reid has made it very clear to Speaker Boehner that he is willing to sit down and talk, and I truly hope House Republicans take him up on that.

On Monday night, as the government was shutting down, Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans lurched even deeper into the theater of the absurd. I was shocked. I could not believe my ears when I heard, with minutes to go before the shutdown began, Speaker Boehner was asking us for a conference on the spending bill. I thought: Is he serious? Is this some kind of joke?

Even by the standards of a party that shut down the government to stop the health care reform law that was going to come online yesterday, no matter what they did, that was bizarre.

I say to Speaker Boehner today: Yes, let's start a budget conference. It is a bit late. I have been fighting to start one for 6 months, but better late than never. Let's sit down, let's negotiate, let's work toward the balanced and bipartisan long-term budget deal that our constituents are expecting--a real budget conference, not like the photo op we saw in the House of Representatives yesterday; a budget conference where the two sides can sit at a table, offer some compromises and work toward a balanced and bipartisan long-term budget deal the American people expect.

But there is one condition. It is a reasonable one. It could not be more important. Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans should stop allowing our families and our communities to be hurt while we negotiate. They should pass our short-term bill, reopen the government, and then join us at the table for a budget conference where we can work together toward a long-term deal. This is common sense. It is the responsible thing to do. There is absolutely no reason why we should not get the government back open, right now, while all of us get in a room and work on a deal.

Given that Republicans spent the day yesterday talking about their newfound interest in a conference, I think it would be helpful to go back a bit to remind people who are following us here today how we got to this point.

For 4 years Republicans in the Senate and in the House said it was critical that the Senate pass a budget. They came here to the floor, they blasted out press releases, they made it part of every one of their campaigns across the country.

At the beginning of this year, it seemed that Democrats and Republicans agreed on at least one thing: The budget debate should proceed through regular order. The House was going to pass their budget, the Senate was going to pass ours, and then we were going to get together in a conference room and work out our differences.

Senator McConnell said back then that once the Senate and House passed budgets, ``the work of conferencing must begin.'' Republicans said a conference was the ``best vehicle'' for the budget debate ``because we are doing it in plain sight.''

I absolutely agree. The Senate Budget Committee wrote our strong progrowth, pro-middle-class long-term budget. I am sure the hours that we spent debating this budget are not forgotten by anybody on this floor. We spent a week here in an open process debating and voting on amendment after amendment until the very wee hours of the morning. On March 23, the Senate passed our budget. We all remember that. The House, by the way, passed theirs earlier that day.

I thought the next step would be we would go to a conference as quickly as possible. I went to the House Budget Committee chairman, Chairman Ryan. I told him the American people were expecting all of us to get in a room and work it out. I thought it was a no-brainer. We had significant differences between our two budgets, but I was ready to go to work with my colleagues and make compromises.

With 6 months to go before the end of the fiscal year, we had plenty of time. But I was absolutely floored when I heard the House Republicans had changed their mind. They no longer wanted to go to conference. They no longer wanted to follow regular order.

I am sure the idea of debating their budget and having it compared in an open and public forum was pretty unpleasant to them. They knew how unpopular their plans were to end Medicare as we know it and to cut taxes to the rich. But they put it in their budget and now it was their job to negotiate with them.

I came here to the Senate floor and I asked for consent to go to a budget conference. I was joined by Senator Reid and many others. We asked to begin bipartisan negotiations. But Senate Republicans said no. We tried again and again and again. On April 23, we were blocked--April 23, blocked by Senator Toomey; on May 6, Senator Cruz stood up and objected; on May 7, May 8, May 9, May 14, and May 15, Senator McConnell said no; on May 16, Senator Lee said no; on May 21, Senator Paul blocked our negotiation; May 22, it was Senator Rubio; May 23, Senator Lee; June 4, Senator Rubio; June 12, Senator Lee; June 19, Senator Toomey; June 26, Senator Cruz; July 11, Senator Rubio; July 17, Senator Lee; on August 1, Senator Rubio blocked us from starting a conference, right before the August recess.

We have come here 18 times. Every single time we tried to get in that room, every time we tried to start a conference and negotiate, Republicans stood and they blocked us.

By the way, it was not just Democrats either. Quite a few of our Senate Republicans joined us in pushing for a conference. My colleague Senator McCain joined Democrats on the floor and said blocking a conference was ``incomprehensible'' and ``insane.''

Senator Corker said to ``keep from appointing conferees is not consistent.''

Senator Flake said he ``would like to see a conference.''

Republicans offered one excuse after another. By the way, none of them add up. First, they said they wanted a preconference framework, even though that is exactly what a budget is, and was exactly what we were negotiating over.

Then they said they would not allow us to go to conference unless we guaranteed in our budget that the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations would be protected from paying a penny more in taxes. Then they said they did not want a bipartisan conference to take away the leverage that they would have during a debt ceiling debate. Then they called for a ``do-over'' of the budget debate, including another 50 hours of debate here on the floor, and a whole new round of unlimited amendments, even after, I will remind all of us, many of them praised the open floor debate that we had during the Senate budget debate.

Their story kept changing. Senator McCain said Republicans' preconditions and excuses were ``absolutely out of line and unprecedented.'' Senator Collins said that even though there is a lot we do not see eye to eye on, we should at least go to conference and make our best effort to make a deal.

The stalling from some Republicans was, to quote Senators McCain and Collins, ``a little bit bizarre'' and ``ironic, to say the least.''

Republicans kept making excuses for stalling. But the bottom line was that after spending years saying the most important thing was for the Senate to pass a budget, once we did, they ran away as quickly as they could. You know, I told Republicans again and again, right here on the Senate floor

and when I talked to them in private, if you do not join us in a conference and give us the time we need to work out a deal, you are going to be pushing us into a completely avoidable crisis. They did not listen. They did not want to conference. They did not want to negotiate. They thought they would have more leverage in a crisis. They were doing everything they could to push us to one. Well, they were right; they pushed us into a crisis. Now families across our country are paying the price.

If Speaker Boehner truly wants to negotiate and end this lurching from crisis to crisis, he would let the House vote to keep the government open. It would pass, by the way, with a strong bipartisan vote. Then he would join us at the table in a conference that I have been trying to start for months.

I am going to ask unanimous consent for the 19th time to start a budget conference. To be very clear, this is not a replacement for an immediate end to this shutdown. It would build on a short-term bill to end this crisis. It is not to negotiate a short-term deal while our families and our communities are being hurt by a shutdown. It is to make sure the door is open for long-term negotiations that can start as soon as the threat of a shutdown is taken off the table.

I am hopeful our Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have watched as our constituents look on in amazement at the Senate and House as they say: We were unable to do the job that we have been asked to do, which is to govern the country in a responsible way--I would hope they would take a moment to pause and to say: It is time to stand. It is time to be a leader. It is time to stop holding our country and our communities hostage. It is time to stop putting fear into the lives of so many people. It is time to say, yes, we are going to open the government, we are not going to hold this country hostage, we are going to do our job. That is simply what we are asking to do today, allow the Senate bill to come up for a vote in the House. It will pass. We know we have the votes, Republicans and Democrats together, who want to stop this crisis.

Then we will sit down and do what we have been asked to do by the Republicans for a number of years now, to write a budget, to have the House write a budget and sit down and work out our differences.

I see Senator Durbin here on the floor. Senator Durbin worked on the Simpson-Bowles Commission for many years to try and resolve our differences. I think he would agree with me, it is time to get this done.

I see Senator Warner on the floor right now. He has spent a great deal of time working to get us to a point where we can solve this crisis and have a way to go forward and a path that our country can rely on.

I think many of our colleagues are ready to get past this crisis, are ready to open the government, and begin the responsible thing of working in the way we are supposed to. I hope they listen to Senator Reid and what he offered them today. I hope they do the right thing so families across our country do not have to continue bearing the burden of the Republican Party's dysfunction and division.

With that, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives a message from the House that they have passed H.J. Res. 59, as amended by the Senate, the Senate then proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate proceed to a vote on a motion to insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, with all of the above occurring with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me

make it very clear that what the Senator from Pennsylvania is asking is that we continue to hold our country, our communities, and our families hostage while they try to get something out of a conference. Mainly, the Senator is talking about saying ObamaCare will be repealed unless we pass a very short-term--a few weeks--continuing resolution. That is completely unacceptable not only to this Senator but to the vast majority of Americans.

The Senator is also saying we can talk while everyone is not at work while the government is shut down. We have been asking to talk for a long time, but the American people deserve to be able to go to work, get their paychecks, and to have our communities and our country running without the threat of this over their heads.

I object to the Senator's request.

I repeat my request that we allow the House to vote on the bill that was sent over to them, that they have the votes on, open the government, and then do as we have asked 19 times, do what the American people expect us to do, which is to go to conference and work out our disagreements.

I renew my original request.

I object.

Let me make it clear. The Senator from Washington does not believe we should be negotiating in the dark of night. The government should be open, public, and people should be able to see what we are doing. That is why our unanimous request was so important. I am so disappointed the Republicans are saying: Hold the country hostage. That is the place we are left in.

I know many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are deeply frustrated this evening. Once again, with only a few hours left on the clock, House Republican brinkmanship has us struggling to avoid burdening our families and our economy with more dysfunction and uncertainty. This pattern is simply unacceptable, and some of us, Democrats and Republicans, have been trying for months to break it.

When the Senate budget passed, I was hopeful that we could move to a bipartisan budget conference where Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate could all come together, sit down, and try to work out our differences. Democrats tried to begin a budget conference 18 times. Many Senate Republicans agreed with us that we should continue negotiations and begin working toward that deal. Each time tea party Republicans and Republican leadership stood and said no. They made it very clear why: They believed they would have more leverage in a crisis--such as the one we are hours away from--than they had a few months ago when we were asking for orderly negotiations.

Instead of working on a bipartisan budget that would strengthen our economy, tea party Republicans began manufacturing this crisis to defund the Affordable Care Act.

This is a law, by the way, that is helping millions of Americans and beginning tomorrow, shutdown or no shutdown, is going to begin helping many more.

Due to Republican refusal to come to the table, we are now scrambling to avoid a shutdown.

I am confident the American people, including many in my home State, are looking at House Republicans and asking the same questions many of us are. They are asking: What are they thinking, and why would they hurt their own constituents simply to make a point?

Even if tea party Republicans don't want to admit it, a government shutdown wouldn't just impact people in Washington, DC, it would be felt across the country. In my home State of Washington, the impacts could be severe. First, Washington State is home to tens of thousands of Federal employees who will be furloughed or stop getting paid. It is also home to one of our Nation's largest veterans communities. The VA has confirmed this week that if the shutdown goes long enough, disability and GI benefits will stop for veterans in places such as Tacoma, Everett, and Spokane due to some tea party Republicans in Washington, DC, who can't have their way.

That is not all. If the tea party forces this government to shut down, our State's gorgeous national parks, such as Olympic National Park and Mount Rainier, will be closed to the public. Students at the University of Washington and Washington State University may not be able to access student loans to pay their tuition bills. Funds for important public health programs, such as WIC, would be cut for women and children who rely on them. Federal support for dozens of Head Start facilities in Seattle and across our State would be at risk.

The good news is that none of this has to happen. We still have time, and the Senate has passed a shutdown-prevention bill that would avoid all of this harm. The Senate's short-term funding bill would keep the government open at current spending levels with no changes in policies while we continue to work on that important long-term budget bill.

The Senate bill by no means is a long-term solution. It is not even close. But as we work to bridge the gap between the parties on budget issues, the absolute bare minimum Congress should be able to do, the very least we owe to our constituents is to not actively hurt them and sabotage the economy.

Playing partisan games with a temporary stopgap continuing resolution is like trying to take away health care from millions of Americans. Tea party Republicans are doing exactly that. Many of their fellow Republicans believe this is an irresponsible and unworkable attitude. Many Republicans have spoken to discourage their own colleagues from waging this pointless, harmful fight over defunding the Affordable Care Act. They have agreed with Democrats that while we might not see eye to eye on everything, we don't have to abandon our basic responsibilities--like keeping the government open--in order to negotiate.

We desperately need this type of commonsense bipartisanship because we have seen repeatedly that families across the political spectrum are sick of governing by crisis and the uncertainty that it creates in their lives. They are sick of gridlock in Washington, DC, that impacts everything from their childcare to their paycheck.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the House Republicans haven't had quite enough yet. They seem to think this is some kind of game, that whoever is left holding the hot potato will be held responsible. Let me be very clear. The American people are a lot smarter than that. They know tea party Republicans have been pushing us toward this crisis for months. They are going to know why a shutdown happened should the tea party refuse to pass the Senate's clean continuing resolution to keep the government open.

Allowing our government to shut down isn't in anyone's best interest--not Republicans, not Democrats, and above all, not the American people. So I would like to call on Speaker Boehner to take one simple step. I ask simply that he allow a vote on the Senate's clean continuing resolution. I truly believe that given the chance, enough Republicans in the House would join with the Democrats in voting for a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open so we can deal with the bigger issues in front of us.

If Speaker Boehner takes that step, we could avoid all the disruption and all of the harm a government shutdown will cause to the families and communities we serve. Then we could move forward and continue our work, which is incredibly important, on a longer term budget deal that ends this crisis and puts our families and our economy first. This is what families across the country expect, and it is what my fellow constituents in the State of Washington expect. That is what I am fighting for, and that is what we should deliver.

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

Madam President, I find it extremely ironic that we are here right now hearing that the House of Representatives is going to shut down the government and then send us a bill saying they want to talk in a conference committee. Let's remember why we are here right now with the threat of a shutdown where thousands of families and communities are going to be hurt. We passed a budget in the Senate 6 months ago. The House of Representatives passed a budget in the House 6 months ago. The goal was to go together in conference, work out our disagreements, define the funding levels for the coming fiscal year so we would not be sitting tonight, minutes away from a shutdown.

The right thing to have done would have been to go to conference anytime in that last 6 months, as we asked for 18 times, but were told no by the same people who are now sitting on the other side of the aisle and saying: No, they want to shut government down.

Why do they want to do that? They want to create a crisis because they think they are going to get something. We know going to a conference means that we have to compromise. That is what a conference is. But we are not going to do it with a gun to our head that says we are shutting government down. We are going to conference over a short little 6-week CR? We have to deal with the longer term budget. We have asked many times to go to conference on that. We stand ready to go to work on making compromises for our long-term fiscal crisis. But tonight the only question that should be before the House of Representatives and the Senate is keeping our government open without a gun to anyone's head.

The Speaker should pass a clean CR, send it to the President, and tell Americans that we are not going to disrupt their lives in this country for the next 6 weeks while we work out the bigger agreement. That is what we need to be doing.

I urge the Speaker to step away from the precipice and have the government stay open. Don't put everybody's lives and communities in this country at risk and allow us to get to work to solve our next year's fiscal crisis before it is on us again.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her tremendous leadership. She is absolutely correct--we are here in a manufactured crisis. This Senate and the House passed a budget last spring. For 6 months we have been trying to get those two budgets together to conference a deal to set our budget priorities for the next several years. We have been precluded from doing that by the same Republicans who now want to kill a continuing resolution that will simply keep our government open for a few short weeks so we can do the work we should have been doing for the last 6 months.

The answer to this is easy. Let's pass a clean resolution, keep the government open for a few short weeks, do the responsible thing, say to the Nation and to the world that we will pay our bills and raise the debt ceiling, and then do what we need to do, what every

one of us knows we need to do, which is to work out the differences between the House and the Senate budgets.

But we are here in a manufactured crisis because the same Republicans who are now leading us to a shutdown are saying they don't want us to talk. I agree with the Senator from Maryland. Keep the clean resolution, send it to the House, keep government open, and do what we should do as leaders and adults and come to a budget agreement.

I also wish to speak today on and urge my colleagues to support the majority leader's motion that he will bring to us to waive the budget point of order against the continuing resolution we will vote on in a few hours.

My Republican colleagues who announced their intent to raise this point of order are concerned that the funding levels in both the House and Senate continuing resolutions violate the Budget Control Act. But, as we all remember, sequestration was never supposed to be in there. It was supposed to be so unthinkable that it would force a compromise, which is what we are going to have to do anyway. But since those automatic cuts took effect, we have now heard from families and communities across the country that sequestration is costing us jobs, it is slowing our growth, and it is harming our national security. That is exactly why the Senate and House budgets both require changes to the Budget Control Act.

It is true that we took very different approaches to altering the automatic cuts. The Senate budget on our side fully replaced the sequestration. We did it with an equal mix of spending cuts and new revenues that we raised by closing loopholes skewed toward the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. The House budget on the other side replaced sequestration fully also, but they did it by fully funding defense programs and paying for that with very deep cuts to investments in families and jobs, all the while protecting the wealthiest Americans from participating in this at all and helping to pay for it.

We do have a lot of work to bridge that divide, but that alone shows how important it is that we pass a clean, temporary continuing resolution to keep the government operating while we have that space to negotiate a longer term budget agreement that works for our families and economy.

Mr. President, I ask for 1 additional minute.

To do that, we have to be able to finish this bill, send it back to the House, and get our country back on the right course again.

So voting to sustain this point of order isn't voting against a funding level or a policy vote. Voting to sustain this point of order is voting for a government shutdown because if this bill that is in front of us today dies, it is very likely the government will not be open for business on Tuesday, and then our American families will have to deal with the disruption and all the uncertainty that will cause.

There is no reason to let the gridlock and dysfunction in Washington, DC, cause more harm to our families and businesses. A vote for this point of order is a vote to kill this bill and shut down the government, and we do not want that to happen. So I oppose it. I urge my colleagues to join me in waiving the point of order when we have that vote later today. Let's pass a clean continuing resolution, have the House pass a clean continuing resolution, and then do the job we were sent to do. Every one of us knows what needs to be done, which is to bridge the divide between the House and Senate budgets and get our country back on track again.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I would say to the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, that is absolutely correct.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the families that I talk to in my home

State of Washington are not interested in partisan back and forth that we see so much of here in Washington, DC. They are thinking about how they are going to get their bills paid. They are wondering when and if they will be able to save enough to retire. They are hoping that they are going to be able to give their children a better future.

They, rightfully, expect us to focus on strengthening the economy and creating jobs which will make it easier for them to reach those important goals. We have had an opportunity, many opportunities over the last few months, to move forward on legislation like the Senate budget and the appropriations bills that were approved in Senator Mikulski's committee, which could remove some of the uncertainty that is putting a drag on our economic recovery.

But instead we are here on the floor of the Senate, to debate a temporary--a temporary stopgap measure to fund the government just days away from a possible shutdown. I think all but a few of my colleagues would agree with me that these circumstances are far from ideal. So as we work to pass this bill, this temporary stopgap bill, and continue negotiations on the longer term budget deal, I think it is really important to consider exactly how we got to this point, what this continuing resolution means in the context of ongoing discussions and what needs to happen for us to reach a more comprehensive agreement that works for our families and for our economy.

As we all remember, if Democrats and many Republicans as well had their way, we could have begun a bipartisan budget conference between the House and Senate months ago and prevented this chaos. When the Senate passed a budget, I was very hopeful that both sides would come together and work out an agreement that would end this cycle of governing by crisis and allow us to focus on creating jobs and economic growth.

Democrats have came to the floor 18 times now--18 times--to try to begin a bipartisan conference with the House on our budget resolution. Many Republicans thought this made sense. They agreed. We should at least sit down and try to get a deal. But as we all know now, an extreme minority of Republicans saw things differently, and they believed they would have more leverage if they created a crisis--like the one we are approaching now--than a few months when there was not a looming deadline.

Those Tea Party Republicans, backed by the Republican leadership, stood and said no to the bipartisan budget negotiations 18 times, against the wishes of Members on both sides of the aisle.

So, today, when we could have been focusing on the real challenges Americans are facing, we are instead focused on preventing the Tea Party from shutting down the government, all because Tea Party Republicans want another shot at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, which, by the way, was passed by a super majority, upheld by the Supreme Court, and was a major issue the American people weighed in on in the 2012 election.

In the House continuing resolution, tea party Republicans are fighting to take away health care coverage for millions of Americans and get rid of crucial services such as prevention and wellness visits for Medicare patients, prescription drug savings for our seniors for which we fought so hard, and coverage for over 92,000 Americans who have preexisting conditions.

This is absurd. It is a nonstarter.

There is no way Democrats are going to give in to these demands that are so clearly harmful to the American people. The same is true of the fight the tea party Republicans are trying to pick over the debt limit.

Some Republicans claim it is typical to threaten a catastrophic and unprecedented default in order to extract political concessions, but the fact is the opposite is true. The vast majority of debt limit increases in the last three decades occurred independent of efforts to reduce the deficit or put in place budget reforms.

While Democrats are more than happy to negotiate on the budget--and we have been trying to do that for the last 6 months--we do stand firmly behind President Obama and are not going to negotiate about whether the United States of America pays its bills. We believe families and businesses should not have to deal with any more of that uncertainty.

Honestly, I do think a lot of Republicans agree. More than a dozen Republicans have spoken to discourage the tea party from starting a pointless debate over defunding the Affordable Care Act in the bill to prevent a government shutdown. I do know quite a few Republicans agree. Brinksmanship over the debt ceiling is the height of irresponsibility.

Given all the infighting we have seen recently, governing by crisis clearly isn't working for Republicans. It is certainly not helping Democrats make the investments we feel very strongly our country needs to succeed in the 21st century, and it has put a completely unnecessary burden on our families and our economy. It seems the only ones benefiting from this perpetual crisis mode are tea party Republicans, and I see no reason to keep doing them any favors.

I call on the House Republicans to cut the tea party loose, give up these partisan games, and pass the Senate's bill to prevent the government shutdown. This bill is, by no means, a permanent fix. It is temporary. It continues the cuts from sequestration that are already in place and locked into law until we get a bipartisan deal.

It will keep our government operating while those negotiations continue. This is critical, because even though some might not be able to see it in Washington, DC, a government shutdown will have serious consequences for families across this country.

My home State of Washington is home to more than 100,000 uniformed civilian and defense employees at places such as Joint Base Lewis- McChord and Fairchild Air Force Base. If this government shuts down, these men and women will still have to go to work the next day, but they will not get paid for it.

Thousands of civilian defense employees in places such as Tacoma, Whidbey Island, and Spokane would be forced to do the same and thousands more could face furloughs. These hard-working Americans and families across my State and the country are already dealing with the consequences of gridlock in Washington, DC. They are dealing with the across-the-board cuts from sequestration, which continue to pile up.

Hundreds of thousands of our defense employees, who now have to wonder about the effects of a shutdown, have been furloughed already and have taken pay cuts. Crucial supports and opportunities for vulnerable families and communities, from Head Start to Meals On Wheels, have been slashed. Sequestration is crippling our ability to plan for the future and make the kinds of investments in research, education, and infrastructure that will help our workers succeed. I hear about the impact of these arbitrary cuts whenever I am home in Washington State. I know every single one of my colleagues has heard similar stories. The cuts are only going to get worse with time and they simply have to go.

When we send this legislation back to the House, Republicans have to put an end to the tea party temper tantrums and pass our bill without any gimmicks and games. After we do that, I hope we can leave the tea party brinksmanship behind so those of us on both sides of the aisle who believe in commonsense bipartisanship can move forward with negotiations on a desperately needed longer term deal.

In those negotiations, I am going to continue fighting for an agreement that ends this governing by crisis and supports our families and economies by replacing sequestration with smarter deficit reduction, evenly divided between spending cuts and new revenue from the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. I am fully aware the Republicans have their priorities as well. I have never said reaching an agreement would be easy, but I know many Democrats and Republicans are sick of brinksmanship and crisis. I know they understand, as do we, that compromise is part of our job description. I truly believe if those Republicans work with Democrats, we can reach that critically needed bipartisan agreement we have been working toward.

I have heard some of the tea party Republicans here in Washington,